Conspiracy Theory....

 One run games are always hard to swallow, so many misses you can point too that might have made the difference.  Dustin Pedoria's attempt to stretch a single to a double in the 1st.  Jason Varitek's pitiful blocking of homeplate when speedster Jason Giambi came around to score in the third.  You could also point to three awful at bats by Coco Crisp, Jason Varitek and Julio Luggo when the game was in the balance.  You could also blame MLB and the umpires for thier inconsistant strike zone as well.  It seems that MLB has a vested interest in the Yankees winning a few of these games and staying relevant.  On friday the Yanks were granted new life in the 9th off a very strange call, that every replay showed was an out.  Yesterday, it seemed the strike zone was expanded all day for Yankee pitchers.  Some pitches that were balls one pitch earlier, became called strikes the next pitch.  Either way this was a game the Sox should have at the very least extended into extra innings.

  Justin Masterson pitched very well against a left-handed stacked line-up, and he held the Yanks in check all day.  Masterson pitched six innings, and allowed only two runs on six hits.  If Masterson had the same strikezone as Mussina it may have been a different result, who knows.  Masterson had two strikeouts and two walks for the game, oddly enough it was his lowest strikeout total in any of his previous starts.  I'm sure that had nothing to do with the crappy strikezone provided to him by the homeplate umpire.

  The Sox bats were pretty quiet today, however they had chances several times in the game to push across a run.  It seemed everytime the Sox would get a rally, that dreadful bottom part of the line-up would come up, and kill the rally.  For the game, they were 0-11, including 0-3 with bases loaded in the 9th inning.  Jason Vartitek, who is in the final year of his contract, may want to invest in a realtor and a for sale sign.  Again Tek had another dreadful day, going 0-4, and fouling out a pitch when he was 2-0 with bases loaded and one out in the 9th.  Along with Coco Crisp, Varitek was the only other Red Sox to have mulitple strikeouts yesterday. 

  The good news for Red Sox fans is Jason Varitek will be replaced by that other .200 hitting catcher today.  The Sox will get thier first look at Joba the starter tonight.  Joba and the Yanks will be faced by Tim Wakefield on ESPN Sunday night baseball.