Location a problem for Arroyo

Bronson Arroyo said his pitching mechanics revealed no signs of trouble. The Red Sox starter said his delivery seemed fine and the baseball felt crisp as it sailed from his hand. All indications were he was in for a solid outing last night against the Oakland Athletics.

Makes one wonder -- what's a pitcher to do when his mechanics prove deceiving?

"It was one of those games," said Arroyo, who yielded 9 runs -- 6 earned -- in 3 1/3 innings of the 15-2 loss. "Actually a lot of times when you give up a lot of runs, you get worn down early and you feel like you're losing it a bit. But I never felt like that."

It was Arroyo's shortest outing as a starter, and he surrendered the most earned runs in any appearance this year, whether in a start or in relief.

It marked the second time in as many outings he has surrendered at least five earned runs. That was preceded by several outstanding efforts, including eight scoreless innings in Toronto May 15.

Now this.

"Looking back on the tape, it was just command," said Arroyo (2-2). "Every ball they hit [was] hard. A lot of times when guys hit balls, you can't tell where the location was at, and everything was just middle and up."

It was Arroyo's first loss as a starter this year; his last loss as a starter came June 1, 2002, with the Pirates at St. Louis, a 9-4 setback to the late Darryl Kile.

It was Arroyo's third start since returning to the rotation after being dispatched to the bullpen when righthander Byung Hyun Kim was activated from the disabled list April 29.

"There were a lot of line drives [last night]," said manager Terrry Francona. "I thought he was kind of flat. It looked like early on he was having a tough time getting a feel for what he was doing and he paid the price."

And it prevented a Boston sweep of Oakland, which jumped on Arroyo's deliveries early.

"They're traditionally a team that has taken a lot of pitches and they did in the first inning," said Arroyo. "Then after that, they seemed to come out swinging and hit a lot of balls hard."

In the first, Oakland's Mark Kotsay singled on a line drive to center field then went to second on a passed ball. Eric Byrnes flied to right field, sending Kotsay to third and Kotsay scored on an Eric Chavez ground out.

Jermaine Dye and Scott Hatteberg followed with walks and Erubiel Durazo doubled off the Wall to deliver Dye and Hatteberg.

"You know, they scored one in the first, had nobody on base, two outs, could have easily just got a ground ball to second or something and had it 1-0, no big deal, and we're still in the game," said Arroyo. "But I struggled with control early and gave a double off the Wall and never rebounded."

Oakland came back for three runs on two hits in the second, aided in part by an error by shortstop Pokey Reese.

In the fourth, Bobby Crosby and Marco Scutaro opened with doubles. After a one-out, run-scoring double by Byrnes, Arroyo was done for the evening.

"I threw [Byrnes] a good curveball, came back with a fastball, and tried to double up in. I thought it was a good pitch and he smoked it," said Arroyo. "Looking back on the tape, they weren't as good pitches as I thought.

"It's tough to forget games like this. They happen every single year, a couple of times. But it's still tough to swallow. You just try to stay focused, come out the next four days, work hard, and hope things turn out better next time."