Is It Possible To Be Disappointed After A Successful Road Trip? Because I Am
If I told you back on August 14 that the Red Sox were about to go 7-4 on their 11-game road trip, you’d be stoked about that, right?
That’s why this was most definitely a successful road trip. But you bet your ass I’m still disappointed, because, again, this team finds new ways to lose games in nut-kicking fashion all the time. It seems like a month ago, but think back to last Thursday when John Farrell used Junichi Tazawa in the 8th inning of a 3-1 game when he had both Brad Ziegler and Craig Kimbrel available. The Red Sox lost that game 4-3, but that was a win if the game was managed properly. I know that’s too much to ask these days.
They had been unbeaten on the road trip to that point. Three days later, Eduardo Rodriguez taps out of his start, less than 24 hours before he’s supposed to make it, on Sunday. The Red Sox needed to scratch Henry Owens from his start for the PawSox on Saturday, get him on a plane to Detroit, so that he can take the mound at Comerica, all while running on four hours sleep, just so that he can go out there and puke on himself for the Red Sox. Boston scored five runs that game. Rodriguez has a 2.52 ERA since he was recalled from Pawtucket on July 16. I like my chances if Rodriguez had started that game over Owens.
Loss number three on the road trip was the shitshow on Wednesday night. Farrell strikes again, allowing Rick Porcello to come back out for the 8th inning, even though he had already thrown 105 pitches over 7 innings and, once again, he had Ziegler and Kimbrel available. The Rays tied the game with a home run off of a tired Porcello in the 8th, and won it in 11 innings when Heath Hembree fumbled an underhand toss to the bag at first, followed by a terrible throw to the plate, leading to the Red Sox losing their third game this season on a walk-off error. And that’s not even factoring in that Andrew Benintendi (knock on wood) might be lost for the season after suffering a knee injury in the same game.
Realistically speaking, the Red Sox shoulda, woulda, coulda been 10-0 going into the final game of this 11-game road trip in St. Pete. I’ve got no technicalities for the finale. Drew Pomeranz pitched yet another really solid game, continuing his streak of consecutive starts where he’s allowed two earned runs or less to five, all coming in the month of August (2.40 ERA). In six innings of work, Pomeranz struck out a career high 11 batters, holding the Rays to two earned runs. The offense did nothing for him, which seems to be the norm for Pomeranz. The Red Sox scored 11 runs in his debut against the Giants back on July 20, and they’ve averaged 2.6 runs per game for him in the seven starts since.
Can we finally call out the Red Sox for how shitty they are with the bases loaded? It started out as just a joke, because the Red Sox are still the best hitting team in the majors by any unit of measurement you want to go by (runs, batting average, OPS), so I assumed that this was just a fluke. But we’re almost in the final month of the season, and they’re still atrocious with the bases loaded. How atrocious? Only the Mets, Braves, Rays and Phillies have been worse this year. The Mets are the only team out of that bunch with a winning record.
After their loss on Thursday, the Red Sox are now hitting .216 with a .601 OPS with the bases loaded. I don’t understand how you could be the highest run-producing team and best hitting team in the majors across the board, yet struggle so mightily in the premiere run-producing situation. Here are the biggest culprits with the bases loaded — Travis Shaw (0-for-4), Aaron Hill (0-for-3), David Ortiz (0-for-6), Christian Vazquez (1-for-9), Brock Holt (1-for-5), Jackie Bradley Jr. (2-for-12), Mookie Betts (3-for-12), and Xander Bogaerts (3-for-12). Not a whole lot of damage there. And you can roll your eyes and say it’s not that big of a deal, but it is a big deal when the Red Sox are losing games because they don’t come through in these situations. That was the case again on Thursday.
Final score: Rays 2, Red Sox 1