Usually, it’s very easy to blame the pitching on this team when things aren’t going well. But over the past three games, that just hasn’t been an option. With three outstanding defensive performances supported by a total of five runs, the offense, once supposed to be the backbone and overwhelming strength of the team, is floundering. It’s not as if the group is suddenly bereft of skill – they outhit the Mariners 7 to 5, for example. But the results are lacking, and the Sox put their pitching staff in a position to lose last night. Boston’s offense is now below the league average in runs scored and, frankly, you just can’t count on anyone to come through. Not even Brock Holt! Anyway, that’s enough sulking by me.

The reason, I guess, why I’m so miffed about this one is my soft spot for Buchholz. He deserved better in this one. 11 strikeouts!

He was flat-out dominant, retiring 15 straight batters after Robinson Cano’s double off the left field wall in the bottom of the 1st, including 7 strikeouts. In fact, Clay only ended up giving up three hits on the night, but unfortunately, the one to break up his out streak was his only real mistake of the night, a solo home run by Seth Smith to tie the game at 1.

Buchholz came back with a vengeance, striking out four of the next five batters he faced, but the damage was done. It’s really a shame that one pitch was enough to take the decision out of his hands, but that’s what happens when your team’s own offense can’t get anyone across the plate. Hanley, besides his series-opening 4-5 performance, has been 3-23 since coming back from running into a green wall and has seen his OPS shrink from .949 to .859 over the course of seven games. And when your typical playmakers aren’t making plays, you have to try to get by with a single by Victorino, a stolen base, and an eventually stranded triple by Xander Bogaerts as your only run of the game.

The problem isn’t just that the team isn’t hitting, though, obviously, they aren’t – four everyday players (Sandoval, Ramirez, Pedroia, and Bogaerts) are hitting above .250, and everyone else is hitting .228 or below (in the case of Mike Napoli, far below, at .168). No, the Sox’ biggest problem could be their lack of extra base hits. With 84, they’re 26th in MLB, and that’s just not gonna cut it. Part of this can be attributed to the Monster and the wall-ball singles it creates, but their 42 doubles is 29th in the league and 18 lower than the league average of 60. I’m sure this is a little boring to read, but incompetence is boring and awful. What do you want me to do about it?

Even when hits are strung together, like in the 4th inning when Napoli (!) and Victorino hit back-to-back singles, they managed to bungle it, throwing away the last out of the inning on a silly baserunning error.

From the 6th to the 9th, the Sox got the leadoff man on base three times, with Pedroia walking in the 6th, Bogaerts singling in the 8th, and Ortiz singling in the 9th. And each time, they came away with nothing to show for it.

But all of this futility could’ve been ignored, or at least not dwelled on, if Boston could’ve gotten through to extra innings and put something together. Instead, a series of poor decisions by John Farrell consigned the team to a loss. I understand bringing in Tommy Layne – he’s actually been pretty good this year, and the top of the Mariners’ order is lefty-heavy. It even convinced Lloyd McClendon to pinch-hit Willie Bloomquist for Seth Smith, who grounded out for the first out of the inning. But Brad Miller singled and advanced to second on a ground out to Napoli, and Nelson Cruz (by basically any measure, the best hitter in MLB this year right now if you ignore Dee Gordon) came up to bat.

Now, with first base open in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th and a lefty pitcher going, logic would dictate that you might intentionally walk the best hitter in the league, a righty, especially with a lefty (Kyle Seager) batting behind him. In fact, logic absolutely dictates that. Not doing that would DEFY logic. And yet, Farrell chose to bring in Junichi Tazawa. No one will ever know what he was thinking. Had Tazawa had past success against Cruz? Yup, Cruz was only 1-8 against him. Had Cruz been having a bad night? Sure, he struck out three times against Clay Buchholz. But if that was your logic, KEEP BUCHHOLZ IN. At 102 pitches, couldn’t we have stretched him a little more? And past success has nothing to do with the situation when you’re facing someone who’s hitting .358! I can’t even believe it, I really can’t fathom what was going on in Farrell’s head. Actually, let’s ask him:

Hey John, what were you think –

“Before you even ask the question, that’s a terrible decision on my part.”

It sure was.

Cruz hit a “single” to left-center to get Miller home.

Game, blouses. Or, I guess, fedoras. God, Seattle people are the worst. No offense to anyone from Seattle, we can’t afford to lose readers.

P.S. I still trust Junichi. He got screwed. The splitter he threw him to get the second strike was beyond nasty. He just shouldn’t have been forced to throw him a strike. Put him on first! Especially once you hit the full count! How did no one figure this out?!