I’m writing this at 11:01 PM so excuse me if this becomes altered in any way. For a team that has had so much going their way, Friday night did not feel quite the same. Eduardo Rodriguez made the start for the Red Sox, and he was solid. Six shutout innings, two hits and two walks, while also striking out seven. A thirty pitch first inning didn’t help things, but it was good to see ERod get through six full with only 107 pitches. He definitely deserved the win, something he hasn’t gotten since May 26th. Unfortunately, the Red Sox bullpen had other plans. Shout out to Matt Barnes for doing his job, pitching a shutout seventh inning while facing four batters. Now, this is where things get messy, starting with Addison Reed. Since that home run he gave up against the Indians, Reed has been used lightly and mostly in the seventh inning, but he’s looked good in those appearances. Friday night was a different story though, as Reed started the inning by hitting Brett Gardner on the foot. The next batter, Aaron Hicks took Reed deep for a cheap Yankee Stadium home run, bringing the Yankees within one run. After giving up a single and a walk, John Farrell went with Joe Kelly, who was not much better. Kelly allowed both the tying run and go-ahead run to score while also allowing a third to score. After facing six batters and getting two outs, Kelly left the game in favor of Fernando Abad, who recorded the final out. So, a bullpen that leads the majors in ERA blew a lead in a pretty important game, a winnable game to say the least. Addison Reed is making the case to not be used in any high leverage situations at all, and Joe Kelly got rocked in his second game off the disabled list. All and all, the Red Sox had a three run lead going into the bottom of the eighth and ended up having nothing to show for it.
On the other side of things, the offense deserves some blame for this loss as well. Before the top of the ninth, the only three runs scored came on home runs. The first, a two-run blast off the bat of Hanley Ramirez in the first, his eighteenth, and the second being a solo shot off the bat of Andrew Benintendi in the fifth, his fourteenth. There were more opportunities to get some runs on the board, but the Red Sox couldn’t capitalize. Yankees starter Jaime Garcia loaded the bases in the top of the third, which led to nothing. If we can fast forward to the ninth, Aroldis Chapman was awful. He walked the first three guys he saw to load the bases again. Things got ugly after Andrew Benintendi hit a sacrifice fly to Aaron Hicks in left. A run did score but the man who was at second, Eduardo Nunez, tried to advance to third.
He failed in doing so, recording the second out in the process, and basically ruined any momentum the Red Sox had. Mitch Moreland then flied out to Jacoby Ellsbury, and the bail out of Chapman was complete.
This could end up being the worst loss of the season, but it might not even matter come October. It all depends on how the rest of the series goes. Drew Pomeranz is pitching later today, and Chris Sale is pitching Sunday night, so the outlook looks good for the remaining two games.
65 down, ? to go.
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