Canadian Wildfires Continue to Impact New England as They Destroy Red Sox Lumber on Monday Night!
Some very bad baseball, reminiscent of early April and May helps the Sox drop their third straight.
The heat from the Canadian wildfires is the only acceptable explanation for why the Red Sox appeared to go to the plate on Monday night without bringing their bats, because it certainly wasn’t due to anything they were seeing from Toronto’s rotation.
A combination of Jameson Taillon, Simeon Woods Richardson, and Tyler Rogers combined to throw eight scoreless innings against the helpless Sox attack, allowing five hits while walking five. In total, I think the hottest pitch the Red Sox hitters saw before Toronto closer Louis Varland entered in the ninth with his 99 MPH gas was 92 MPH. Yet Boston made those three look like Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz.
Now, before you get all over me about the “zero runs scored” comment, yes, I know the Sox scored a run, and it wasn’t in the ninth when they should have tied the game. But I’m not counting that one, and honestly, neither should the umpires...but more on that later.
As seems to be the case over the last three games, the Red Sox, to their credit, are still a resilient bunch. They put the tying run on third with fewer than two outs, but pinch-hitter Andruw Monasterio did what too many Red Sox hitters have been doing in that situation lately: he struck out. That left it up to Nick Sogard who, although he hit a couple of balls hard in his at-bat, grounded out to end the game and hand Boston its third straight loss.
It’s Always Sonny in Toronto
Sonny Gray pitched well over his six innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits while walking one and striking out four. He really only made one mistake, and Charles McAdoo somehow managed to drive it the opposite way into the bullpen in right field for a home run.
Toronto’s second run scored when Connor Wong forgot he was playing baseball in Toronto and not hockey. Instead of making the glove save and then applying the tag to the not-so-nimble George Springer, he decided to make a blocker save instead, sweeping the puck, I mean ball, into the corner and allowing Springer to score what ultimately proved to be the winning run.
Every Time You Come to the Park, You Never Know What You’re Going to See!
That was an absolute understatement for what happened in the top of the seventh inning.
Let me preface this by saying that I have watched, played, and coached some form of baseball for more than forty-five years, and I have never seen what happened at Rogers Centre on Monday night.
Before we try to dissect the rule itself, let’s begin by condemning everyone involved from the Red Sox standpoint.
One out. Runners on first and third.
I won’t even get started on why Chad Tracy decided to abandon his small-ball philosophy and not have Sogard bunt the runners to second and third before he grounded into the fielder’s choice that put runners on the corners...but I digress.
Anthony Seigler led off the inning with a single, and Connor Wong followed with one of his own. Nick Sogard then hit a scorching one-hop ground ball to the right of Vlad Guerrero. The agile Dominican made a tremendous sliding stop and threw to second to retire the middle runner.
Granted, the Rogers Centre scoreboard incorrectly showed two outs, but the Red Sox players, Anthony Seigler and Nick Sogard, should have known there was only one out. After all, they were standing on the bases, and only three Red Sox hitters had batted in the inning.
That said, players aren’t always as locked in as they should be, which is exactly why Abner Doubleday was smart enough to include first- and third-base coaches to help runners keep track of situations like this.
Apparently, those two individuals were a little sleepy after their trip to the Great White North because they forgot to remind both runners how many outs there were.
Ceddanne Rafaela, to his credit, hit a deep enough fly ball to center that almost certainly would have scored the run and cut the deficit to one while bringing up Wilyer Abreu, who has developed a bit of a flair for the dramatic lately, as the potential go-ahead run.
Instead, Sogard and Seigler turned the basepaths into their own personal merry-go-round, taking off the instant Rafaela made contact.
Once the fly ball settled into the glove of the Blue Jays’ center fielder, he casually tossed the ball back toward the infield, where it was eventually thrown to Bad Vlad, who stepped on first to end the inning and keep Boston off the scoreboard.
Or so everyone thought.
The players thought it.
The fans thought it.
The television and radio crews thought it.
Even the umpiring crew thought it.
Then, after a not-so-brief conversation with the brain trust in New York, it was determined that, in this situation, the play was ruled a timing play. Because Toronto did not touch first base to complete the inning before Seigler crossed the plate, and because they recorded the out on the trailing runner instead of the lead runner, the run counted.
That’s a very long way of saying that the early-season Red Sox reared their ugly heads again on Monday night, and it cost them dearly.
Cease and Desist
The Red Sox have now lost three straight games, and their reward is having to face Dylan Cease, the front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award.
In case anyone has forgotten what he did to Boston the last time he faced them at the end of July, let’s just say the Red Sox hitters would have had a better chance against the wildfires.
Nine consecutive series victories were fantastic, but the possibility of dropping back-to-back series to the Athletics and Blue Jays has suddenly made an already skeptical fan base very uneasy.
Here’s hoping our Oriole savior swoops in soon and restores the mojo that carried this team over the past month and a half.