Red Sox 9, Orioles 13: Go away, Joe Kelly

Two innings into the game, Mookie Betts had made it five homers in seven at bats. Chris Young ended up going deep twice against righties. David Ortiz added his 15th bomb of the year.

How do the Red Sox lose this game? They start Joe Kelly. For the 41st damn time they start Joe Kelly and expect that this time it's going to be different. For the third year they put him in their rotation and think it's a fine idea.

It wasn't different. It's not a fine idea. The only thing more miserable than Joe Kelly is the fan who has to watch him ruin yet another game for their favorite baseball team.

Somehow, Kelly managed to one-up Mike Wright's feat of allowing six earned runs in the process of recording eight outs. While he managed to keep the ball in the park, Kelly walked three batters and allowed seven hits in the process of surrendering seven runs while recording just as many outs. For those doing the math, that's a 27.00 ERA on the day, bringing his season mark up to 8.46.

With Kelly out of the game, Sox fans were treated to a brief disaster from Tommy Layne, whose presence in the bullpen is increasingly questionable, and then the conceptual horror of seeing Clay Buchholz pitch in the same game as Joe Kelly. For as awful as that sounds, though, Buchholz actually did a halfway decent job. And it might have been enough to let the Red Sox actually come away with a win had everything not gone to hell (again) at once in the sixth, with Buchholz allowing two walks to start the frame and Dustin Pedroia pulling a total Bill Buckner on the ground ball that should have undone that rough opening with a double play.  Instead of keeping the game tied, the Sox fell behind by multiple runs again, leaving Farrell to try to get more out of Buchholz and turning to Matt Barnes in an already messy seventh, leading to three more runs. The Orioles pulled away late while the best parts of Boston's bullpen remained, understandably under the circumstances, seated.

So that's all terrible. The Red Sox were playing on house money, yes, but wasting another massive Mookie performance is depressing in its own right.

The real good news here, though, and what makes it all worth it, is that as of one minute ago, Joe Kelly was sent to Pawtucket. This headline was written as a request. A prayer, even. It was answered before publication.

We are free, my friends. We are free.