When Red Sox reliever Franklin Morales incited a ninth-inning dust-up by hitting Tampa Bay’s Luke Scott on the leg with a 97-mile-per-hour fastball, it seemed the shoving and shouting match that ensued was all the fight the Red Sox had in them in Friday night’s 7-4 loss to the Rays at Fenway Park.

“A guy got hit on the leg and boys will be boys,’’ was how Sox manager Bobby Valentine viewed the brouhaha. It elicited a much stronger reaction from Rays manager Joe Maddon who termed it “idiotic.’’

Frustration seemed to mount for the Sox, who failed to climb above the .500 mark once again.

They took a 1-0 lead in the first inning but Jon Lester frittered it away by serving up three homers.

Matt Joyce delivered the crushing blow with a third-inning grand slam that gave Rays a 4-1 lead. Lester, who dropped to 3-4, got tagged in the fourth for three more runs on back-to-back homers by Elliot Johnson (a two-run shot to center) and Carlos Pena (a solo shot to right) that made it 7-1.

“It wasn’t good,’’ Lester said of his latest pratfall at home, where in four starts he owns a 7.71 ERA.

“It looked like he had pretty good stuff going in and in the first inning he was looking pretty good,’’ Valentine said. “The strike zone started eluding him and a couple of lefthanders who don’t hit lefthanders all that well got him.’’

Lester said it was a struggle locating his pitches.

“When I was missing, I was missing, and when I was on the plate, I was in the middle,’’ he said. “They did a good job of working counts and getting hitters’ counts, and making me pay for my mistakes.

“The only at-bat the whole game where I felt like I threw the ball where I wanted to every pitch was the first inning against Luke Scott,’’ said Lester, who struck out Scott to end a 1-2-3 inning on eight pitches. “They did a good job of making me work, looking for their pitch, and not missing. It was one of those nights - frustrating.’’