The Blue Jays' batter Boston starter Lenny DiNardo, and Toronto ace Roy Halladay silences the Red Sox' lineup.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 23, 2006

BY JOE MCDONALD
Journal Sports Writer

TORONTO -- The signs were clear yesterday.

Even though the season is young, injuries to the Boston Red Sox' lineup have taken a toll and it was evident in the club's 8-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday at the Rogers Centre.

Pitcher Lenny DiNardo made his second start of the season, replacing the injured David Wells in the rotation, and took the loss, allowing seven runs on 10 hits with one walk and one strikeout.

To make things more difficult, the southpaw was facing Toronto's Roy Halladay, who improved to 2-1 with his solid five-inning performance.

The explosive Blue Jay lineup gave its starter a four-run cushion in the first inning and that set the tone for the afternoon.

"When you're facing a guy like Halladay, the last thing you want to do is get behind," said Boston manager Terry Francona. DiNardo's pitches were "up and he was falling behind in counts, and they have some good hitters who can do some damage. When Lenny is effective he's down and his ball is moving and cutting, getting ground balls. But when he gets deep in counts and brings the ball up, he has a chance to get hurt."

DiNardo accepted the fact he wasn't on top of his game yesterday when the club needed a good start, especially with a good portion of the bullpen taxed from the night before.

"I was leaving the ball up and they took advantage of it," said DiNardo. "To their credit they did a great job putting the ball in play."

The two clubs battled through a 12-inning, 3-hour-and-57-minute marathon on Friday as the Blue Jays came away with a 7-6 victory, so the Red Sox' lineup was quite different yesterday. The loss gave Boston its first three-game skid of the season.

"This was a bad day followed up by a tough night [on Friday]," said Francona. "It's impossible to go through the whole season where you don't hit a [skid]. It happens, it's not fun."

Jason Varitek, who caught the 12-inning game on Friday, was given yesterday off, along with third baseman Mike Lowell and shortstop Alex Gonzalez. According to Francona, Varitek has been hampered by a strained gluteal muscle and the manager didn't want to have him catch a day game after a night game.

"I just don't think it makes sense to send him back out there," said Francona. "I don't want to run him into the ground two weeks into the season."

Lowell was out of the lineup because Francona wanted to keep Youkilis' bat in the lineup in the leadoff spot since Coco Crisp remains on the disabled list with a fractured left index finger. J.T. Snow played first while Youkilis was back on the left side of the infield and Alex Cora started only his fourth game this season at short.

No matter the lineup the Sox sent out there yesterday, it would have been a tough afternoon with Halladay on the hill.

"He had all his pitches working," said Trot Nixon. "Halladay is one of the best pitchers in the league, and when he gets the lead out there, he gets real tough."

The Blue Jays put a 4-spot on the board in the bottom of the first inning, including a two-run double by Troy Glaus that almost went out, but hit the top of the left center-field wall, and a two-run homer by Bengie Molina. Toronto added another run in the second inning on an infield RBI-single by Aaron Hill.

Boston scored its only run of the game in the fourth inning on Nixon's RBI-double before the Blue Jays added three runs in the bottom half of the inning for an 8-1 lead.

After Alex Rios drove in a run on a sacrifice fly, Vernon Wells followed with his first triple of the season, a gapper to left-center field that scored two.

With the game out of reach, Francona pulled Nixon and Manny Ramirez in the later innings.

"If you're going to lose," said the manager, "rather than having them chase balls around all afternoon, try to come out tomorrow and give a good effort and salvage something out of this season. We just always try to do the right thing."

The Red Sox will try to avoid a three-game sweep and end their three-game skid today.

"We've been in this situation before," said Nixon. "We've got a good group of professional guys out here and we know what it takes to win ball games. We'll go on streaks when we win five, seven or maybe ten games, so we just need to go out and play hard."

jmcdonal@projo.com / (401) 277-7340