The Sox did a lot of good things last night against the Royals. But let’s face it. Rick Porcello stinks on ice. I’m sure he’ll rip off a hot streak at some point and I’ll have to eat a little bit of crow and acknowledge that he deserves to be a major league pitcher, but I wouldn’t trust him with a 10-run lead, let alone 3. I’m going to break this up in a way that will force me not to just rant about Rick the entire time.

Good: Red Sox Baserunning

Okay, yeah, Blake Swihart got hurt on a fielder’s choice because he was going full-tilt and slid awkwardly into third. But that aside, he also beat out a single to first base by running just as hard, his arms swinging as goofily as ever, to start the inning. And Mookie Betts made a crucial and electrifying play, going from 2nd to home on a Pedroia chopper that Sal Perez fielded in front of the plate.

Bad: Royals Baserunning

They had four stolen bases, yes. But the Sox got three outs from Royals baserunners’ poor decision-making. Twice, Brock Holt (giving Xander Bogaerts the day off at shortstop) made heads-up plays to keep a Royal from going from 3rd to home: Cain in the first inning and Escobar in the third inning. And Pedroia caught Alex Rios trying to do a little too much on a blooper in the 8th inning, doubling him off at first.

Good: Small Ball

Boston did what they’ve been doing a lot of recently: consistent, smart hitting. In a 1-1 game in the 3rd inning, Swihart doubled to lead off, and Betts wasted no time in bunting him over to third base so that Holt could double him in on a looping ball down the left field line to take the lead.

After Betts came around from 2nd on Pedroia’s grounder in the fifth inning, David Ortiz drew a walk and Hanley Ramirez came through with a broken bat single to bring Holt around from 2nd himself.

Bad: Farrell

That’s a little harsh, considering that I really only have a problem with one decision. But okay, here’s the situation. You’re down by two in the 6th inning. There’s one out, and Alejandro De Aza hits a triple to the gap in left center. Why would Farrell have Sandy Leon (.166/.247/.177) pinch-hit for an injured Blake Swihart when he has Xander Bogaerts (.285/.324/.387) sitting on the bench? I don’t get it. I guess maybe because he’s your last resort in case someone ELSE gets hurt? Still. Come on. Big time roll-over-and-die move.

Good: Mookie Betts

The aforementioned scoring from second and, of course, leading off the game with a solo home run.

Bad: Porcello

It’s not like it was just the 5th inning. He danced around trouble in the 1st and 3rd too, and he just doesn’t have the stuff he needs to get out of bad situations. I’ll say it again: what about his numbers made the Red Sox think he was worth $80 million? I won’t understand until he shows me something different. He’s a career 4.50 ERA guy through and through.

He started out the fifth with his second hit batsman of the game, then gave up two consecutive singles. Then he balked (this, to be fair was a questionable call). Then he finally got an out by way of a deep sacrifice fly to right center. The next batter grounded to third, where Sandoval made a nice scoop and a complete mess of things, throwing the ball away at first to let a run score when he had no play and hurting himself in the process. Porcello gave up a home run to Kendrys Morales to cap off the disaster, giving the Royals a 6-4 lead. Morales must’ve been sitting on something up and in. Porcello did get out of the inning himself, but that was the end of his night.

Ugly: Ortiz Throws Out the Umpire

Not sure exactly what they did to adjust here. Calling the rest of the game with just three umpires must’ve been pretty tough.

Notes:

• God damn, the Royals bullpen is good. Herrera, Davis, Holland. Good luck.

 

First, a little transaction analysis. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Pablo Sandoval sat out last night’s game for liking pictures on Instagram during Wednesday’s game. Unfortunately, with Dustin Pedroia still sitting out with a knee injury, the Sox don’t exactly have a plethora of infielders waiting to jump in. In fact, the only option they really had was to bring Hanley in from left field for the night. Faced with that reality, whoever’s in charge of making those decisions (Cherington, I presume?) decided to call up Travis Shaw, the corner infielder from Pawtucket. For that to happen, though, Heath Hembree, he of the 8.53 ERA and five consecutive scoreless innings, had to be sent to the 15-day DL with “right shoulder inflammation.” Sounds like a load of codswallop to me.

At the beginning of the week, both Shaw (having been called up when Matt Barnes was sent down) and Jeff Bianchi had been on the active roster, but both were sent down to AAA in order to recall Robbie Ross, Jr. and activate Craig Breslow from the DL. I don’t know if I really have a point here, other than to note that it looks like the Sox were forced to game the system with Hembree’s DL stint. It’s not Wei-Yin Chen’s situation, but it’s something. Hopefully Breslow and Ross were worth it. At any rate, Shaw is now 0-7 in the majors this year, but he did make this play.

For the first three innings, the Red Sox and Braves traded unproductive innings. Actually, Boston went down in order. But Brock Holt, batting leadoff in Pedroia’s place, led off the 4th with his second triple in three games, and with one out, Big Papi (playing 1st base last night) hit the ball to the right side of the infield to drive Holt in to make it 1-0.

Give the Sox credit. They eventually got to a very good pitcher in Shelby Miller, not through any particularly explosive offense but by keeping up continuous pressure. After three consecutive singles to start the 6th inning, Ramirez grounded into a bases-loaded double play to plate an insurance run through non-ideal means. But the bottom half of the order didn’t roll over and die with two outs – Bogaerts drove in Betts with another single and hustled from first base to score on Alejandro De Aza’s double, forcing Miller out of the game.

Meanwhile, Buchholz, who’d been cruising to this point, gave up a single and a walk with 2 outs in the bottom half of the inning. He then forced the Braves into two consecutive ground balls to the mound, but unluckily, the first one was a high chopper that left Clay with no play, and the second one, well…he managed to give up two runs on that one. Great ERA preservation move though.

Like Bogaerts in the previous inning, Holt managed to score from first on a double in the top of the 7th. Speed really does kill sometimes.

Tommy Layne came in for the hold (probably a combination of Tazawa’s workload and effectiveness kept him out) and Koji came in for a clean save. Well done boys. But you’re gonna have to play like that for a long time if you even want to scrape .500 again.

Notes:

• Sandy Leon received the first intentional walk of his major league career, bringing Buchholz to the plate in the 5th.
• Shades of Pedey.