It was a day when the Red Sox played like a deeply flawed team.

The lineup was dominated by Rays starter Matt Garza, who continued to add to his reputation as a Sox slayer by firing eight shutout innings. Boston’s bats now have gone 0-for-25 with runners in scoring position over the last four games, mustering just seven runs in that time, and getting held to one or zero tallies in three of the four games.

Jon Lester, viewed as perhaps the most talented pitcher in what is supposed to be a world-class rotation, got shelled. The left-hander allowed seven runs on seven hits and three walks in a performance that left him dumbfounded.

He was done few favors by a defense that has been less than advertised to this point in the young season.

The cumulative effect of these shortcomings was the Sox’ fourth straight defeat, a 7-1 loss to the Rays (recap) that left the team with its worst start (4-8, five games back of the first-place Rays and Yankees) since 1996, when the team went 2-10 out of the chute and could never recover to contend.

“I don’t think we’re real happy with what our record is,” acknowledged Sox manager Terry Francona. “We’re not doing a lot of things correct right now. Everyday it seems to be something different. But again, we’ve dug ourselves in, we’ll dig ourselves out.”

But can they?

There is a notion that a team cannot secure a playoff spot in April, but that it can lose one. That idea seems particularly relevant in the brutal American League East, a division in which even one prolonged struggled could, at least in theory, cost a team a postseason berth given the likely need to win 95 games to reach October.

The Sox have reached the playoffs six times in the past decade. Their record after 12 games was never worse than 6-6. In fact, none of those playoff teams ever fell below .500 after more than 11 games of the season.

So, is it time to prepare the postmortems and begin the talk of dismantling? Maybe not just yet.

While the Sox do not have firsthand experience in moving beyond a sub-.500 start to reach the playoffs, each of the last six seasons has seen an AL East team overcome a stumble out of the gate to complete the year with 95 or more wins and a playoff berth:

-- The 2004 Yankees dipped as low as 8-11, but then reeled off an eight-game winning streak and never fell under .500 after their 21st game. They finished with 101 wins.

-- The 2005 Yankees had a 4-8 record en route to an 11-19 start. But they won 10 straight and were over .500 by their 37th game of the year. They fell under .500 again in June, but after carrying a 31-32 record into their 64th game, they hit their stride over the remainder of the season and, thanks to an extraordinary effort, finished with a 95-67 record.

-- The 2006 Yankees were 7-8 after 15 games, but never looked back after winning their next three. They ended the regular season with a 97-65 mark.

-- The 2007 Yankees bottomed out at 21-29, and were still under .500 (41-42) one day before the All-Star break. They claimed the wild card with a 94-68 record.

-- The 2008 Rays started sluggishly, dipping to 8-11 and remaining under .500 (11-12) through their 23rd game. That didn’t stop them from taking the AL East with a 97-65 record.

-- The 2009 Yankees hovered around .500 through the season’s first month, and their record stood at 16-17 through 33 games. From there, they were nearly unstoppable en route to 103 wins and the World Series.

“By no means has this team played their best baseball, obviously, from pitching to defense to offense,” said Sox catcher Jason Varitek. “I think this team will hit a lot better, we’ll pitch the ball better and obviously our defense will be a lot better.

“We’ve got a lot of baseball in front of us, and a big opportunity to make things right around here.”

Here are four other lessons from the Sox' most recent loss to what appears to be a very talented Rays squad:

-- Lester was good from start, but not to finish

-- A costly start for Martinez?

-- It takes time to learn to defend new turf

-- Bard is capable of starting over

LESTER WAS GOOD FROM START, BUT NOT TO FINISH

The first inning seemed like a statement. Jon Lester blew away the first three Rays hitters of the game, striking out the side on 16 pitches. He had 96 mph gas that he complemented with a curve and cutter, both of which elicited swings and misses. Surely, this would be a turning point for his rough entry into 2010.

It didn’t happen that way. The Rays ended up punishing the lefty for seven runs on seven hits in six innings. Lester is now 0-2 with an 8.44 ERA this year.

“I have to be better and it’s unacceptable,” said Lester. “I’m letting the rotation down, I’m letting the bullpen down. … Most importantly, I’m letting the team down with how I’m throwing the ball right now. I need to pick it up and kick myself in the [expletive]. I don’t know what else I need to do but I’m going to figure it out and everything’s going to ride on from there.”

Lester gave up a pair of two-run homers, one to Carlos Pena (who now has five homers against Lester, more than any other hitter) on a first-pitch fastball in the second inning and another to B.J. Upton on a full-count fastball.

But it was Lester’s three walks (all of which came around to score) and inability to put batters away when ahead in the count that the pitcher and his team found particularly troubling.

Upton’s at-bat offered a good example. The Rays center fielder was behind, 1-2, before fouling off a pitch and then watching a pair of fastballs miss the zone. Then, with the count full, Upton sat on a fastball that he launched atop the camera well in center.

“These guys are too good hitters to let them back into the count,” said Lester. “I think I was 1-2 to [Upton] and I end up throwing basically some [expletive] pitches to him and he gets back into the count where he feels comfortable and I become predictable and he hits it out.”

Pitching coach John Farrell agreed with that assessment, noting that Lester frequently got ahead of Rays hitters only to let them work their way back into deep counts in which they could sit on fastballs. Of the seven hits that the southpaw permitted, five were on either fastballs or cutters.

Farrell suggested that between the inability to put Tampa Bay hitters away and the concession of free passes, a lot of the damage done against his protegee was “self-manufactured.”

Thus continued what is becoming a familiar trend. Lester has a 2-6 record and 5.46 ERA in March/April, a pattern that he had been hoping to avoid this year.

To date, he has failed to do so. To the contrary, through three starts, he is off to the worst start of his career. Yet as disappointing as the start has been, the Sox remain optimistic that the pitcher’s outstanding arsenal — on dramatic display in the first inning on Sunday, in which he struck out the side against the Rays on 16 pitches — will soon equate to a reversal of misfortune.

“He’ll get himself turned around. He’s run into this the last couple years for whatever reason,” said Francona. “Once he gets on a roll, he’s showed what he can do. We just want him to start soon.”

A COSTLY START FOR MARTINEZ?

Nearly everyone on the Red Sox is struggling, and so it seems almost unfair to single out individual players. And yet the longer-term implications of Victor Martinez’ rough initial two weeks of the season merit some attention.

Typically, Martinez has been at his best in April. Entering the year, his April line (.320/.391/.503/.894) featured his highest average and OPS of any month, and his second-best OBP and slugging mark of any turn of the calendar. But the start of Martinez’ contract year couldn’t have been much worse.

He went 0-for-4 and grounded into a double play on Sunday. He is now hitting .224 with a .622 OPS. He has grounded into five double plays, most in the majors and as many as two entire teams (the Dodgers and Blue Jays) have collected this year. In 12 starts this year, Martinez has failed to reach base in almost as many games (4) as was the case in 56 games (5) after coming to the Sox last year.

Meanwhile, though Martinez wasn’t behind the plate on Sunday -- instead getting a day as designated hitter -- his defensive work represents a growing concern. Of the 14 runners who have attempted to steal on him, 13 have been successful, only amplifying questions about his ability to stay behind the plate going forward -- something that could impact significantly his free-agent value this offseason.

There are signs that his struggles may not persist. Martinez’ batting average on balls in play is .227, nearly 100 points below his .312 career mark, suggesting that some bad luck is in play. He has also been seeing plenty of pitches (4.2 per plate appearance), and he’s been making hard contact (his 26.8 percent line drive rate entering Sunday, according to Fangraphs, is the best of his career).

But while those marks suggest that some rebound should occur, to this point, he has struggled in a way that he never did in 2009.

IT TAKES TIME TO LEARN TO DEFEND NEW TURF

Mike Cameron is one of the great centerfielders of the past two decades. He has won three Gold Gloves, and many suggest that he has earned more than that.

Yet that has not been immediately evident in his early contests at Fenway Park. Cameron has appeared to struggle with both learning the dimensions of his new park and in his efforts to pick up the ball off the bat.

In the Sox’ third game of their season-opening home series against the Yankees, Cameron misjudged a Jorge Posada drive to center field. The ball may have been catchable, but Cameron allowed it to hit off the base of the wall, resulting in a key double in the Yankees’ 3-1 win.

On Saturday, he let a liner to center clank off his glove in the first inning. The run-scoring error (with two outs) was a prelude to a four-run inning.

Then, on Sunday, he hesitated before breaking back when Evan Longoria drove a ball to center field to open the second inning.

A ball that might have been catchable landed on the warning track for a double, and Lester — pitching out of the stretch and perhaps with some frustration — gave up a homer to Rays first baseman Carlos Pena on the next pitch.

The elements may have come into play on Longoria’s double.

“I thought he put his glove up and then it carried a lot further than I think he thought. I’d like to go look at it again,” said Francona. “Wind was going every which way, especially early. I thought right off the bat he had a chance and then it was pretty much over his head.”

Of course, as much as the wind may have been a factor, the play also served as a reminder that defensive transitions between ballparks are not always seamless. Even excellent defensive outfielders sometimes struggle to adjust to a new environment.

In his first season in Boston, after all, Coco Crisp rated as one of the worst defensive centerfielders in baseball. Then, in 2007, he became one of the top defensive centerfielders in the game, an improvement that some around the club attributed in part to his growing familiarity with both the park and the AL East hitters.

Cameron acknowledged that there are “obviously…always adjustments” to make to a new ballpark. That may have been the case on Sunday.

“Trying to see the ball above the stadium. Can’t really do anything else other than try to do my best,” Cameron explained of his initial non-move when the ball left the bat. “And then, it got up in the wind so I didn’t get a chance to recover.”

BARD IS WILLING TO START OVER

The sight was intriguing, to say the least.

After 20 hours of downtime, the Red Sox and Rays resumed their 1-1 contest on Saturday evening. The pitcher tabbed to begin the night, after a scoreless half inning in the bottom of the ninth for the Sox, was Daniel Bard.

For an outing, in a way, it was as if Bard was the starter for the Sox. And he was entirely impressive in that capacity.

The right-hander blazed his way through two innings, requiring just 17 pitches (16 strikes) to plow through his outing. He certainly looked like a pitcher who could remain in the game and maintain his effectiveness against the formidable Rays lineup.

Bard said that the outing felt entirely like one where he was entering from the bullpen. He began warming up only when the game resumed in the bottom of the ninth, and when he looked at the scoreboard and saw a tie game in extra innings, he felt the urgency associated with bullpen work.

Still, the mere sight of him as the first Sox pitcher to the hill on a night inspired an interesting hypothetical. Particularly given the gains that Bard made on his changeup in spring training, could Bard imagine a return to starting?

“I’m open to it. But I’m worried about this year,” said Bard. “This year, we’ve got plenty of starting pitchers. Could it be something we address down the road? I don’t know. I’m not that concerned about it, but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Bard, of course, began his professional career in disastrous fashion as a starter. He went 3-7 with a 7.08 ERA while walking 78 in 75 innings in 22 starts in 2007.

Following that season, the hard-throwing right-hander went to the Hawaiian Winter Baseball League. There, he got his career back on track while pitching out of the bullpen.

When Bard dominated in relief in the minors in 2008, the Sox decided that they didn’t want to tamper with success. Even though, all things being equal, the team prefers to develop top pitchers as starters and not relievers, the team did not want to jeopardize a bird in hand.

The conservative approach was understandable. That said, Bard believes that the gains he has made since 2007 would allow him to succeed regardless of role.

“My struggles as a starter in the minor leagues had more with mechanics and the general mentality of pitching,” said Bard. “Everything kind of happened to click with me along with the move to the bullpen. So people were like, ‘He’s a better reliever than a starter.’

“But I changed so many little things about the way I pitched – how I prepare, and I’ve learned so much about the game, about pitching since then – that I think it would translate over to starting as well. But I’m not too concerned about it right now.”

Indeed, Bard has said on many occasions how much he enjoys life in the bullpen: the adrenaline rush, the attacking approach, the game-on-the-line circumstances.

But is there an element of starting that he misses?

“Not really. It pays a little better, is the only thing,” Bard chuckled. “I do like coming out of the ‘pen. I think I could adjust back to starting if I had to, but I’m really not thinking about that right now.”