News went from bad to worse for Sox

BOSTON – The losses kept coming and so did the injuries. The Boston Red Sox dropped from first place at the end of July to an eight-game deficit at the end of August. Then the really bad news came.

Jon Lester, the 22-year-old rookie pitcher with a bright future, has cancer.

“It’s an incredibly scary thing. You’re talking about a kid at the beginning of his life,” Curt Schilling said. “You’ve got a father and a mother and a family that’s worried about their child.”

Suddenly, the team’s miserable August didn’t matter as much.

The perennial contenders were 9-21 in the month, the lowest winning percentage in the majors.

Their postseason hopes shattered, they traded pitcher David Wells to San Diego on the last day of the month. Instead of adding a player to help them get to the playoffs, they sent one away.

“It’s not where we expected to be, not where we wanted to be,” general manager Theo Epstein said, “but we’re not immune from that kind of a month if we play poorly and we have a rash of injuries and we don’t get breaks.

“This is the reality right now.”

The reality of the team with the second-highest payroll in baseball – and just two years removed from its first World Series championship in 86 years – is harsh and hard to believe.

Five starters and the top backup position player have been sidelined for some time. David Ortiz (heart palpitations), Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek (knees), Trot Nixon and Alex Gonzalez (ribs) and Wily Mo Pena (wrist) remain out.

Four of manager Terry Francona’s original five starting pitchers are unavailable. Tim Wakefield and Matt Clement are on the disabled list, Schilling will miss at least one start with a mild strain in his right side and Wells is in San Diego. Even reliable closer Jonathan Papelbon may not pitch for a week after straining his shoulder Friday night.

It started with Ortiz, the smiling slugger and American League leader in homers and RBIs. It was his heart.

He was admitted to a hospital Aug. 19 for palpitations during the Yankees five-game sweep at Fenway Park. He was cleared to play, but the palpitations came back before last Monday’s game at Oakland and he returned to Boston the next day.

The team announced that Lester has a treatable form of anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a type of cancer that forms in the body’s lymph system.

Lester, an only child from Tacoma, has been one of Boston’s brightest prospects since being drafted in 2002.