Boston Red Sox Baltimore Orioles: unacceptable

I do not know what to say. Baseball is a strange place. Bad teams beat good teams. It’s something that happens regularly in a way that doesn’t happen in, say, the NFL and the NBA. This is part of the game. But at the same time, it can not happen in this situation. It can’t happen when the Red Sox are in control of their own destiny for a playoff spot, just needing not to crumble. It can’t happen when the team you’re up against has one of the worst pitching staffs in recent memory. It can’t happen while you’re fighting for your playoff life against an organization that hasn’t made any noticeable effort to win in half a decade.

Allowing rallies to start with a low end that would barely fit in the Triple-A cannot happen. Back-to-back quick innings against a pitcher with an ERA greater than 7.00 cannot occur. Two runs against a bad pitcher with the same repertoire as the other two bad pitchers you faced earlier in the series cannot happen. The season is not over. The Red Sox still have a share of a playoff berth and they have another chance against a bad team to end the season. And what have we seen so far this week? It just can’t happen this weekend.

Even beyond just winning Thursday’s game, which was clearly the only one real Goal of the evening, the Red Sox also wanted to advance their offense. The squad have been extremely frustrating for five games now, especially in this series against the worst pitching staff in all of baseball. They ended up scoring six points on Wednesday, but the game was even closer than it should have been. They wanted an early attack here and real momentum to lead them through the night.

And right off the bat, it seemed exactly like this was what we were going to get. The very first pitch of that game was a fastball into the zone at Kiké Hernández, and the Red Sox point guard jumped on it, notching a home run at center field to give Boston the first possible lead. And even better, they would do more traffic after that. Xander Bogaerts walked on a walk with one putout before Rafael Devers snatched a hit to put in two with a putout.

It was a chance to really build that early momentum and potentially build up one day early. Instead, JD Martinez flew away before Hunter Renfroe came out, ending the round with only a one point lead. And from there they just got stopped by a guy from Alexander Wells who not only entered the day with a higher 7.00 ERA, but also has a very similar pitch mix to the last two pitchers that they were confronted.

This should have been the occasion to find a groove at the level of the plate. Instead, over the next four innings, they sent the minimum 12 batters over to plate, only hitting a single that was immediately canceled by a double play. It was pitiful.

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On the other side, Nick Pivetta started to look extremely sharp in this game. He had his main pitches working and as a result he took out the batting side in the first and put out the first six batters he faced.

But when he came out in the third, he suddenly didn’t get anything. Facing the bottom of the order, Pivetta’s command suddenly moved away from him. He propelled the first hitter he faced, who quickly moved up to second on a wild pitch. After yielding a hit to the next batter, he threw another wild pitch (both smashing balls into the dirt) to put two men in scoring position.

To his credit, the Red Sox right-hander fought back with two straight strikeouts, but the second was on an absolutely excruciating three-strike call from Manny Gonzalez, whose strike zone in this game could very well have been the worst and the most inconsistent we have seen. all season. And in a real moment to not lie, Pivetta’s very next pitch after the strikeout was a fastpitch intermediate for Ryan Mountcastle. The Baltimore slugger sent an unmistakable shot to left field, giving his team a 3-1 lead.

Pivetta would end up crossing 4 ²??₃ innings, putting another couple of runners in fourth before handing things over to Ryan Brasier to finish things off. He managed to do so to keep the deficit down to two before the sixth.

Nothing would matter without some offense, however, and Wells had retired seven in a row early in the inning, including a fifth of eight pitches with three consecutive weak balls. Kyle Schwarber walked on a walk with a sixth putout to break the eight-in-a-row streak, but it was yet another scoreless inning.

That got us to the bottom of the sixth, and this is where the wheels really fell off. Garrett Richards got the ball for the Red Sox here, and he didn’t. Trey Mancini jumped on the first pitch he saw for a debut single, then a cut hit later Kelvin Gutierrez had his own single. Richards then threw a wild throw to put two in scoring position and also bring the infield, which would prove costly when Tyler Nevin tore a dirt player through the left side for a two-run single. Nevin moved up to second, then third on another wild throw before coming home on a sacrificial fly.

Suddenly it was a 6-1 game and the Red Sox were in desperate need of some life from an attack that had shown nothing like it for most of that game. JD Martinez started the round on the right foot with a brace and Hunter Renfroe followed him with a walk. They would each come up from one base to a ground balloon from Alex Verdugo that effectively served as sacrificial decay, and Martinez would come home to wild ground to reduce the deficit to four. Travis Shaw was at home as a pinch hitter, now with a runner in third and an out, but he couldn’t put the ball into play. He struck out, then José Iglesias came out to end the inning. with the Red Sox settling for just one point.

Adam Ottavino did his job in the lower half, using a steal to his advantage to face just three batters up the inning. But the offense had to close a four-point deficit and had just six more strikeouts to play with. They also had the top of the range for the eighth, but they only sent three to plate thanks to a double play from Bogaerts immediately after a walk with a Schwarber out.

After Matt Barnes threw a scoreless bottom half of the eighth, Boston had another chance to put on a rally. Instead, they went down without adding any tracks, and that was it. The 6-2 loss dropped the Red Sox record to 89-70.

The Mariners were on leave tonight, which means they’re now tied with the Red Sox for that second wildcard spot. Meanwhile, the Yankees hold a late lead over the Blue Jays at the time of writing. If that holds, Boston will maintain its one-game lead over Toronto for second wildcard while its deficit behind New York for first place would drop to two games with three to go.

The Red Sox are now heading to our nation’s capital to end the season against the Nationals. They will have Eduardo Rodriguez against Josh Rogers. The first pitch is set for 7:05 p.m. ET.

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