Did you think Tuesday night's 5-2 defeat to the Rays made for a good time? Was your only real issue that period where the Red Sox had a lead? Then Wednesday night's 6-2 loss was perfection.
Once again, the bats just did not show up to Fenway Park. While there's two runs on the board for the Red Sox in the final score, it took them until the ninth to put those up, with Mookie Betts the only player who was consistently productive from start (a single into left off Drew Smyly) to finish (one into center off of Kirby Yates to bring Jackie Bradley Jr. in for Boston's first run).
The rest were more or less just miserable. Betts was stranded at third after his leadoff snigle, with David Ortiz the only batter able to reach base in the inning when Smyly basically decided to give him first. Smyly would proceed to strike out six batters over his next 10 faced, with Rusney Castillo finally managing to get Boston another hit with a single up the middle before a ground out from Blake Swihart ended the fourth.
On the mound for the Red Sox, Rick Porcello was having a pretty good night in his own right. Coming off his worst start since he returned to action, Porcello was showing signs of another remarkable performance early on, striking out five batters through four scoreless innings of work. Some of the shine would wear off in the middle innings, but Porcello still managed to finish the sixth with a shutout intact.
In the seventh, though, the Rays finally managed to break through, frustratingly enough in an inning which was mostly a matter of ground balls finding holes in the infield. Porcello struck out two of the first three batters he faced, but one ground ball single to Kevin Kiermaier, along with a walk from John Jaso, set up another ground ball--this time off the bat of old friend Daniel Nava--to bring a run home for the Rays.
Seven innings and one run would have been quite the night for Porcello, but as I said earlier, this was a repeat performance from the Red Sox. Torey Lovullo had tried for one too many innings from Henry Owens on Tuesday, and was burned with a big inning. This game was no different. Porcello stayed in to allow a double to Asdrubal Cabrera and single to Steve Souza on three pitches despite starting the inning with well over 100 on his arm, and an errant throw from Deven Marrero quickly let Cabrera come in to score. John Jaso would later double off Tommy Layne to make it 4-0.
Of course, even had Lovullo turned to the bullpen earlier, there's no reason to believe they would have kept the game in reach. Jean Machi gave proof enough of that by allowing a homer to Cabrera in the ninth and quickly getting himself ejected, bringing Roman Mendez into the game to allow another solo shot to Souza. With the Rays now ahead 6-0, Boston's last ditch effort wasn't even enough to really threaten Tampa Bay's lead, with David Ortiz flying out to end the game before the tying run could even see the plate.