Henry Owens had an up-and-down kind of day. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

This was a weird ending to a weird series. You already know the story of the first two games of the weekend — the Sox scored a combined 37 runs and got good starting pitching. Sunday saw them score 8 more runs, but starter Henry Owens got shelled in his 3rd Major League start. Kind of.

Owens surrendered 3 runs in the first, had a 1-2-3 second, gave up 4 runs in the third, then shut the Mariners out in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings. But it was even stranger than that. Hank danced back and forth between being extremely hittable and unhittable. Look at this line:

Ten strikeouts and one walk in six innings would lead you to believe that he had swing-and-miss stuff and good control of his fastball. Ten hits, three home runs, and seven earned runs would lead you to believe that he was throwing poorly located beachballs. Strangely both were true yesterday, and it’s got me more mixed up than a feather in a whirlwind. Was I impressed? Was I disappointed? Maybe he’s pioneering a new pitching theory – Quantum Pitching – wherein the pitcher has both a poor and an extremely effective outing at the same time, and my simple brain can’t yet understand it. Maybe when Owens’ throws, the ball takes every possible route between his hand and home plate. Upon its arrival at home, it is both a ball and a strike and its past and trajectory are only determined once the pitch has been observed as a ball or a strike.

In any case, the Red Sox found themselves down 7-0, but based on how this series has gone it didn’t feel like they were completely out of the game. The offense slowly and steadily chipped away at the lead.

Xander got things started in the 3rd with this long-range missile over the Monster. The batter before, Mookie got picked off of first base, costing the Red Sox a run. This would be important later.

In the bottom of the 4th, Rusney hit a 1-0 changeup into the Monster seats, and Travis Shaw doubled, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a Josh Rutledge sac fly, cutting the deficit to 7-3.

In the bottom of the 5th, Holt doubled, The X singled, and Papi lifted a sac fly. 7-4.

After Owens’ six confusing innings, Alexi Ogando was brought in for the 7th. Ogando, the guy who had surrendered 11 jonróns in 49.2 innings, was brought in to face Nelson Cruz, the guy who hit his 35th homerun of the season on Saturday. Predictably, Cruz did this:

This eighth run would prove to be very important.

The Sox offense kept coming though. In the bottom of the 7th they scraped together two runs to bring the score to 8-6, setting up the dramatic 9th inning.

In that inning, Jackie Bradley walked. Mookie struck out. Holt singled. Xander grounded out softly to second, scoring Jackie from third. 8-7. This left Holt on second with Big Papi coming to the dish. With first base open he was intentionally walked, bringing up Rusney. After falling behind 0-2 he got a very hittable breaking ball that he managed to dribble up the third base line for an infield single, keeping the game alive.

This loaded the bases for Travis Shaw with two outs, the tying run on third and the winning run at second in Ortiz. Shaw fisted a 1-1 pitch into shallow left, scoring Holt from third. Inexplicably, third base coach Brian Butterfield waved home Papi from second base, who was easily thrown out at home. Shaw’s single was to very shallow left, and Ortiz hadn’t yet reached third when Mariners’ left fielder Seth Smith fielded the ball. Smith’s throw was awful — he practically rolled it, and it was up the 3rd base line — but it was still in plenty of time to get David.

Butterfield is widely regarded as one of the best coaches in Major League Baseball without a managerial position, largely due to his gift for teaching boys how to play the infield like men. But goddamn does that man make some questionable decisions as a third base coach.

In any case, the Red Sox managed to overcome a 7 run deficit and force extra innings. Craig Breslow pitched well in the 10th and 11th but ran out of gas in the 12th, when he surrendered two runs without recording an out. I think Torey Lovullo was pushing his luck by sending him out there for a 3rd inning even though he had only thrown 18 pitches in his first two innings. Also not sure why Ortiz wasn’t run for in the bottom of the 9th as the game winning run on second base with De Aza on the bench. Lovullo must’ve gotten rocked into a false sense of security with those 37 runs in his first two games. Look sharp Torey!

Notes:

-After this weekend’s series the Red Sox now rank as the 3rd best offense in all of baseball.

Before I get to the game recap, there’s some sad news to report out of Red Sox nation. John Farrell announced before the game that he’s been diagnosed with lymphoma and will take a medical leave for the rest of the season. The good news is that Farrell described his cancer as “localized and highly curable”, they removed the full cancerous mass, and that they discovered it in Stage 1. They were able to catch it early because of his hernia surgery last weekend. Here’s wishing John a full and speedy recovery.

If I hit one, I hit two. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

It goes without saying that everything baseball-related that happened last night is insignificant compared to Farrell’s health, but the game itself was one of the best of the season for the Red Sox. Just about everything went their way. In fact, there were so many good things that happened that putting them in paragraph form would take two geological ages, so I’ll recap them in bullets:

• Rusney Castillo went oppo in the bottom of the first, and Robbie Ross Jr. absolutely ATE IT pursuing that ball in the bullpen. Wish we had a better replay of that. Rusney would later have to leave the game due to a left foot contusion. Alejandro De Aza had two hits after replacing him.
• Travis Shaw went deep twice for the second time this season. Robbie Ross redeemed himself from the embarrassing performance he put on earlier and caught Shaw’s first one in his hat.
  
  He looked pretty pleased with himself. Glad someone is. Shaw’s second homer looked like it might’ve been catchable, but Mariner’s right fielder Seth Smith took his eye off the ball at the last second to brace himself before he crashed into the wall.
• Mookie made an incredible catch in deep left centerfield, banging into the Monster and robbing Robbie Cano of extra bases.
  
  Look how far he ran to track down that ball! And then, at a dead sprint, he timed his jump perfectly. Betts also had two hits including a triple.
• Jackie Bradley Jr. continues to hit the cover off the ball. Last night he was 3-5 with a double. He also made this dandy of a catch, possibly robbing Kyle Seager of his second dinger of the night. Jerry Remy echoed what Lefty and I said; he can’t remember anyone playing a better outfield than JBJ. The Rem Dawg of course played in the major leagues and has been around a lot longer than the two of us, so it’s higher praise but only slightly.
• Sandoval had two doubles and three total hits. One of his doubles knocked in runner #500 of his career.
• Brock Holt! had an RBI double, an RBI triple, and made a fine leaping grab with his back to the infield one play after JBJ’s catch.
• Perhaps most shocking of all, Joe Kelly was downright effective over 6 full innings, striking out 6 and walking two, while only allowing one run on the gopher ball to Seager. It was Pumpsie’s best start (and first quality start) since June 6th, and he’s now won three games in a row.

Funny how things work out when you hit, pitch, and defend well.

Notes:

-8 out of 9 Red Sox starters plus De Aza had multi-hit games.

–Papi is now slashing .258/.349/.505 on the year.

–Steven Wright has been placed on the 7-day concussion disabled list after taking a ball to the neck during batting practice in Miami. Let’s hope he doesn’t miss much more than a week, he has been pitching well.

–Koji in a cast talking to interim manager Torey Lovullo makes me sad.

(Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)