In the process of invading the Aztec Empire, Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes decided that the best way to prevent (further) mutiny was to sink his own ships. His men might not like him, or want to continue on, but with their only way home deep underwater, the only real hope of survival was to move forward with the conquest.
Now, I'm loathe to suggest the Red Sox imitate one of history's great monsters, but we might be getting to the point where it's time to blow up the bullpen so the starters know that the only option is to finish the job.
Yes, it was one of those nights again. Even through four double plays in five innings, the Red Sox had managed to take a 4-2 lead over the Royals thanks in no small part to Kansas City making a mess of things defensively in the fifth. They even loaded the bases and then actually proceeded to score all three baserunners, miracle of miracles.
Eduardo Rodriguez? He wasn't great coming back from injury, surrendering two runs in the second with Salvador Perez going deep yet again. But he recovered nicely and got the Sox into the sixth.
That's where things started to go wrong. Rodriguez struggled to find the zone, and when he did, he got beat by Kendrys Morales for a double. The first three batters would reach to load the bases, and while Rodriguez did manage to get the first out of the inning without letting a run come home, he wasn't given a chance to get the rest. Matt Barnes entered, and if the game had started to go wrong to start the inning, this is where it went completely off the rails. There was bad pitching--a bases-clearing triple to the deepest part of the park that just missed being a grand slam, for instance--and bad luck alike, with two tappers that didn't even get back to the mound somehow going for hits. Ground ball singles, a hit batter, the inning had everything but outs.
Eight runs. Eight damn runs they surrendered before the sixth was over. The inning was a slap in the face from the Baseball Gods, who really need to be told this sort of thing isn't cool. And of course this was the night where Junichi Tazawa put up two scoreless, so he'll move to the front of the line now, likely to give up four when he gets his next important inning.
No, the Sox can't just dump their entire bullpen save a couple arms and just tell the starters to deal with it. That wasn't actually a suggestion, and I think we can surmise by this point that the Sox will be waiting until rosters expand to get any real added depth into the unit from Triple-A. But...maybe just for the sake of catharsis, burning something in effigy? No? Oh well.