The Red Sox fell to the Blue Jays Friday night 6-1 in what proved a rough game for Rick Porcello.
Alright, so the Red Sox lost. They did not play spoiler in favor of the Yankees which, depending on who you ask, was the goal.
Or, at least, one of them. To revisit the agenda we set earlier:
- Rick Porcello being as good as he has been since returning to action.
- Jackie Bradley Jr. remembering how to hit. (And, seriously, where's that day off?)
- Everyone else who will play in 2016 doing reasonably well.
- Losing the game
Of those, the Sox certainly managed the last, and...well, Mookie Betts was 2-for-4, Travis Shaw 1-for-3 with a walk, and Blake Swihart 1-for-3. And that was about it. The first two points were total failures. For the first time since his return to action, Rick Porcello struggled mightily. And while you might assume that, with it being Rick Porcello in Toronto against the Jays, that the problem was the long ball, in fact it was everything but.
A leadoff double led to a run in the third, but that was hardly damning. In fact, the argument can be made that Porcello was cruising...right up until Brock Holt wasted a chance to erase a leadoff walk with a double play ball off the bat of Edwin Encarnacion. Holt's misplay cost Porcello at least one out, very likely two, and turned what could have been a clean rebound inning into a disaster, as Justin Smoak doubled and Ryan Goins tripled around a strikeout of Russell Martin to leave the Sox in a 4-0 hole.
The Jays would add another pair of runs in the sixth as a trio of singles loaded the bases with zero outs. While Porcello was able to get the next three batters he faced out, a wild pitch brought home one run, and a sacrifice fly added a second, making it six runs for Toronto.
Nothing past the second, however, mattered much. The fifth inning was Boston's only real run-scoring opportunity of note, with a couple singles putting runners on the corners with one down. An overturned out call at first gave them both their first (and only) run of the game and another good opportunity, but Jackie Bradley (0-for-3, so goal two not so much) struck out and Mookie Betts hit a ground ball to end the threat. Otherwise, the Red Sox mostly hit singles, and then grounded into double plays afterwards.
A bad performance on the mound, at the plate, and in the field. The Red Sox lost, which is arguably actually not a bad thing in this series, but they did it in entirely the wrong way.