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Let’s get into it. Drew Pomeranz walked the first guy, Whit Merrifield. That wasn’t good. Six out of the first seven pitches were balls! Then he threw a meatball to Jorge Soler, who knocked a double to left. Also not good, but still no score. After a K, Salvador Perez hit a sac fly that somehow resulted in the run scoring and an inning-ending double play, but point is, 1-0 Royals.
Mookie Betts led off the first with a single and Andrew Benintendi worked a full count and then whiffed on a pitch right down the middle and the rest of the inning sort of piffled away after that.
Did I mention it was 85 degrees at gametime? It was 85 degrees at gametime. I mention this because it was very nice and I had to write this recap to cover for Matt but I wanted to go outside so I did, during which time Drew Butera hit a two-run double to knock in Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon. That’s not a great sentence for Pomeranz, and it put the Sox down 3-0. It stayed that way when the Sox went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the second.
In the top of the third Soler hit a double down the line that popped back to Rafael Devers that was initially called an out, but was not an out, and Pomeranz’s nightmare continued. A fluky check-swing single to left by Mike Moustakas extended Drew’s bad dream, but he got out of it.
The Red Sox went 1-2-3 in the third. At this point I went toward the beach. For which you should thank me! Because ad soon as I did, I fired up the ol’ radio machine just in time to hear Pomeranz go into full lockdown mode, J.D. Martinez hit a two-run homer to tie it -and — oh yeah — Mookie Betts hitting two solo shots to put the Sox ahead 4-3 entering the seventh. (They went Mookie-J.D.-Mookie, for the record.) And guess what? The beach was closed anyway.
Joe Kelly came back from his suspension to pitch a perfect seventh, at which point MOOKIE HIT ANOTHER SOLO HOMER. This friggin guy. 5-3 Sox, and after the ceremonial Benintendi strikeout, Duffy was finally lifted, the Sox went down and it was time for the eighth inning
Matt Barnes came on to pitch for the second straight day and recorded two quick outs before giving up a homer to right from Cheslor Cuthbert to make it 5-4. Barnes then hit Jon Jay on a 1-2 count to bring up Escobar, who, true to form, was retired to send it to the bottom of tbe eighth. Three groundouts later and it was on to Craig Kimbrel, who did his thing to end it, 5-4.