Last night, the Red Sox started a 3-game interleague series against the worst team in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies. Once this series ends, it’s all divisional opponents until October 2nd, so this series represents a good chance to start the march to mediocrity on the right foot.

Joe Kelly has been pitching very well recently. The stat that everyone’s been spouting is that he’s won 7 consecutive starts, going from 2-6 on July 22nd to his current 9-6 record. But his actual stats in recent weeks have been even more impressive: he has a 1.89 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP over his last 6 starts. He was bad enough early in the season that his 2015 numbers remain at 4.84 and 1.42 in those categories, respectively, but he’s definitely on a solid upward trend.

Kelly made things interesting yesterday, but his stuff is so good right now (that, or the Phillies are so bad) that he was able to avoid taking too much damage. Odubel Herrera singled off Kelly to start things off, but he was thrown out at second, 1-6, as the Sox just missed turning two on a Cesar Hernandez ground ball to the pitcher. Fortunately, Kelly picked off Hernandez before he’d even thrown a pitch to the next batter, Aaron Altherr, and struck out Altherr for good measure to end the inning.

In the bottom of the 1st, Betts, Holt, and Bogaerts started things off right with a double, a single, and an RBI single for Xander to put Boston up 1-0.

After a couple quiet innings, the Phillies got something going against Kelly in the top of the 4th in ugly fashion. Hernandez got on with an infield single despite a diving effort toward second base by Bogaerts, and Kelly hit Altherr two pitches later to put Hernandez into scoring position. Ryan Howard grounded to first on what might’ve been a double play ball, but Allen Craig booted it and chose to flip to Kelly at first for the sure out. Darnell Sweeney also grounded to first, but it was too slow for Craig to do anything but tap first as Hernandez scored from third.

With two outs, Darin Ruf hit another infield single, this one to Bogaerts’ right. Xander would’ve needed to make a tremendous effort to throw Ruf out at first, but he bobbled the ball and the run scored from third to give Philly a 2-1 lead. After Cody Asche walked, Ryan Hanigan caught Ruf sleeping and threw down to second, but Ruf took off for third before Brock Holt could throw him out and got his first career steal. Holt also pumped to first, but Craig wasn’t covering the bag for some reason.

But after all that, with men on the corners, Kelly struck Cameron Rupp out to end the inning.

In the 5th, Herrera tried to stretch a single to left into a double, and actually made a nice baserunning play to avoid Holt’s tag, but he slid past the bag and Holt didn’t miss his second chance. The out was made possible by a Bradley-esque play by Rusney Castillo, who cut off the ball in the left-center gap. Seriously gorgeous stuff.

In the bottom half of the inning, the Sox’ offense got behind Kelly and gave him something to work with. Hanigan singled, Bradley walked, and Mookie Betts took advantage of this success from the bottom of the order by muscling a double to the gap in right-center, scoring Hanigan from second and tying the game at 2 apiece. Bradley scored one pitch later on a shallow line drive sacrifice fly to center by Holt to give the Sox a 3-2 lead. Bogaerts and Ortiz, unfortunately, both struck out to end the inning.

Kelly’s final inning of work featured yet another infield single, this one a high chopper over Kelly’s head by Altherr. He struck out Howard to get one, but walked Sweeney to put Altherr in scoring position before getting Ruf to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to put a cap on his night.

PITCHERS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Kelly	6.0	5	2	2	3	5	0	4.84

Considering that 3 out of the 5 hits that Kelly allowed were of the infield variety, I’d say the Phillies were lucky to do as much damage as they did. Pumpsie does still need to work on his control – the walks (and the hit batsman) kept ducks on the pond all night. But it was another encouraging outing for Kelly for the sake of his future in Boston.

Alexi Ogando, Tommy Layne, and Noe Ramirez split the 7th evenly after Ogando gave up a double to Asche and hit Rupp. Ogando induced a poor sacrifice bunt attempt that Travis Shaw caught at third for the first out, and Layne and Ramirez each struck out a batter to escape the situation.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, whose 1-run lead at this point would not have been enough, the offense poured it on in the bottom half of the 7th. Jackie Bradley hit a solo shot to center on the first pitch he saw to make it 4-2. Mookie walked and Holt singled him to third, forcing Philadelphia to remove starter Adam Morgan in favor of reliever Jeanmar Gomez. Bogaerts grounded into a would-be double play, but beat out the throw at first to score Betts from third. 5-2, Sox. Big Papi took advantage of this chance to rectify an otherwise disappointing night by doubling off the center field wall to score Bogaerts from first. Finally, a single by Shaw had no chance of scoring Ortiz from second, but the throw in from right was off target and Papi took off, scoring with a good slide under a tag because of his quick decision-making as the ball ended up in no-man’s-land in the middle of the infield. Pretty nifty footwork by the big fella. 7-2, Boston.

The Sox, perhaps a bit gunshy because of Tazawa’s 9th inning struggles in recent weeks (although this wasn’t a save situation, so maybe not), used him in the 8th. Despite another Phillie infield single, Taz struck out the side and looked pretty dominant.

Unfortunately, this meant that the Red Sox were using Jean Machi in the 9th. Machi, well, he hasn’t been very good for Boston, and he was worse last night. To his credit, he got two quick outs on a pop out and a ground out. But things got sketchy really quickly. He gave up a single to Freddy Galvis and a Herrera home run into the Red Sox bullpen on the very next pitch. He then gave up another single, this one to Hernandez, and a HIGH double off the Monster by Altherr scored Hernandez, who’d previously advanced to second on defensive indifference. 7-5, Red Sox. At this point, Lovullo had seen enough and brought in Robbie Ross, Jr. to give him a chance at his first career save. He didn’t disappoint, striking out Ryan Howard on three consecutive swinging strikes.

Notes:

1. Allen Craig went 0-4. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

2. Travis Shaw played third base because Pablo Sandoval hurt his back during batting practice.

3. Sorry for the magnum opus again.