Things went pretty well for most of this game. In fact, I’d really like to pretend that the last inning didn’t happen, that the Red Sox took 3 of 4 from the AL-leading Royals, and that things were now looking up for the rest of the season. But that’s not what happened.

Boston struck first in the bottom of the 2nd. Rusney Castillo got aboard on an unfieldable chopper over the mound and Jackie Bradley, Jr. knocked him in on the first pitch he saw from Kansas City starter Edinson Volquez, taking an outside fastball to left center for an easy double. Josh Rutledge, batting from the 9-hole, followed that up with a tough at-bat that culminated in a very clean line drive RBI single up the middle. 2-0, Red Sox.

Eduardo Rodriguez, who’d gone 1-2-3-4-5-6 to that point, immediately gave up two singles, a sacrifice bunt, and a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 1 in top of the 3rd. And in the 4th, Rutledge absolutely biffed an inning-ending double play opportunity (letting it go through his legs), which led to a bad throw/catch from Mookie Betts and Pablo Sandoval trying to catch Eric Hosmer at third, which led to Hosmer scoring and Kendrys Morales standing on second base. Definitely up there in contention for Worst Defensive Red Sox Play of 2015. Mike Moustakas doubled to drive Morales in and give the Royals a 3-2 lead. Moustakas also took Rodriguez deep to left in the 6th to extend the lead to 4-2.

In the bottom half of the 6th, though, the Red Sox offense put together one of two clutch two-run innings. Sandoval led off with a double off the Monster and Bogaerts bunted him over to third. Ortiz then hit a fly ball that ALMOST caught the Monster, but had to settle for a sacrifice fly instead. 4-3, Royals. But Boston wasn’t done – with 2 outs, Travis Shaw doubled and Castillo singled through the right side to tie the game at 4. Hosmer cut off the throw home to catch Rusney in a rundown, but the damage was done.

The Sox got another two runs in the 7th after the Royals failed to bring Alcides Escobar in from third in the top half of the inning. Ryan Hanigan had a line shot single to left and Jackie Bradley grounded a double down the right field line on a Volquez curveball, scoring Hanigan all the way from first (with some help from a high relay throw). 5-4, Boston. With no outs, Josh Rutledge somehow managed to get a bunt down on a pitch that might’ve otherwise hit him, advancing Bradley to third. After Betts lined out and Volquez was replaced by former Red Sox reliever (and moonlighting starter) Franklin Morales, Sandoval managed to score Bradley on the ugliest infield single you’ll ever see to give the Red Sox a late 6-4 lead.

Tommy Layne and Jean Machi managed to get Boston through to the 9th inning, which was one of the most bizarre half-innings of baseball I’ve seen in a good while. Junichi Tazawa came in for the save opportunity, and right away, things got weird.

To recap that for the video-impaired: Tazawa hung a splitter middle-in to light-hitting second baseman Omar Infante. Infante took it to left, where it hung up in the air for a full 7 seconds. Jackie Bradley was expecting it to hit the wall. It did not. Instead, it flew past Bradley’s glove, hit the ground, bounced up and off the top of the scoreboard past Bradley’s outstretched bare hand, and rolled back toward the infield as Infante rounded third for home. At this point, Bradley (in one fluid motion) picked up the ball, cocked it back, and delivered a perfect strike on two bounces to Hanigan at home plate. And as it turns out, the throw didn’t even need to be as good as it was, because the rain had turned the dirt around home plate to mud, so when Infante tried to slide into home, he stopped dead about a foot short, where Hanigan tagged him out.

SO. After a first at-bat like that, the Sox must’ve gotten all the demons out, right? Wrong, obviously. Mendoza-flirting catcher Drew Butera singled through the right side. So did Alcides Escobar. Bogaerts saved a run with this absolutely spectacular grab, and could’ve ended the game if he’d looked for the double play at first more quickly. At this point, it had become very apparent that Tazawa just didn’t have it. Even with a two-run lead and two outs, he’d need some luck to escape.

He didn’t get it. Lorenzo Cain singled (through the right side, obviously) on the very next pitch. And Hosmer singled past a diving Sandoval to score two and tie the game at 6. Bradley had a chance to throw Escobar out at home but gave it too much and pulled his throw left. At this point, I was still hoping they’d get out of the inning without a deficit. But Morales walked on a full count to load the bases again. And Moustakas fouled off five consecutive pitches on a 2-2 count before doubling to the gap in right center. Two runs scored, and Rutledge’s good relay throw to get Morales out at home to end the inning was the smallest of consolations. Safe to say: NOT a good outing for Junichi. As Don and Jerry noted, he really didn’t even get any legitimate outs.

Bradley singled to lead off the bottom of the 9th, but no one else did anything. 8-6, Royals, final.

 

Lorenzo Cain has a reputation as an excellent defensive center fielder. But he had himself a pretty tough Friday night against the Red Sox. It started harmlessly enough – Mookie Betts, the Sox’ first batter of the game, stretched a right-center single, fielded by Cain, into a double (go to 0:44 in this video to see it). Mookie was absolutely DIGGING for the extra base, and it’s not like Cain was dogging it, but it was an unusual double to start things off. But Betts was eventually stranded at third. No harm done.

Then, in the 2nd inning, after a 1-out Travis Shaw double, Rusney Castillo hit a pop-up to juuuuust the right spot between Cain and second baseman Omar Infante (2:14). Cain might have been able to make the play if Infante hadn’t been in the area, but it dropped for a base hit instead. Three pitches later, Blake Swihart lined a double to left field, scoring Shaw. Bizarrely, Castillo also scored on the play due to a lazy, errant throw from left fielder Paulo Orlando and some undisciplined backup procedures by Kansas City. Josh Rutledge and Betts both singled to bring Swihart around from second, and the Sox left the 2nd inning leading the Royals 3-0.

KC got a run back in the 4th, when Hanley Ramirez couldn’t cleanly handle an Eric Hosmer single that brought in Ben Zobrist. To Hanley’s credit, he looked more energetic than usual out there. Sometimes the ball just gets away from you.

Lorenzo Cain can attest to that. With 1 out in the 4th, Castillo hit a triple directly over Cain’s head in center (go to 5:33). Cain probably should have made the play – it looked like he was shying away from a potential collision with the wall. Instead, Swihart collected his 2nd RBI of the night on a bloop single to left center. Even worse (for Cain), Mookie Betts blooped another single, but his went to right-center. Perhaps Cain was trying to prevent another stretch double by Betts, or maybe he was just trying to do too much by catching it on the fly, but either way, he absolutely booted it, knocking the ball into right field with his glove. Swihart scored from first to give the Red Sox a 5-1 lead.

That lead shrunk to 5-2 in the 6th when Henry Owens left a meatball up in the zone for Alcides Escobar, who took it deep to center for his third home run of 2015. But Josh Rutledge, with perhaps his first meaningful contribution to this team, took Johnny Cueto deep himself, sending a bad cut fastball into the Monster seats. Rutledge is now 5-6 against Cueto in his career.

Rutledge’s home run was the 12th hit Cueto allowed on the night. He’d give up one more (a Pablo Sandoval double) and finish out the 6th before giving way to former Boston great Franklin Morales. The rest of the game passed by pretty much without incident, and the Red Sox took the second game of the series 7-2.

Notes:

1. Henry Owens had himself a great day and a great bounce-back start. The home run he gave up to Escobar was his only real mistake of the game. It was one of the best pitching performances by a Red Sox starter this year:

PITCHERS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Owens	8.0	4	2	1	1	4	1	4.50

His one walk was to the first batter of the game, Escobar, on four pitches.

 

2. Torey Lovullo showed some sort of supernatural prescience by inserting Jackie Bradley, Jr. into left field for Hanley Ramirez in the 8th inning. The second batter of the inning, Omar Infante, hit a line drive to shallow left field. Bradley got a late break on it in the rain at Fenway but, well, just add it to the highlight reel.

 

3. It has to be said: Sandoval’s been flashing some pretty nice glove work at third base recently.

 

4. John Farrell was back at Fenway Park today so that the Red Sox could take their team picture in front of the Green Monster.

 

5. The Red Sox are now 7 games behind the Angels for the second wild-card spot. Just sayin’.