The Red Sox lost a game they should have won last night, and I’m not happy about it. Much worse, though, was yesterday’s news that Don Orsillo had been fired from his role as NESN’s play-by-play announcer for Sox games. It’s a travesty. No amount of good, solid play-by-play from his successor, Dave O’Brien (WEEI’s current foil for Joe Castiglione), will change that. It seems impossible that someone could dislike Orsillo, but his boss, Joseph Maar, was one such misguided fool.

Jerry Remy asked to speak to the media after the loss last night and was visibly broken up about the situation. Among more detailed comments, Remy said of Don, “I love him,” and how could you not? He’s the best, and we’ve only got a month left with him. Orsillo, of course, was a good soldier when asked about the situation himself, saying only, “I’m sorry. I’ve got nothing.”

Me neither Don. This sucks. Here are some of Orsillo’s best moments:

There was also a baseball game last night. It was a lefty-lefty matchup on the mound: Wade Miley vs. Jose Quintana. For pretty much the entirety of this one, it felt like Boston was in control. In the 2nd, after hot-hitting rookie Trayce Thompson (12-23 since getting called up) tripled with 1 out, Alexei Ramirez grounded to third, where Pablo Sandoval threw home to get Thompson in a pickle with Ryan Hanigan. And after that, when two consecutive singles had Ramirez coming around from second, Travis Shaw made the right play by cutting the throw off at the mound to catch Geovany Soto in a rundown between second and third to get Miley out of the inning.

After two quick outs in the top of the 3rd, though, Josh Rutledge slapped a single through the right side to give Boston its first baserunner of the night. Then Mookie Betts drove a ball into the left field corner and, as MLB.com puts it, scored a Little League home run. 2-1, Red Sox.

After a clean 3rd, things got a little tougher for Miley. He gave up three consecutive singles to start the 4th inning, including a run-scoring hit by Thompson, but made a good play himself to get the force at third on an attempted sacrifice, struck out Soto, and got a fielder’s choice at second to escape with a tied score.

Boston botched a chance of its own in the top of the 5th. Hanigan had doubled with 1 out, and Jackie Bradley, Jr. singled him over to third, but Butterfield didn’t send him home. But Rutledge struck out and on the first pitch to Mookie Betts, Bradley took off when he saw the ball hit the dirt. But Soto, unfortunately, recovered in time to throw Bradley out fairly easily. Inning over.

After Miley escaped another iffy inning in the 5th (benefiting from a sweet 5-3 double play by Sandoval after giving up two consecutive one-out singles), Boston regained the lead in the top of the 6th. Betts singled to start things off, even though second baseman Carlos Sanchez got to the ball, and Sandoval (batting well in the 2-hole) pulled a slow-rolling 0-2 double down the right field line to score Betts and give the Red Sox a 3-2 lead. And after Ortiz struck out, Shaw beat out a potential double play at first to bring Sandoval home and extend the lead to 4-2.

Unfortunately, Torey Lovullo chose to ignore how well Chicago had been hitting Miley (10 hits through 6 innings) and kept him on the mound, even when he got into trouble in the 7th. Gordon Beckham singled to get things started and advanced to second on a groundout by Adam Eaton, then went to third on a Miley wild pitch. The next better, Melky Cabrera, knocked him in on a single off the mound to make it 4-3. Miley was at 99 pitches at this point, so Lovullo would have been justified in removing him. But he struck out the next batter, Jose Abreu, before walking Avisail Garcia to bring up the batter nobody wanted to see: Trayce Thompson. Predictably, he doubled to left. Even worse, Hanley Ramirez did pretty much what you’d expect, botching an attempt to cut the ball off backhand and letting it get to the wall, and helping both Cabrera and Garcia to score easily in the process.

Ramirez was seen getting some work at first base pregame. That might be for the best. Alexi Ogando came in to get the last out of the 7th, but the damage was done. 5-4, White Sox.

From there, Boston had nothing left in the tank. They went 1-2-3-4-5-6 to end the game, with 5 out of the 6 striking out.

There was, however, one great reason for Red Sox fans to stick around for the end of this one. On a hit and run in the bottom of the 8th, Sanchez looked like a sure thing to make it to third on a single to right when Jackie Bradley did this:

So that was really cool, but Boston lost in the end, 5-4. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to watch “Here Comes the Pizza” 50 times in a row.

Things went pretty well for most of this game. In fact, I’d really like to pretend that the last inning didn’t happen, that the Red Sox took 3 of 4 from the AL-leading Royals, and that things were now looking up for the rest of the season. But that’s not what happened.

Boston struck first in the bottom of the 2nd. Rusney Castillo got aboard on an unfieldable chopper over the mound and Jackie Bradley, Jr. knocked him in on the first pitch he saw from Kansas City starter Edinson Volquez, taking an outside fastball to left center for an easy double. Josh Rutledge, batting from the 9-hole, followed that up with a tough at-bat that culminated in a very clean line drive RBI single up the middle. 2-0, Red Sox.

Eduardo Rodriguez, who’d gone 1-2-3-4-5-6 to that point, immediately gave up two singles, a sacrifice bunt, and a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 1 in top of the 3rd. And in the 4th, Rutledge absolutely biffed an inning-ending double play opportunity (letting it go through his legs), which led to a bad throw/catch from Mookie Betts and Pablo Sandoval trying to catch Eric Hosmer at third, which led to Hosmer scoring and Kendrys Morales standing on second base. Definitely up there in contention for Worst Defensive Red Sox Play of 2015. Mike Moustakas doubled to drive Morales in and give the Royals a 3-2 lead. Moustakas also took Rodriguez deep to left in the 6th to extend the lead to 4-2.

In the bottom half of the 6th, though, the Red Sox offense put together one of two clutch two-run innings. Sandoval led off with a double off the Monster and Bogaerts bunted him over to third. Ortiz then hit a fly ball that ALMOST caught the Monster, but had to settle for a sacrifice fly instead. 4-3, Royals. But Boston wasn’t done – with 2 outs, Travis Shaw doubled and Castillo singled through the right side to tie the game at 4. Hosmer cut off the throw home to catch Rusney in a rundown, but the damage was done.

The Sox got another two runs in the 7th after the Royals failed to bring Alcides Escobar in from third in the top half of the inning. Ryan Hanigan had a line shot single to left and Jackie Bradley grounded a double down the right field line on a Volquez curveball, scoring Hanigan all the way from first (with some help from a high relay throw). 5-4, Boston. With no outs, Josh Rutledge somehow managed to get a bunt down on a pitch that might’ve otherwise hit him, advancing Bradley to third. After Betts lined out and Volquez was replaced by former Red Sox reliever (and moonlighting starter) Franklin Morales, Sandoval managed to score Bradley on the ugliest infield single you’ll ever see to give the Red Sox a late 6-4 lead.

Tommy Layne and Jean Machi managed to get Boston through to the 9th inning, which was one of the most bizarre half-innings of baseball I’ve seen in a good while. Junichi Tazawa came in for the save opportunity, and right away, things got weird.

To recap that for the video-impaired: Tazawa hung a splitter middle-in to light-hitting second baseman Omar Infante. Infante took it to left, where it hung up in the air for a full 7 seconds. Jackie Bradley was expecting it to hit the wall. It did not. Instead, it flew past Bradley’s glove, hit the ground, bounced up and off the top of the scoreboard past Bradley’s outstretched bare hand, and rolled back toward the infield as Infante rounded third for home. At this point, Bradley (in one fluid motion) picked up the ball, cocked it back, and delivered a perfect strike on two bounces to Hanigan at home plate. And as it turns out, the throw didn’t even need to be as good as it was, because the rain had turned the dirt around home plate to mud, so when Infante tried to slide into home, he stopped dead about a foot short, where Hanigan tagged him out.

SO. After a first at-bat like that, the Sox must’ve gotten all the demons out, right? Wrong, obviously. Mendoza-flirting catcher Drew Butera singled through the right side. So did Alcides Escobar. Bogaerts saved a run with this absolutely spectacular grab, and could’ve ended the game if he’d looked for the double play at first more quickly. At this point, it had become very apparent that Tazawa just didn’t have it. Even with a two-run lead and two outs, he’d need some luck to escape.

He didn’t get it. Lorenzo Cain singled (through the right side, obviously) on the very next pitch. And Hosmer singled past a diving Sandoval to score two and tie the game at 6. Bradley had a chance to throw Escobar out at home but gave it too much and pulled his throw left. At this point, I was still hoping they’d get out of the inning without a deficit. But Morales walked on a full count to load the bases again. And Moustakas fouled off five consecutive pitches on a 2-2 count before doubling to the gap in right center. Two runs scored, and Rutledge’s good relay throw to get Morales out at home to end the inning was the smallest of consolations. Safe to say: NOT a good outing for Junichi. As Don and Jerry noted, he really didn’t even get any legitimate outs.

Bradley singled to lead off the bottom of the 9th, but no one else did anything. 8-6, Royals, final.