Look at this magnificent goofball. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
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.
