The Red Sox's ace, Chris Sale, leaves the field after the start of the fourth inning after allowing two earned runs.(Photo: Tim Bradbury, Getty Images)

BOSTON – October baseball blinds us to the realities of the regular season.

We can understand, rationally, that the result of an individual baseball game is never reliable and that the best teams and the best players can usually count on them to perform as such, while separating the results of the game. 'an isolated competition and extrapolating bold, specious conclusions about how the rest of the post-season will shake.

A game is a single game

The Boston Red Sox have up to six other players in front of them in this year's American League championship series. But in this one game – the first game – it has become extremely difficult to watch the Boston club and consider the one that has won 108 regular season games, and it's even harder to see the Red Sox as anything other than a unhappy condemned in this series. .

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Although still close to entering the ninth inning, The match slipped late, with the Houston Astros 7-2 convincing win over what could be a serious problem for the Red Sox: their pitcher, or their sudden lack.

Chris Sale, Boston ace and one of the most dominant starters in the game, struggled to control and control the number of his throws. After two quick starts to start the second, Sale walked a hitter, a batter, and then another batter to charge the goals. George Springer's double gave Houston a quick lead.

"I lost command," Sale said after the match. "I was looking for that. You just do your best to fix it, limit the damage and get out of it as quickly as possible. It's one of those things that's happening. Sometimes you go out and fight. That was really the case. "

Sale left the match after four innings, with 86 shots already registered. Apart from the brief start he made in September when he returned from the shoulder injury that had sidelined him for most of August, Sale was the shortest outing of the season.

"It was a fight for him," said manager Alex Cora. "He only ordered the glove side of the fast ball for the right-handed ones. He found his cursor only the fourth. "

Joe Kelly relieved Sale, scooped a scoreless fifth, and opened the sixth by sending Alex Bregman with a 1-2 quickball to give the Astros a goal. Bregman had come here to score thanks in part to a mistake by Red Sox third baseman Eduardo Nunez, but Kelly was barely accurate, throwing more balls than strikes on his half-minute relay on Saturday.

Matt Barnes followed and showed more of the same. Barnes did not allow a run in 1 / ¼ turn, but walked two batters and, like Kelly, threw more balls than shots. Ryan Brasier opened the scoring in the eighth inning, but also beat the batter and threw more balls than shots.

The only reliever of the Red Sox to have found the strike zone with more than half of his shots Saturday should probably have avoided it: Brandon Workman, called to keep the game tight at the top of the ninth place, granted four points on three hits – homer – and two rides in only round. Heath Hembree overthrew Workman and started the final, but also played the goal.

"(Workman) did not execute his throws and they made him pay," said Cora.

When entering the series, the Red Sox launch staff seemed to be a potential concern, but only in comparison with Astros, historically good. The Boston pitchers, after all, finished the regular season with the third best AHL squad – behind the Astros and Rays – and even their current bullpen was fourth in the league.

Entering Match 2, the Red Sox throwing team looks like a blatant weakness. With Sale, probably on the board until the 4th match at least, with Kelly, Barnes and Workman probably limited by their long and uncertain outings on Saturday, and even some question marks about the close Craig Kimbrel after he Did not find the strike zone in Game 4 of ALDS, what the Sox need, it is a long and solid performance of their starting pitcher Sunday.

What the Sox have is David Price, a pitcher with a record of 0-9 and a score of 6.03 in 10 career playoff games, ready to face off with one of the most deep and powerful baseball.

Once again: the Sox lost only one game on Saturday, barely the full set. It is a shallow hole in which they are, and only the recent performance of their pitching staff makes it look cavernous.

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