PHILADELPHIA -- The Red Sox and Phillies began a three-game series on Tuesday night. You probably heard that it was maybe a World Series preview. Cliff Lee, Josh Beckett, MLB Network, a million All-Stars, some MVP and Cy Young candidates, sold-out Citizens Bank Park, all that stuff.

Well, in a game featuring two of the (at very worst) three best teams in baseball, the Red Sox had a .109 hitter in the fifth spot in the lineup. That's .109, as in 91 points below the Mendoza Line. As in 39 points below Josh Beckett's career batting average. And this wasn't a superstar in the middle of a down season hitting fifth. This was a man who entered the game with a career slugging percentage of .379, a feel-good story in his final act. 

Darnell McDonald was hitting fifth for a couple of reasons. Carl Crawford is hurt. David Ortiz can't DH in Philly (maybe you heard about that, Part II). And Mike Cameron looks remarkably like a guy who won a contest to get to play for the Red Sox and nothing like a major-league hitter, much less a major-league hitter in the second year of a $15.5 million contract.

But a .109 hitter in the fifth spot of a major-league lineup? How, Terry Francona, was this possible?

"Who would you have hit?" Francona asked the media before the game. "I thought about it a lot. But I didn't think there was a better lineup." 

If you believe the reports floating around late after the game on Tuesday night's 5-0 loss to the Philies, the Red Sox are going to move Adrian Gonzalez to right field on Wednesday and play David Ortiz at first. The Red Sox don't want to play Gonzalez in the outfield. Francona looks like Nicolas Cage watching the snuff film in the 8MM trailer whenever he's asked about the Ortiz/Gonzalez situation. You might think it's a staggering overreaction to be this concerned about a professional athlete standing in the outfield (you think he's gonna be chasing down balls in the gap?) for a couple of hours, but this is a very real worry for the Sox. 

Make no mistake, the decisions to hit McDonald fifth on Tuesday and play Ortiz at first and move Gonzalez to right field (I'm assuming that they won't take Gonzalez's bat out of the lineup just to get Ortiz in there) on Wednesday are a complete and total indictment on Cameron, who has been an absolute disaster in his season and a half in Boston. 

If Cameron -- who we should never forget is stealing (ironic, since he has a grand total of zero stolen bases with the Sox in his 81 games) $7.75 million for the second straight season -- was merely a below-average player, a .250 hitter, say, I think they might leave him alone, maybe pair him with Josh Reddick or McDonald and deal with life without Ortiz for nine games. But Cameron is miles away from mediocre right now. He's a 10-game hitting streak away from being upgraded to a major disappointment.

OK, if you want to toss some blame at McDonald, go at it. But isn't he Darnell McDonald for a reason? After a real long look last year, didn't we learn exactly why it is that McDonald is a guy in his 30s with 147 career at-bats before 2010? A nice story last season, sure, but not a guy that you should count on for any heavy lifting. At this point it's at least fair to ask if he should even be on a big-league roster. He wasn't supposed to have a speaking part in this drama and Cameron was.

But we know that. And the Red Sox know that. But they spent a lot of dough on Cameron -- with J.D. Drew, that would be $22 million bucks spent on a right-field platoon that A) can't stay healthy and B) can't produce -- and are getting nothing from the guy. And at 38 years old, I'm thinking that isn't going to change. 

Kevin Youkilis is a great (and yes, I do mean great) hitter, as underrated as there is in baseball today. But he isn't Barry Bonds circa 2001. And yet I watched Cliff Lee -- currently at the absolute hysterical peak of his powers -- pitch around Youkilis to lead off the second inning on Tuesday. Why? Because he knew there was nothing to worry about behind him. And Lee was right -- McDonald struck out on three pitches, Jason Vartiek fell behind 0-2 before flying out weakly to right and then Cameron whiffed on three pitches. 

Now, if we were judging this situation only on Tuesday's game it would be triple-dopey with a side of moron juice. Lee is -- at worst -- one of the three or four best pitchers in baseball in the middle of a historic run (the shutout on Tuesday was his third straight, and he gave up A TOTAL of one run in five June starts). So if Ortiz plays first base and Gonzalez is in right field the Sox lose Tuesday. 

But it's a hell of a lot more than Tuesday night. Cameron looked pathetic against Lee, but so did the rest of the lineup. The problem, of course, is that Cameron has made every pitcher look like Cliff Lee this season. 

Theo Epstein has made his share of lousy free-agent signings (as we all pause and consider this: If the Sox had passed on John Lackey it's a real possibility that Cliff Lee would be a member of the Red Sox today), but I put Cameron right at the top. Why? Because, unlike Lackey and Drew and Lugo and Clement and all the rest of the Not So Greatest Hits, inking Cameron made no sense at the time he was signed. Jacoby Ellsbury was coming off a solid season, Drew wasn't going anywhere. What was Cameron's role going to be? 

It was never defined. And injury in 2010 and an almost incomprehensible lack of production in 2011 has taken care of his definition to Sox fans. 

Cameron is a good guy and has had a terrific career. But it's very hard to watch him at the plate and not come to the conclusion that he's done as a player. As a member of the Red Sox, Cameron has been a bust. No way around it. And right now -- really the only time the Sox have truly needed him in the last year and a half -- he's been at his worst.

"I think it's awful," Francona said in his pregame press conference Tuesday when asked about the inability to get Ortiz in the lineup during road interleague play.

Now it seems that Ortiz will get his chance. And it's in no small part due to the fact that Cameron (and others) have been, well, awful.