The Red Sox lost the opener to the Tampa Bay Rays last night and fell farther into last place in the AL East. Boston’s best starter, Wade Miley (4.41 ERA), faced off against the best that Tampa has to offer in Chris Archer (2.95). Miley did a better job, pitching deeper into the game than his counterpart, despite a couple dominant innings by Archer. But the Sox bullpen, for the second time in the last three games, couldn’t keep Boston in the game.

After Betts and Holt went down in the 1st inning, Bogaerts singled to right field and David Ortiz doubled him around from first on a line drive over Kevin Kiermaier’s head in center field to put Boston up 1-0. But the Rays responded in kind by knocking Miley around to start the bottom half of the inning. The lefty surrendered a leadoff double into the right-center gap, an RBI single, and an RBI double down the left field line to Brandon Guyer, Mikie Mahtook, and Evan Longoria, respectively. Miley settled down to get a couple outs, but also gave up an RBI single to Steven Souza, Jr. to put the Sox in a 3-1 hole.

Archer settled down after his slightly shaky beginning, striking out six consecutive batters in the 2nd and 3rd innings (he struck out Sandoval to end the 1st inning too, so he actually struck out seven straight). Miley, meanwhile, had to pitch around a single and a hit batsman in the 2nd, but escaped without harm. He also made this catch with some quick reflexes on a line drive from Mahtook to get the second out of the 5th inning. But it wasn’t quite as good as the play he made against the Mets a couple weeks ago:

That happened during the game I was supposed to recap but instead ignored so I could talk about how much our moving day sucked. It’s all coming full circle, folks. Also, Jackie Bradley continued to be such the man by catching this ball in foul ground to end the inning.

Anyway, when the sixth inning came around, Archer had been cruising, but he ran into trouble quickly by giving up consecutive singles to Bogaerts and Ortiz (Bogaerts’ being of the infield variety). He got the quick hook (having thrown 108 pitches through 5+) in favor of someone named Enny Romero, who promptly surrendered an RBI double to Travis Shaw to make it 3-2. Ortiz probably could have scored too, but he came around anyway when the next batter, Pablo Sandoval, managed an infield single of his own with some help from an errant throw by Asdrubal Cabrera to tie the game at 3. Brandon Gomes relieved Romero, and he got outs, but unfortunately for him, the first two he got were both long fly balls that allowed Shaw to move from second to third and from third to home to give the Red Sox a 4-3 lead.

Despite getting runners to second base in both the 7th and 8th innings, Boston couldn’t plate an insurance run. And once Miley had reached his pitch limit after 7 strong innings, Junichi Tazawa came in and immediately looked…well, he looked like he’s looked recently. To put it succintly: double, single (to tie the game), home run (to completely blow it). Cabrera showed bunt a pitch before hitting it out of the park. Tazawa also threw two wild pitches and allowed Souza (who got on with an infield single after Cabrera’s home run) to steal third base during his slow delivery from the stretch before finally getting an out. Tommy Layne came in to get Kiermaier to line out to Sandoval, but Noe Ramirez, who always looks like he’s throwing 1,000 mph, gave up an absolute BOMB to J.P. Arencibia, who’s basically the Rays’ version of Doug Mirabelli. 8-4, Tampa.

The Red Sox singled a couple times in the 9th, but a four-run deficit is a pretty tall order to overcome. 8-4, final.

One more thing: it was the 14th anniversary of 9/11 yesterday. Barstool posts this video every year, and it’s a must watch. The more people who see it, the better.

Notes:

1. Junichi Tazawa’s ERA is over 4.00 for the first time since September 24, 2011.

Taking a 5th straight game would’ve been pretty sweet for the Red Sox, but as the game went on last night, it became obvious that Boston needed to put a run or two across the board and they just couldn’t do it.

Henry Owens ended up with a pretty good stat line even though he was predictably wild all night. He had to dance out of trouble early and often. He hit Ben Revere on his second pitch and sent him to second on a wild fourth pitch. After walking loyal @AndRighty Twitter follower Jose Bautista, the two baserunners completed a double steal to get to 2nd and 3rd with one out. Blake Swihart didn’t even throw down because they got such good jumps. Unfortunately, this meant that Revere scored when Edwin Encarnacion grounded out to second, giving the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead after the top of the 1st.

On the bright side, the man Encarnacion grounded to at second was Dustin Pedroia, returning from injury for the second (?) time this season. He actually made a nice play from a shift on that out too, ranging to the left side of second base to put Encarnacion away.

Only one Red Sox batter managed to avoid an out on his first at-bat. Fortunately for Boston, Travis Shaw made the most of his opportunity in the bottom of the 2nd, taking an R.A. Dickey fastball deep into the right field corner for a solo home run to tie the game at 1-1.

Owens hit Troy Tulowitzki with the first pitch of the 4th inning and Kevin Pillar singled after a questionable strike three call on Chris Colabello, leaving runners at first and second with 1 out. The Sox couldn’t quite turn two on a ground ball to third from Cliff Pennington, but Owens got Josh Thole to foul out, stranding Tulo at third base. Bogaerts and Pedroia also erased a leadoff Revere walk in the 5th with an excellent double play to get the inning’s first two outs.

Pablo Sandoval led off the bottom of the 5th with a double off the Monster off an inside-out swing. Despite Brock Holt’s ground ball to the wrong side of the infield (he’s usually excellent at grounding to the second baseman to advance runners from second to third), Panda advanced to third with 1 out nonetheless. But Swihart lined out to Ben Revere in left even though the ball looked destined to fall onto the grass, and Jackie Bradley, Jr. grounded out harmlessly to first to end what was probably Boston’s best chance to score.

Things went sour quickly for Henry Owens in the 6th inning. After getting Edwin Encarnacion to fly out to left, Tulowitzki took the first pitch he saw from Owens back up the middle. Owens reacted awkwardly as the ball went through his legs (8:20 in this video) and stumbled backwards towards home plate. His matchup with the next batter, Colabello, went poorly: Ball. Balk, advancing Tulo to second. Ball. Ball and wild pitch, advancing Tulo to third. Ball, walking Colabello onto first base. Fortunately for Owens, the Red Sox bullpen put together a mostly great effort last night, starting with Jean Machi’s heroic appearance here, getting Pillar to ground into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

Pedroia doubled off the wall with 1 out in the bottom of the 6th and Bogaerts drew a walk behind him. But David Ortiz (and I hope to eat my words on this) appeared to be pressing for a home run against the knuckleballer Dickey, repeatedly swinging at high pitches out of the zone, and eventually popped out. And Shaw flew out to end the inning.

Bogaerts did this on a one-hopper in the 7th:

Bautista reached on a Swihart throwing error resulting from a chopper in front of the plate to start the 8th, and Noe Ramirez hit Encarnacion on his next pitch, giving Toronto its third hit batsman of the game. But Ramirez and Junichi Tazawa combined to strike out Tulowitzki and Colabello, and Pillar lined out to Sandoval at third following a double steal that put both runners in scoring position.

Unfortunately, Boston squandered its last real opportunity to score after a 1-out walk by Big Papi in the bottom of the 9th. Rusney Castillo pinch ran for Ortiz, but he was thrown out easily as he tried to steal with the count at 3-1 to Shaw.

Shaw grounded out to second one pitch later, and the Sox moved to extras. I’d heard in the 9th that Alexi Ogando was warming up in the bullpen in Robbie Ross Jr.’s wake, and I had an inkling then that the evening was doomed if the game went more than 9 innings. Ogando has given up more home runs per 9 innings than all but two qualified pitchers in MLB this year, and he was set to face an absolute murderers’ row of sluggers: Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion, who’ve hit a combined 100 home runs in 2015. Like I said, doomed from the start. Unfortunately for Boston, Torey Lovullo’s other options were Craig Breslow (10th worst in HR/9), Ryan Cook (impossibly incompetent, probably off the charts in HR/9), and call-ups Jonathan Aro, Matt Barnes, and Rich Hill, each of whom may not have been in the building, having only been summoned earlier in the day yesterday.

Anyway, like I said, it was doomed from the start. Josh Donaldson hit the longest pop-up you’ll ever see, and whether it hit the Monster’s shelf or upper corner is up for debate. Either way, the umps eventually decided that it stayed in the park by what has to have been the barest possible margin.

After Bautista flied out to relatively shallow center and Donaldson didn’t try for home, Ogando intentionally walked Encarnacion (though not without difficulty – I don’t think Ogando can throw a baseball properly if he’s not straight-up pitching) and things looked momentarily hopeful. But Tulo hit a single through the left side to grab a 2-1 lead, and it was all gravy for Toronto after that. Colabello singled to center as Bogaerts couldn’t quite make a diving play to keep the ball in the infield to make it 3-1. Then Ogando balked Tulo in from third (Owens definitely balked earlier in the game, but this one was absolute horseradish and the ump who called it should be ashamed of himself) and, like Owens after his balk, lost his cool, throwing a wild pitch to advance Colabello to third, from where he’d score on a Pillar sacrifice fly. It was actually an excellent throw by Brock Holt in left field, but Swihart couldn’t hang on. Not that it mattered, but there are worse, less cool ways to get outs.

The Sox went down in order in the bottom half. Game, blouses.