I watched the Celtics again, but I’m only going to devote a few lines to it before getting to the Sox. Too many turnovers from sloppy ballhandling. Too many missed threes (I’m looking at you, Avery Bradley). Too many threes by the Cavs (especially Kevin Love). Too much LeBron to handle. Too many frustrating offensive rebounds for the Cavs (especially Tristan Thompson). None of this is particularly groundbreaking, but maybe worst of all, Isaiah didn’t play well enough, and he wasn’t on the floor in crunch time. Jonas Jerebko played more minutes than either Thomas or Marcus Smart. Evan Turner and Jae Crowder were our best players on the floor last night, and each of them had four turnovers. Oh well. Time to make history…

Meanwhile, in Red Sox land (actually, probably not an inaccurate name for Tampa), Boston dropped the last game of a three-game series to the Rays to lose its first series of the year. The good news is that the pitching staff has only given up 10 runs over its last 37 innings pitched. The bad news is that the Red Sox’ bats have been anemic so far in 2015. Brock Holt’s .414 average in 29 at-bats looks great, but there’s not much else to applaud. Xander Bogaerts is hitting .302, yeah, but he’s been almost exclusively a slap-hitter so far. Pablo Sandoval is hitting a respectable .263 but has the same problem: he’s only hitting singles. In fact, the only players on the team who can claim an OPS over .750 are Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez (and Holt, but he’s only played in 9 of 16 games).

Three everyday players (Betts, Ortiz, and Napoli) are batting below the Mendoza Line. The platoon outfielders (Victorino, Nava, and Craig) are batting a combined .167. The catchers’ combined batting average is .208.

Thankfully, the Sox are still doing the little things right. They’re tied for the league lead in walks, and they’re 12 for 12 in stolen base attempts. And so, despite bottom-half of the league performance in hitting, they’re sixth in the league in runs. I guess what I’m saying is it’s not time to panic yet, because runs are still crossing the plate. Well, not a ton recently, but you know what I mean. And if the bats were suddenly to come alive…well, we’d really be cooking with gas.

For now, though, we’re cooking with a couple damp sticks we’re trying to rub together after a heavy rain. And in this game, those sticks generated a whopping one run, in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Daniel Nava to shallow center following Pablo Sandoval’s second (!) extra-base hit of the year, a leadoff double. Nava’s sacrifice looked like a popup off his bat – he must be hitting the gym.

In the bottom of the same inning, though, Clay Buchholz gave the run right back (the only run he’d give up in a reasonably dominant performance over 6 innings). Like Sandoval, Longoria led off with a double on an absolute meatball down the heart of the plate. After, like Sandoval, getting moved over to third base on a groundout, he was knocked in on a base hit to center by Logan Forsythe. It could’ve been worse: as Righty pointed out, Buchholz’s pitch tailed off to the inside juuuust enough to avoid being pummelled, instead forcing Forsythe to slap it to center for an easy single. With men on first and second and one out, though, Clay struck out the next two batters to get out of the jam.

The only thing of note to happen in the 3rd inning was a great stolen base by Mookie Betts after a walk. This would be the first of three two-out, man on 2nd opportunities that the Sox would fail to capitalize on, as Pedroia grounded out to short to end the inning.

In the top of the 5th, Bogaerts slapped a single through the right side with two outs, and León walked to move him to second. Mookie was up next but, well, it didn’t work out:

Obviously a great catch by Kiermaier, but clearly Mookie thought he was out on contact, looking frustrated coming out of the box. He might not have reckoned for Kiermaier playing as deep in center field as he was.

In the top of the 7th, Allen Craig (!) hit a two-out single, followed by a Bogaerts walk moving him to second base. But Hanley Ramirez, pinch-hitting for León, struck out looking on a slider that maybe grazed the inside corner (Hanley certainly couldn’t believe it).

After solid one-inning outings from Ogando and Tazawa, we really could’ve used a less gradual recovery process from Koji Uehara, who was assumedly unavailable after closing Tuesday’s game. Instead, Farrell called for Anthony Varvaro, who came into the game with a 1.17 ERA but, perhaps more tellingly, a less impressive 1.30 WHIP in 7.2 innings.

It all happened pretty quickly. Leadoff single by the guy who is confusingly not related to Lenny Dykstra. Pinch runner. Fly out. Kiermaier single. Then this:

On a curve that didn’t get down far enough and stayed inside on a 1-2 count, by the Rays’ catcher who’s 7-52 on the year. That’s just how it goes sometimes I guess. But we still could’ve used Koji out there.

Anyway, at least the pitching is (relatively) solid at the moment – Buchholz had 10 strikeouts! – and we’re still getting on base. Now we just gotta get those slugging percentages up. Oh, and win 4 games in a row against the best basketball player in the world. I’m all mixed up right now.

P.S. I still ate my bagel. YOLO.