For the third time on this road trip, the Red Sox entered a game with a seemingly large advantage in the pitching matchup and lost. They got shut down by Dustin May last Friday, Garrett Crochet got bombarded while matched up against Bailey Ober yesterday, and Sonny Gray got thoroughly outpitched by Mick Abel tonight.
On an evening where the Sox needed both length and effectiveness from their starter, they got neither. Gray lasted just four innings and allowed five earned runs. Oh, and as bad as he was, it easily could have been worse as he narrowly wiggled out of a bases loaded jam in the third.
Meanwhile, the bats were going up against a guy with a 6.19 ERA in 52.1 career innings entering tonight. They scored zero runs and struck out ten times against him.
If this is what things look like when matchups are favorable on paper, what type of horror show are we in for when this butter knife offense starts running into the teeth of real rotations? Although I guess in some ways it can’t get any worse. You can’t score less than zero runs, and you can’t have less than zero wins, which is how many the Red Sox have against American League opponents 17 games into this season.
If you dive deeper into the details, it somehow only gets uglier. Willson Contreras left the game with lower back tightness, which unfortunately feels like the most natural injury ever when you’re talking about a guy who will be 34 next month, has never played more than 138 games in a season, and started all 17 games this year. I don’t have time to look it up, but I bet there’s a decent chance this is the first time he’s ever started 17 straight games in his career. It also feels like another byproduct of a completely unbalanced roster that includes way too many outfield / DH guys, and not enough quality infielders.
Speaking of subpar play by an infielder, did you see the strike Andruw Monasterio (who came into the game for Contreras) challenged tonight? This puppy wasn’t even close!
And it should be noted, this stands juxtaposed to Roman Anthony’s decision to not challenge a ball in the third pitch of his first at bat tonight. If you saw this live, you could see that he really, really wanted to tap his head on this one (pitch 3), but ultimately decided to be a good teammate and not risk burning a challenge in the very first at bat of the night.
But you know what, as we continue to iron out the best way to handle these challenges, maybe they should let Roman use them early in the game if he’s confident. He seems to have a much better handle on the strike zone than most guys on this team. Perhaps the player challenging matters almost as much as the spot? (Within reason of course)
Oh, and we also have to mention that Jarren Duran flipped off a fan in this game, but that didn’t get me nearly as angry as the overall play of the team.
What a great night!
Three Studs
Jack Anderson: Even somebody as cynical as me is a sucker for a major league debut, and Jack Anderson had a good one tonight. He came into a horrible situation needing to clean up the mess made by both of the top two men in the Red Sox rotation over the last 36 hours, and he delivered big time. The rookie gobbled up three innings of grunt work and struck out the side in his first frame ever pitched on a major league mound. His family was also in attendance, so for them it’s a wonderful evening they’ll never forget.
Roman Anthony: Anthony’s slowly starting to heat up at the plate. After getting on base four times yesterday, he went 2-4 tonight, including the only extra base hit of the game for the Sox.
Masataka Yoshida: He took advantage of his time back in he lineup at DH and recorded a pair of hits.
Three Duds
Sonny Gray: Not even close to what the Sox needed from this guy after Crochet got bombed yesterday. Five runs over four innings including two gopher balls is a dreadful outing on any night, but it stings even worse given the current state of this team. They needed somebody to step up, and instead he dug the hole deeper.
Jarren Duran: He flipped off more fans than he had hits, so that’ll get you included here. And just to be clear, I find the zero hits far more offensive than the one finger that was up.
Carlos Narvaez: Should we start getting concerned about this guy? 0-4 with four strikeouts tonight, and with that golden sombrero he’s now batting .195 with a .409 OPS on the season.
Highlight of the game:
It’s Jack Anderson’s first career strike out. He’s the only person in that clubhouse who should have a smile on their face tonight.
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Looking Ahead: Tomorrow’s game is Early, both in time (a 1:40pm start) and in matchup. Connelly Early will take the mound tasked with trying to prevent a Twins sweep and to salvage a .500 road trip for the Sox.
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