Game 70: Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 1 - Fooled You!!!
Red Sox Lineup goes back to sleep after a "busy" weekend.
Following a series win that felt like a loss because of how they played on Sunday night against the Rangers, the Red Sox laid another egg at home against the Blue Jays. After scoring 20 runs in three games against Texas, the Sox were hoping to keep that offensive trend going against Dylan Cease, who had lost two of his last three starts and whom they had already beaten once this year back in April. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, they are about as consistent as a broken compass, and last night it was simply pointing the Sox bats back to the dugout!
Payton Tolle pitched alright for the home team, allowing only one run through the first four innings, but in the fifth he was stricken with a little “Early-Wissertitis,” allowing a pair of solo homers to “Future Home Run Derby Champs” Davis Schneider and Andres Gimenez at a combined distance of 832 feet! With the score 3-0 through five innings, we all knew what that meant…..Loss #41 was a statistical certainty. Right, Craig?
Tolle Does Just Enough to Lose
Overall, Payton Tolle didn’t pitch terribly. He went five innings, allowing three runs on four hits. He surrendered two walks while striking out six Blue Jays. Now, I know the broadcast just loves those K’s! But Tolle had to throw 90 pitches to get through those five innings, and when you have a young starter who is already on an innings limit, whether Red Sox brass says it out loud or not, there was no reason to extend him any further, given the Red Sox’s knack for ensuring opponent victories once they trail by three or more runs.
The Cavalry to the Rescue
Once Tolle was out of the game, Tracy decided to go to the change-up master, Tommy Kahnle, who allowed that human wrecking machine, Davis Schneider, hitting all of .163 on the year, to drive in his second run of the night with a double.
The great Ryan Watson, so glad we are stacked enough to keep a Rule 5 guy on the roster all year, allowed a 438-foot tank, to who else, but George Springer, who I believe has now received two impressive contracts based solely on the damage he does to Boston pitching.
On the bright side, the aforementioned Greg Weissert did manage to throw a scoreless inning, but that was only because he entered the game with it already out of control and saw no need to waste any of his quality implosion pitches on an already lost cause.
Don’t You Talk About Trading Me!
Following his magnificent last month of baseball and the dominant performance he put on over the weekend against the Rangers, Willson Contreras showed the Fenway Faithful just how much he loves it here and that he really wants to remain a Red Sox.
In an effort to dispel all the talk around baseball about how the Red Sox should trade him for future prospects, he put on a display that would make Bobby Dalbec envious, going 0-for-4 and taking home the Golden Sombrero.
You have to give him credit, though. Always looking out for the organization and not wanting Craig Breslow to screw up another deal, he took it upon himself to help Craig save some face.
Duran Flexing
Jarren Duran did pad his offensive numbers by hitting a clutch solo home run in the bottom of the eighth inning when they were down 4-0. Giving Fenway something to cheer about and allowing fans to go home saying, “Hey, at least we weren’t shut out!”
Final Thoughts
I would love to say that the Red Sox still have a chance to take this series and make it two in a row, but even with Max Scherzer pitching,who couldn’t beat the Sox when he was good... harken back to better days. Thank you, Papi! The Sox have Jake Bennett going.
Although Bennett can’t be any worse than Bryan Bello and there isn’t a 100% chance of Toronto scoring in the first inning, there is still a 95% chance, and that is good enough to believe that whatever number they put up, it will be an insurmountable deficit for the 2026 Red Sox offense.
But miracles have been known to happen, especially recently in my new favorite sport: soccer, or dear I say futball, like our brain trust at FSG.
Curse you, Red Sox, for being such an unwatchable product that you have driven me to the World Cup. But I digress.
Sonny Gray goes on Thursday afternoon, so maybe, just maybe, there is hope...
Oh, forget it.
Go watch England this afternoon and then Panama tonight. I am willing to bet you will see more offense in those games than you will from the home nine at Fenway.were not shut out!”
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