Red Sox vs. Blue Jays lineup: Damage done

This is what normal seasons feel like from time to time. No wire-to-wire division leads/historically great results this year, though there’s still time for the Sox to rebound and render this terrible April an afterthought, not unlike last year’s Opening Day disaster, but here the task is much longer. The damage has been done. The Sox, 6.5 games out of first, gotta start winning ballgames, perhaps — just a suggestion! — with tonight’s home game against Toronto (7:10 p.m., NESN).

Tonight, Nathan Eovaldi will look to get his shit together in time for the Sox to do just that. Boston will run out the same lineup they did for the home opener with the swap of Blake Swihart for Christian Vázquez at the bottom of the lineup. The Blue Jays run out a similar lineup that includes home run threat Justin Smoak in the DH spot, beefy boy Rowdy Tellez (AKA Vogelbach East) at first and the exquisitely named Socrates Brito in center. It’s the Platonic ideal of a game the Sox should win. And yet... so have a lot of these games, and they’ve lost anyway. I really want to make an Aristotle pun here, but it’s just not coming. Cutting my losses — here are the full lineups (and please give me good Aristotle puns on Twitter if so inclined):