Rich Hill is my new favorite baseball player. I’ll admit that he kind of passed me by when he did some pitching for Boston from 2010-12, but he’s definitely in my line of sight now. Over 14 innings, Hill has struck out 20 and walked 1. He’s the first Red Sox pitcher to ever record 10 or more strikeouts in his first two starts. It’s been utter dominance, and aside from one shaky inning yesterday against the Blue Jays, no one has been able to figure him out.

The Sox should probably have scored in the top of the 1st to give Hill an early cushion, but a Mookie Betts walk and a Dustin Pedroia single that moved Betts to third proved inconsequential as Xander Bogaerts lined out and David Ortiz grounded into a shift-induced double play.

Hill kept going from where he left off against the Rays in his last start, putting the Jays down in order in the 1st. But in the 2nd, after a single and a strikeout, Dioner Navarro guessed right on a high first-pitch fastball, sending it over the left field wall to give Hill his first earned runs of 2015.

Immediately following this rude awakening, Kevin Pillar laid down a bunt that Travis Shaw and Hill could’ve played a little better…

Pillar advanced to second on another single and Ben Revere brought him home with yet another one-bagger. Kind of amazingly, Hill still technically struck out the side.

The Red Sox offense gutted out a little support for Hill in the 4th inning. Bogaerts got an infield single off Mark Buehrle to start things off. Then, when Bogaerts kept running to third on an awkwardly handled toss from first baseman Chris Colabello to Buerhle to retire Ortiz, Buehrle (a four-time Gold Glove winner) threw the ball away on a difficult first-to-third attempt, and Bogaerts scored. Shaw infield singled too, and Rusney Castillo doubled to put men on second and third, but Sandy León popped out to end the inning. 3-1, Toronto.

Fortunately, that one run wasn’t all the offense had to offer. Jackie Bradley, Jr. (recording a hit in consecutive games for the first time since September 7th) singled to start the 5th, but after a fielder’s choice and a fly out, Boston was left with Mookie Betts on first with 2 outs. Bogaerts and Ortiz, however, continued to atone for their 1st inning failings. Xander singled and Big Papi walked to load the bases, and Shaw came through with a huge opposite field single to tie the game at 3.

Meanwhile, Hill kept dominating, retiring the last 7 Blue Jays he faced before giving way to Noe Ramirez.

PITCHERS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Hill	7.0	7	3	3	0	10	0	1.93

Before Ramirez actually appeared, however, the Red Sox put Hill in line for a win. Pablo Sandoval benefited from another pitcher error (this one by former closer Brett Cecil) to lead off, and after Castillo advanced Sandoval to second with a ground out, León came to the plate again. I’m sure hopes were not high on the Boston bench: the catcher had popped to first in the 2nd, second in the 4th, and third in the 6th. I’m no mathemagician, but he was clearly due to pop out to the Blue Jays’ catcher. Instead, he singled to move Pablo to third, and Bradley came through with a full count sacrifice fly to drive the go-ahead run home. 4-3, Boston. Pablo actually probably should have been out on the throw, but Navarro couldn’t handle it on the bounce:

Ramirez got a hold for his work in the 8th inning, despite allowing a single to Edwin Encarnacion and throwing the ball away on an attempted pickoff of Encarnacion’s pinch runner, Dalton Pompey. He had him if Shaw could’ve made the catch, but the throw was pretty low. Anyway, with Pompey at second base, Ramirez got Colabello to ground out to end the 8th.

Robbie Ross, Jr. gave up a two-out ground rule double to a pinch-hitting Russell Martin, but struck out Justin Smoak to notch the 4th save of his career.

Notes:

1. Out of the 14 innings Hill has pitched so far, 8 of them have been perfect 1-2-3 frames.

The Red Sox lost to Marcus Stroman and the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 last night. Full disclosure: I was at the Boston College-Florida State football game last night, so I didn’t watch a second of the Sox until this morning. I’m gonna keep this recap short and sweet because the game was bereft of fireworks and Boston still managed to lose handily.

I will note that despite losing 3 of their last 4, and due mostly to every other potential wild card team’s failure to run away with it, the Red Sox still find themselves only 7 games out of the playoffs.

Brock Holt started for Pablo Sandoval at 3rd base and Josh Rutledge started for Dustin Pedroia at 2nd base. And in a move that has been hinted at recently, Mookie Betts played in right field so that Jackie Bradley, Jr. could get some time in center field.

Rick Porcello got the start and pretty quickly looked like he didn’t have his best stuff, allowing back-to-back singles from Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista before getting Edwin Encarnacion to ground into a double play to end the 1st.

Holt had a pretty tough night filling in for Sandoval. It started with a Kevin Pillar double in the 3rd inning that glanced off his glove and made its way into the left field corner. A sacrifice moved Pillar to third and a ground out scored him, so that probably didn’t sit too well with the Brock Star. 1-0, Toronto.

An error by Holt in the 4th inning with a man on 1st meant that the Blue Jays ended up with men on 1st and 2nd with no outs, and Justin Smoak stroked a deep double to score both runners. Ryan Goins tripled off the right field wall for good measure, and the Jays led 4-0.

Travis Shaw singled to start the bottom half of the 4th, and Rusney Castillo got first on a fielder’s choice. From there, Boston managed to manufacture a run. Castillo got to second base on a wild pitch from Stroman, moved to third on a clean single to center by Blake Swihart, and scored on an infield single from Rutledge, who was initially called out before a replay.

Toronto started the 6th inning with 3 consecutive singles, one of which, by Russell Martin, was of the infield variety (in Holt’s direction). Despite Porcello’s best efforts, Toronto came away with two more runs: one on a wild pitch and one on a sacrifice fly. 6-1, Toronto. That’d be the final.

Heath Hembree, whose ERA was once 40.50 after an extremely unfortunate outing on April 26th against the Orioles, got it all the way down under 4.00 after another clean outing in the 8th inning. 3.98, Heath! Congrats! I’m actually unreasonably proud for some reason. He fell on this pitch with 2 outs, but it looks like he emerged okay.