Before anything else: Boston traded Mike Napoli to the Rangers on Friday in a post-deadline deal, for cash or a player to be named later (hopefully a player, because cash is boring). Like I’ve said before, the Red Sox were unlikely to keep Napoli next year, so it was best to get something, anything for him while they still could. I might say that this move is an indication of giving up on the season, but Nap was such an offensive detriment to the team this year that Travis Shaw or anyone else has a good shot at improving on his production in what’s left of the season.

The Red Sox didn’t tell their usual story on Friday night. They got out to an early 2-0 lead against recent Blue Jay and current Tiger Daniel Norris on a 2-out, 2-run double in the first inning by Hanley Ramirez, who knocked in Rusney Castillo and Xander Bogaerts, both of whom singled. Even better, David Ortiz hit a 2-out, 2-run home run in the top of the 3rd, bringing in Castillo again, who’d singled for the second time. 4-0, Boston.

Meanwhile, Joe Kelly got out to a hot start, looking dominant in recording his first six outs of the game by way of strikeout around two first-inning singles. He put most of them away with some nasty-looking breaking balls. Both the 2^nd and 3^rd innings went in the books as 1-2-3 frames.

The Sox got another run in the 4^th inning as the result of a rally that started with a single by Jackie Bradley, Jr. of all people. Buck Farmer (amazing name) relieved Norris after he gave up another single to Brock Holt, advancing Bradley to third. Jackie ended up scoring on a would-be double play that never turned from second base to give Kelly a 5-0 advantage.

But Kelly couldn’t keep us his total dominance, giving up a single to Ian Kinsler to start the 5^th and a ball in the gap to Victor Martinez that should absolutely have been a double. But Jackie Bradley tracked it down, somehow making it look fairly easy. Kinsler had already advanced past second base and had to turn on the jets to make it back to first before Bradley’s laser throw hit Travis Shaw’s glove at first. It was impossibly close for the degree of difficulty involved. He really probably is the best defensive outfielder alive.

Unfortunately, Kelly wasn’t able to completely capitalize on the defense behind him, immediately giving up a 2-run home run to J.D. Martinez, his 30^th of the season. With the score 5-2, Kelly got the last out of the inning by picking off Tyler Collins, who’d singled despite a tremendous diving effort by Xander Bogaerts, at first base.

Kelly also got help from his defense in getting out of the 5^th inning after giving up a walk and a single to start things off. Center fielder Anthony Gose lined to Holt at second, who tossed to Bogaerts to double off Alex Avila.

Boston got two more runs in the top of the 6^th inning. Ryan Hanigan was hit by a pitch (he’d later get removed for Blake Swihart) to lead off. Bradley grounded into a fielder’s choice and Castillo singled for the third time on the night, and Bogaerts hit a sharp ground ball double down the third base line to bring both runners around and make the score 7-2.

After starting the 6^th inning with a walk to Kinsler, a fly out by Victor Martinez, and a double by J.D. Martinez, Joe Kelly was lifted from the game and replaced with Robbie Ross, Jr., who did an excellent job in a 2^nd and 3^rd, 1 out situation, getting a pinch-hitting Rajai Davis to strike out swinging and third baseman Nick Castellanos to ground out to second.

Jean Machi had his first decent outing as a Red Sox reliever in the 7^th, giving up a double to catcher James McCann but nothing else. Justin Masterson had an equally decent inning in the 8^th, giving up only a single to J.D. Martinez, who ended up a triple short of the cycle. But Masterson ran into trouble in the bottom of the 9^th, giving up a leadoff double and a walk before striking out McCann. Gose walked too, and with the bases loaded and 1 out, John Farrell elected to bring in Koji Uehara to seal the win.

In a way, it worked out great. Koji got the last two outs of the inning for the unorthodox save. But the last out of the game came on a hard line drive back at the closer, who put his right arm in harm’s way to stop the ball and took the ball hard off his wrist.

He fielded the ball and threw to first for the game’s last out, but was in obvious pain as he came off the field. X-rays on Uehara’s wrist came back negative, which is positive! And these tweets should explain why Koji is the man:

Koji Uehara:”I consider my whole body to be the glove once I release the ball.” #RedSox — Steve Buckley (@BuckinBoston) August 8, 2015

Koji reiterated that he is OK. X-rays were negative, Felt good enough to joke in English that his wrist was broken and his season over — Gordon Edes (@GordonEdes) August 8, 2015

I don’t know what it was about last night’s game. Maybe it was the fact that we’d been destroyed the night before, or that I’m gradually coming to grips with the idea that this season is a complete lost cause. But I REALLY wanted the Sox to win. Very, very badly. I wanted them to ruin Luis Severino’s major league debut and his entire career. I wanted Steven Wright to embarrass the Yankees one by one, leaving them tangled in knots and wondering where the ball had gone. One of these, fortunately, actually came true.

Things started off well for Severino, as he put the Red Sox down in order in the 1st inning (including perhaps the most frustrating shift-robbery of a hit that David Ortiz has had all year). But the Red Sox’ patient approach with the rookie showed its face early on, as Holt, Bogaerts, and Ortiz saw 17 pitches in the first frame. In fact, every Boston starter got two looks at Severino tonight, and every one of those eighteen at-bats started with either a ball or a non-swinging strike. The count-bleeding paid off: Severino threw 94 pitches through 5 innings before Joe Girardi elected to pull him.

Wright did Severino one better in his half of the first, and had a better 2nd inning than his counterpart too. Each of the first five outs he recorded was a strikeout. He also walked a batter in each inning, but they were the only free passes he’d allow all night. Meanwhile, in the top half of the 2nd, Hanley popped out, Sandoval grounded to first, and Mike Napoli grounded out to third—whoops, no he didn’t. Chase Headley short-armed the throw to first and gave Mark Teixeira no chance to scoop it. Napoli advanced to second and Alejandro De Aza made sure to make the mistake count, smacking a double to the wall in right-center to drive in the go-ahead run. Blake Swihart ended the inning with a runner in scoring position for the first of three times on the night.

After an uneventful 3rd inning (probably most notable for containing the first of three unimpressive Jackie Bradley, Jr. at-bats), Ortiz took two Severino balls and then CRUSHED a middle-in fastball to right-center:

Things went in order from there, with the Red Sox lineup taking just enough pitches to end Severino’s night after 5 innings. In Wright’s half of the 5th, the knuckleballer finally ran into some real trouble, giving up singles to both Didi Gregorius and John Ryan Murphy. But he got Jacoby Ellsbury to strike out for the third time on the night to escape the situation.

Adam Warren came in for the Yankees in the 6th and gave them 3 innings of scoreless relief. He did give up a double to Sandoval in the top of the 6th and hit Napoli, but neither De Aza nor Swihart could do anything about it, and the runners were stranded harmlessly.

Wright made his only real mistake of the night in the bottom of the 7th, giving up a leadoff solo shot to Carlos Beltrán. It was definitely the product of the short porch in New Yankee Stadium’s right field. But even though Wright was getting away with high knuckleballs all night, it was inevitable that one would come back to bite him. The damage done, the former second-round pick retired the side from there.

He gave up a single to start the 8th, but what might have been the second consecutive hit of the inning became a momentum-killing double play when an Ellsbury ground ball kicked off of Wright’s foot and directly to Xander Bogaerts, who stepped on the bag and made a good athletic play to get Ellsbury at first.

Boston made a good two-out effort to get some insurance in the top of the 9th against lefty and terrible name-haver Chasen Shreve. Sandoval hit his second double of the night, this one a ground-rule job. Napoli intentionally walked (after two non-intentional balls) and Rusney Castillo, pinch-hitting for the lefty De Aza, walked to load the bases. Unfortunately, after a good 8-pitch at-bat, Swihart couldn’t find the right ending for it, striking out looking to move to the last frame of the night.

Koji Uehara came in for the save, relieving Wright after eight strong innings from the knuckler. The closer ran into some trouble, giving up a 1-out single to Teixeira that Castillo trapped and tried to sell:

Chris Young pinch-ran for Teixeira and advanced to second on a splitter gone wrong. Koji got Beltrán to fly out to Bradley in center, walked Chase Headley on five pitches…and finally got a pinch-hitting Brian McCann to fly out to center to end the game.

Only 8.5 games back of a wild card spot…

Notes:

• You should watch this highlight reel of Steven Wright’s performance, but mostly you NEED to skip to 0:34 in the video to see the break on strike three to Didi Gregorius. It’s probably one of the nastiest knuckleballs I’ve ever seen.

• At some point (the 7th?), John Farrell had Robbie Ross, Jr. start to warm up in the bullpen, and one of the ESPN announcers suggested that it was to dissuade the Yankees from pinch-hitting Brian McCann. Pretty cool move.