Bad bounces -- a checked-swing triple, for example -- add to the PawSox woes.

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 12, 2005

BY DAN HICKLING
Special to the Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- There's not much sugar to be applied to the 8-1 drubbing suffered by the Pawtucket Red Sox at the hands of the Louisville Bats.

Ineffective pitching, unproductive at-bats and a variety of mental mistakes -- a lethal mixture if ever there was one -- continue to plague the PawSox, who are now 0-5, equalling the franchise's worst start ever.

And you can sprinkle in a few bad bounces, too.

"Things just aren't going well," said PawSox first-year skipper Ron Johnson. "It's just one of those things. But we're going to stay as positive as we can. We have no choice."

PawSox starter John Stephens (0-1), threw reasonably well in his four innings of work, but found himself misfortune's victim at almost every turn.

That was especially true in the second, when Louisville nicked him for three fluky runs.

Pedro Swann started the Bats off with an opposite field checked swing that rolled all the way to the right field corner for a triple.

That was followed by a broken bat single by Stephen Smitherman to shallow center, scoring Swann.

Stephens' misery continued when Edwin Encarnacion, the top field prospect in the Cincinnati chain, banked a grounder off the third base bag that went for a double, moving Smitherman to third.

One out later, both runners came in on a looper to shallow right that dropped in front of Justin Sherrod, despite his diving attempt to catch it.

"The ball was where I wanted it," Stephens said. "I just didn't get the outcome I wanted. I made my pitches. . . . They just got the breaks."

Stephens later surrendered a solo shot to Encarnacion to make it 4-0.

Pawtucket's hitters didn't do Stephens any favors either.

Having stranded 13 men in Sunday's 7-6 loss to Indianapolis, Pawtucket followed by wasting 11 more runners, 6 of them in scoring position.

They broke through for a run with none out in the sixth, when Jeff Bailey doubled off Bats reliever Chris Booker, then came in on Tim Hummel's triple.

But Hummel remained marooned at third, and the PawSox were all but dead after that.

"You never know how good your ball club is," said Johnson, "but it's not like this. There's something waiting for us down the road. This is a test. Guys are busting their butts, but things are just not going our way."

AROUND THE BASES: Game time temperature was 76 degrees, but had the team been playing at McCoy Stadium, the thermometer would have read a brisk 40. . . . Not all the clubs in the Red Sox farm system are struggling. Double-A Portland won it's fifth in a row last night, giving the Sea Dogs their best start in franchise history. Portland hurlers have not given up a run in the last 22 innings, and closer Cla Meredith (3-for-3 in save opportunities) has retired all 11 men to face him. . . . Pawtucket will send lefty Chris Narveson to the mound tonight (7:15) against Bats' knuckleballer (and former PawSox) Jared Fernandez (1-0, 1.50).