BOSTON -- There's bad, there's embarrassing, and somewhere, there's a level below to describe what happened to the Red Sox in their five-game self-immolation against the Yankees.

"Everything went about as wrong as it could," said Terry Francona after the Yankees put the finishing touches on the Sox yesterday.

Say this for the Red Sox -- they offered plenty of variety in dropping a five-game series for the first time in more than a half-century. They lost high-scoring slugfests (14-11 in Game Two Friday night), low-scoring pitching duels (2-1, yesterday), games in the middle innings (giving up five runs in the sixth inning of Saturday's 13-5 setback) and games late (8-5 in the 10th inning Sunday night).

But quite apart from the math -- 6 1/2 games back in the East with just 38 to go -- is the way the team seems to be unraveling from the inside.

On Friday night, in the fifth inning of the disastrous day-nighter that would set the tone for the Lost Weekend, official scorer Joe Giuliotti determined that Manny Ramirez had reached on an error by Derek Jeter. Jeter had gone into the shortstop hole to backhand a hard grounder, only to have the ball glance off his glove and roll into shallow left.

On the play, teammate Mark Loretta, running from second base, was thrown out at home by Yankees left fielder Melky Cabrera.

Ramirez was enraged by the call, and was so angry about it the next day that he had to be talked into playing the Saturday afternoon game. On Sunday, Ramirez sought out an MLB official to try to get the call reversed.

Think about that: In the middle of the Sox' three most dispiriting losses of the season, suffered at the hands of the team's archrival, Ramirez sulked about losing credit for a meaningless single that didn't even involve an RBI.

That's perspective for you.

(To give credit where it's due, Ramirez had an otherwise monster series, making one out in the course of five games while reaching base in 19 of 20 plate appearances. He hit two homers and knocked in seven runs).

But with his team's season in the balance, Ramirez intended to sit out to protest a scorer's call? Would Jeter do that? Would David Ortiz? Would, in fact, any other player in the game?

It's not much of a leap to think that Ramirez's early exit from yesterday's game -- he pulled himself out of the lineup after the fourth inning, telling trainers he was suffering cramps in the right hamstring -- was connected to the events of the previous two days.

One player yesterday noted that while Ramirez had played hard for much of the season, the events of the last few days seemed to hint at an upcoming "episode" involving Ramirez, in which the slugger takes a decidedly indifferent approach to his play -- if he appears in the lineup at all..

Apparently, though, official scoring was a big topic of discussion on the homestand. On at least one other occasion, the subject came up in the dugout in the middle of the game as one player questioned aloud why a teammate hadn't been saddled with an error.

Finally, there was the eighth inning yesterday, when NESN cameras caught starter David Wells throwing up his hands, then shaking his head in disgust on his way down the dugout runway after catcher Javy Lopez failed to block a pitch from Keith Foulke in the dirt, enabling Nick Green to score from third. When Wily Mo Pena homered in the bottom of the inning, Green's run proved to be the difference in the game.

Still, such obvious displays of disgust toward on-field events are rare indeed for veterans, especially ones who have been in the big leagues for almost 20 seasons.

The losses -- and the team's elimination from the division race -- would be discouraging enough. Then, there's the growing injury list, which now features Alex Gonzalez, meaning exactly 33 percent of the regular lineup is now stashed on the DL.

But the team's descent into selfishness and infighting could truly doom them. The Sox' climb to a fourth-straight playoff appearance is going to be steep enough as it is. They don't need to make it any more difficult for themselves.

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