SEATTLE -- Having the bosses in the house didn’t help the Red Sox much Monday in Safeco Field.

The Red Sox didn’t lose as badly as they had been losing, but they still lost for the seventh consecutive time, falling 4-1 at the hands of Seattle left-handeder Jason Vargas.

After having been outscored 54-15 in the previous six games, Monday's game at least was close, although not perhaps as competitive as the score might suggest. Boston got a first-inning run on an RBI double by Dustin Pedroia (his 1,000th career hit) and a single by Cody Ross, then went 0-for-5 with men in scoring position the rest of the game.

The game came after owner John Henry spent the morning first having breakfast with manager Bobby Valentine, then meeting individually with some players and staff on what he described as a "fact-finding" mission.

Then there was the presence of general manager Ben Cherington, who said his visit was not tied to Boston’s fall off the radar in the last 10 days. He said his trip had been planned for a month.

Sox starter Clay Buchholz did almost enough to get Boston out of its funk, but when he stubbed his toe in the fourth inning (four singles, a couple of them cheap), the Red Sox defense was no help, committing a couple of errors. The result was four Seattle runs, more than enough to doom the Red Sox.

"There are going to be times in the season when they visit," Buchholz said of the presence of Henry and Cherington. "It’s not that big a deal.

"They know the kind of pressure we’re under. They’re not going to add to that."

The pressure in the Red Sox clubhouse actually would be much greater if the expectations were higher. But since the trade of Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Dodgers on Aug. 25, the expectations have gone way, way down.

So have the results.

The third run of the Seattle fourth-inning rally came when Jacoby Ellsbury was charged with a throwing error. He was attempting to keep the Red Sox deficit at 2-1 by nailing John Jaso at the plate. Catcher Ryan Lavarnway should have stopped the ball, but it caught him between hops and ricocheted away.

Not only did Jaso score, but Justin Smoak moved up a base and eventually scored on Jose Iglesias’ bobble at shortstop.

Are the Red Sox a beaten-down team after the trade that was essentially a white flag on the season?

"We can’t allow that to happen," Lavarnway said. "And we can’t allow what happened that inning to happen.

"We need to be better. We are a better team than this. We are better players than this."

Cherington said before the game that both he and Valentine are under review this final month of the season. Games like this can’t help.

"It’s hard to watch," Cherington said. "It's a reflection on all of us when things aren't going well. I think we knew when we made the trade that we weren't helping our team in games the rest of this year. But, that said, it's still been hard to watch.

"The only choice we have it so show up the next day and play. A lot of this is a test."

As tests go, this one isn’t getting any easier.

Buchholz saved the bullpen, pitching seven innings after the Red Sox starters had lasted no more than 3 2/3 innings in any of the three games over the weekend in Oakland. He said he felt he had good stuff, but good isn’t good enough for the Red Sox these days.

"I left a couple of pitches up in the zone," Buchholz said, "and they got to them."

Asked if the team was feeling snake-bitten after seven consecutive losses, Buchholz didn’t duck the question.

"It’s tough to deal with it, but it’s a game," he said. "Playing in Boston can take a toll on you. But we’ve got to find a way tomorrow."

The Red Sox aren’t stooping to the 25-men, 25-cabs level of years past. Lavarnway said after the game that he wished he could take the error that was charged to Ellsbury and put it on his own record instead.

"I played that into an in-between hop," the catcher said. "He made a nice throw and I’ve got to go out and get that ball."

That’s the right attitude if not the desired result.