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.

And so it comes to an end, as all good things must. Unfortunately, Joe Kelly’s 8-game winning streak didn’t extend to 9 last night, and the Red Sox lost 6-5 to the Orioles in 13 innings (the 2nd time in 3 games that they’ve played 13 innings). Kelly appeared to be cruising early on, allowing only a walk through two innings and striking out the side in the 2nd. Staked to a 1-0 lead in the 3rd after Boston loaded the bases and walked a run in in the top half of the inning, he gave up a leadoff single and hung a breaking ball up in the zone to Steve Pearce, who crushed it into the left field seats to give Baltimore a 2-1 advantage.

Manny Machado singled after that and advanced all the way home on an uncharacteristically poor throw from Mookie Betts in center field after a one-out Chris Davis single. Following another single from Adam Jones, Kelly left the game due to “shoulder tightness and fatigue.” And that was it for the streak.

Craig Breslow came in to relieve Kelly. He actually did an admirable job, recording an out against 7 of the 8 batters he faced. On the other hand, the first out he recorded was a sacrifice fly that scored Davis from third base. And in tribute to his 1.65 HR/9 rate (the 7th worst in MLB), the only hit he gave up was a solo home run to Manny Machado to break a tie game.

But wait, how was it a tie game? Weren’t the Orioles up 4-1? They were, but the Red Sox stormed back in the top of the 5th in an effort to get Kelly off the hook. Betts singled to lead off the inning and Dustin Pedroia hit a ground rule double to deep right center field to put them both in scoring position. Then Xander Bogaerts singled to bring home Betts and Ortiz hit a sacrifice fly to bring Pedroia home.

With one out, Bogaerts stole second and, after Travis Shaw struck out, Pablo Sandoval poked the first pitch he saw (a pitch off the plate to the outside) over Pearce’s head in left field and off the wall. Bogaerts scored and Sandoval was called safe at second, but the call was overturned on replay because Pablo’s hand came off the bag.

After the 5th, neither team could get anything going. Heath Hembree and Noe Ramirez each pitched immaculately in relief to stretch out the game, and their efforts were rewarded with a game-tying Travis Shaw solo shot to start the 8th inning. 5-5.

Tommy Layne came in to face Davis in the bottom of the 8th and got him to fly out. He gave way to Alexi Ogando, who gave up an infield single in the 9th but was otherwise clean through 1.1 innings, thanks in part to this fantastic throw by Bogaerts.

Devin Marrero ran for Sandoval after he hit a two-out single in the 10th but got picked off first to end the frame. Not ideal for a pinch runner. Jean Machi threw 4 pitches in the bottom half to retire the side, but didn’t go any further. I have to think he was probably still fresh enough to pitch the 11th.

In any case, Jonathan Aro came in for the 11th inning and got three outs, only allowing a two-out walk by Matt Wieters. The Sox had their last real chance in the bottom half of the inning – Bogaerts doubled past Machado’s glove into left field and Buck Showalter elected to intentionally walk Ortiz, bringing up Travis Shaw. But Shaw only grounded out to second to end the frame.

Aro pitched a clean inning in the 12th, and Marrero reached on an infield single off pitcher Chaz Roe’s glove. But Rusney Castillo hit a harmless fly ball to right field and Ryan Hanigan grounded into a double play to bury that chance.

Aro looked wild to start the bottom of the 13th inning, and that was pretty much all she wrote. He walked Gerardo Parra on five pitches and gave up a single to Manny Machado that advanced Parra to third. Robbie Ross, Jr. had been warming up, and he came in to face Chris Davis, but the jam proved to be too much for him to escape.

6-5 Orioles, final.

Notes:

1. Junichi Tazawa was shut down for the season to give him some rest. Torey Lovullo paid him a heap of compliments and implied that Taz was overworked. Taz, on the other hand, only appears to be disappointed in himself. It’s been a bummer of a second half for him – here’s hoping he’s back to his old self in 2016.

2. In the last 7 games, Jackie Bradley, Jr. is 1-24 with 4 walks and 13 strikeouts. It seems to me that he’s been caught looking at a lot of strikes, especially on the outside part of the plate. There have been a lot of close pitches that have gone against him, but he might just need to take the bat off his shoulder and make as much contact as he can (that said, he’s not doing much when he’s swinging either).