Boston Red Sox Detroit Tigers: Hello Darkness My Old Friend

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While it seems like the worst-case scenario has been played out for the Red Sox in real-time, as all we can do is sit back and watch, a Wednesday night win paired with a great start from Eduardo Rodriguez seemed be a start of the changing tides. If they could get a win on Thursday, they would have suddenly won a streak and returned to half a game in the division. That, uh, didn’t happen. Martín Pérez recorded four strikeouts. The offense didn’t do next to anything all day, and when they did things it only resulted in more disappointment with the runners left on the bases. The new relievers acquired at the deadline, Hansel Robles and Austin Davis, have joined forces to let the game slip away. It was the opposite of a tidal change, and the Red Sox are now entering a seemingly unmissable series this weekend.

The Red Sox managed to end their five-game losing streak on Wednesday, picking up a 4-1 win in Detroit over the Tigers to tie a three-game streak. Eduardo Rodriguez’s performance was just a cut below the importance of team victory. After a terrible outing and in a rotation needing a bit of stability, the southpaw pushed for five innings to lead the team to victory. They needed something similar – not necessarily in quality but rather in feel, for lack of a better word – from Martín Pérez on Thursday in the rubber match.

They did not understand it. Pérez was, to be quite frank, terrible. The southpaw had absolutely nothing in this game and has always been hit hard. It started with literally the first batter, as Robbie Grossman led the bottom half of the first as he threw a fastball into the area into the left field seats for a home run without a doubt, giving Detroit the first shot in that game. . Pérez also allowed a brace in the set, but ultimately escaped allowing just one point.

But hard contact returned from the Tigers in the second inning as well, and the left-hander’s leadership apparently only worsened as the day went on. The start of the frame was slightly better than the first, with Victor Reyes kicking off with a triple down the middle, but another set quickly came on a sacrificial fly. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if he had stopped there, but instead he gave up back-to-back hits before hitting Grossman to lead the bases.

It was only a two-set game, but the Red Sox necessary some momentum and it was pretty clear that Pérez wasn’t going to come out of this game with that in hand. Patience has been the order of the day for most of this season, but we see the urgency increasing a bit late, and Cora came out to take Pérez out with just one out in the second inning in a two-runner game. Phillips Valdez got the call, trying to keep his side in this game in a crucial multi-innings role he had had some success in before the losing streak. He allowed one of the legacy runners to come in (albeit on a fantastic play from him on a tapper past the mound that pulled one out), but he also pulled out the two hitters he faced. The 3-0 score after two looked like a win.

But to get a real victory, the kind of victory we really care about, the offense had to come out of its funk. Even in Wednesday’s win, they hit three home runs but still lost other chances, which is a growing theme over the week or two. It happened again on Thursday, starting with a 1-2-3 first, then losing back-to-back singles with two outs in the second. Bobby Dalbec was the culprit this time, striking out with two hits.

Moving on to third, with a three-way deficit for the first time in the game, they started a little earlier with a goal from Kiké Hernández and a single (thanks to poor communication in the Tigers’ infield) from Rafael Devers, both with an outside. They were each riding a sack on a bad pickup attempt as well, but JD Martinez punched in for a questionable call in the outside corner before Xander Bogaerts hit a bullet into the abyss at the bottom. center of the field in Detroit which would be caught, blocking the two runners.

Valdez, to his credit, kept the momentum going as he had another effective spot in that cleanup role, striking out the six batters he would face in the third and fourth innings to keep the deficit at three. But the offensive continued to fail. They would lose a brace with two strikeouts in the fourth, then get a starting single from Marwin Gonzalez in the fifth, just before the top of the order arose. The top three hitters were going to fall in sequence, and it was another scoreless frame.

In the bottom of the fifth, Hansel Robles came in to pitch for the Red Sox, and after a quick first out he gave up a hit and walked to put two men. He came back with a big strikeout, putting him one step away from it, but Jeimer Candelario destroyed one in the middle of the field. He stayed in the court, but bounced over the fence for a ground rule brace, making it a 4-0 game. Reyes followed it up with his second triple of the game, and that pretty much put things away, making it a six-point game.

From there, the game was largely decided, and in fact, the Tigers just added in the sixth, scoring one more run over the Red Sox’s other new reliever Austin Davis. The left-hander would allow another in the seventh to make it an eight-point game. Meanwhile, the offense added a symbolic point to the eighth on a sacrifice fly, but that was it.

The 8-1 loss dropped the Red Sox record to 64-46. With the Rays on leave, the Red Sox fell within 1.5 games of first place in the division.

The Red Sox are now looking to turn the tide as they head north of the border on their first trip to Toronto since 2019. They will have Nathan Eovaldi on the mound for the opener with Alek Manoah getting the ball for them. Blue Jays. The first pitch is set for 7:07 p.m. ET.

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