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Rick Porcello Made One Mistake, And It Cost The Red Sox The Game And The Series

Rick Porcello pitched eight innings against the Baltimore Orioles last night, allowed just one earned run, and lost. It was his first loss at Fenway Park all season.

That one earned run, of course, came when Porcello gave up a monster home run to the major league leader in home runs, Mark Trumbo. That was it. One pitch, one mistake, one run, ballgame. You’ve gotta tip your cap to Kevin Gausman and the Orioles. He out-pitched a Cy Young contender at Fenway Park on Wednesday night. If you take a quick glance at Gausman’s numbers this season, you see a starting pitcher who’s good, not great. But when you look at what he’s done recently over his last five starts, what he’s done isn’t good, it’s not great, it’s excellent. Over those five starts, Gausman is 4-0 with a 0.82 ERA and 32 strikeouts in 33 innings. That’s the lowest ERA in the American League over that span.

Then, once the ninth inning comes and you’re trailing against Baltimore, it’s game over. Might as well pack your shit up and go home the second the bullpen gate opens. I think the people who are advocating for Zach Britton to win the Cy Young are out of their minds, but there’s no doubt that what he’s doing this season is the type of shit that will be talked about 100 years from now. I just can’t vote for a guy with less than 60 innings when there are stud aces out there with over 200 innings right now.

If you want a silver lining here, it’s not too hard to find. Porcello was outstanding yet again. He’s on a stretch of 13 consecutive starts where he’s pitched at least into the seventh inning. Over that span, he’s 10-2 with a 2.35 ERA, and opponents are hitting .196 with a .537 OPS against him. Since June 7, Porcello has lowered his ERA from 4.04 to where it is now at 3.12, which is fifth best in the American League and the lowest his ERA has been since May 11. In addition to that, Porcello’s 1.00 WHIP leads the American League. And just like David Price has done, Porcello has saved his best performances for when the Red Sox have needed them the most, which certainly strengthens Porcello’s case for the Cy Young award.

But now it’s time to address the elephant in the room — this feast or famine Red Sox offense. After beating Baltimore’s ass 12-2 in the series opener, the Red Sox went on to lose the next two games by scores of 6-3, and 1-0. Was it predictable? Sure. Yeah, I guess you could say that. But is there really something to this? You’ve got the Dan Shaughnessy’s of the world calling the Red Sox a stat-padding team that chokes in close games, but I’m not sure I see it that way.

When they run into beatable teams and favorable match-ups, they do what any good team should do, and that’s murder them. But last night? You wanna get on them for last night? Once you lay out the numbers and realize what Gausman has been doing lately, and what Britton has been doing all year, maybe you expect more than zero runs, but a loss in a one-run game shouldn’t be something that draws mass criticism. Acknowledge that Gausman pitched a hell of a game, and Britton was Britton, and move on.

It’s not just one game we’re talking about, though. When the Red Sox don’t score at least five runs, they don’t win very many games. In fact, they’re 13-49 when they score four runs or less. That’s, to put it quite simply, fucking horrendous. They’re 68-15 when they score five runs or more, which is great. But the fact that they have a winning percentage of .210 when they score four runs or less is putrid, especially when you compare that to the rest of the league. They’re in Minnesota Twins territory in that regard. You never want to be in Minnesota Twins territory for anything.

On the flip side, we saw another scoreless inning for Koji Uehara last night, adding to the Red Sox league-leading bullpen numbers for the month of September. So, here are the updated numbers — Koji Uehara, Brad Ziegler, Junichi Tazawa, Craig Kimbrel, Fernando Abad, Robbie Ross Jr., Joe Kelly, and Matt Barnes have combined to make 28 appearances, and throw 23.2 innings with a 0.00 ERA, a 0.97 WHIP, and 28 strikeouts in the month of September. You know the offense isn’t going to go through long periods of being dormant. What’s important is getting the starting pitching and the bullpen going, and it appears as though they have.

Final score: Orioles 1, Red Sox 0