There’s got to be some good news coming soon, right? Apparently Mark Bellhorn has been making out with Bill Mueller, as now he’s gone down with the flu that knocked out Mueller for most of last week. That forced the Sox to bring Kevin Youkilis back up to Boston, rather than recalling a pitcher to replace Curt Schilling, who officially went on the DL. Oh, and now Ramon Vazquez might have tweaked something in his leg.

Combine the rash of injuries and sickness with the suspensions handed down for the “incident” in Tampa — Arroyo for 6 games and Nixon for 2 — and the Sox are going to be putting together some odd lineups for the next few weeks.

None of this was really a factor last night. The Sox just didn’t play well. Poor defensive plays by Manny Ramirez and Edgar Renteria assisted the Rangers, who didn’t really need any help (10 hits). Tim Wakefield had his worst start of the year, giving up 5 runs in 6+ innings. The Sox bullpen woes continued, as next Monday’s starter John Halama gave up 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th to close out the Rangers scoring.

Chris Snow sums up the insanity of the Sox season thus far with a couple of bits from Johnny Damon:

This is how bad it’s gotten for your beloved Red Sox: Johnny Damon didn’t realize that suspended skipper Terry Francona wasn’t managing last night until the second inning. Really.

“This is a very important time for us, with Wells, Schilling [out],” Damon said. “This month of May is going to dictate how we look at July 31 [the trade deadline]. Whether we’re in the market or whether we’re the other guys.”

Johnny doesn’t know who’s managing, but at least he realizes that the games on the field count.