Red Sox 4, White Sox 5: The Comeback Falls Short

Watching this game, I can’t say that either team performed well. But, the White Sox hit four home runs, and the Red Sox hit two, so they won!

Nevertheless, here are some takeaways from today’s oddly-timed, ill-fated game:

• If James Paxton’s right knee soreness that removed him from the game after pitching only four innings is anywhere near series, that will spell trouble for the Red Sox, who are already down Chris Sale and Tanner Houck for at least the foreseeable future.
• On the bright side, even pitching with a faulty knee, Paxton gave an impressive, short performance, giving up only one run via a Yasmani Grandal home run.
• Grandal hit a home run, Jake Burger hit a homer, Triston Casas hit a four-bagger, Luis Robert Jr. smashed a bomb, and Andrew Vaughn— you guessed it— took a trip around the bases himself. No kind of small ball was happening today!
• Boston only amassed three runs in 6.2 innings against Lance Lynn and his 6.40 ERA, which isn’t great!
• Connor Wong bounced back, finally getting a hit and only striking out twice (I was scared my article had cursed him).
• Adam Duvall… did not. He collected two strikeouts of his own, failed to get a hit, struck out with two outs, and the bases loaded in a tied ninth inning, and left a whopping *six* men on base in four at-bats.
• We got to see our old friend Joe Kelly, who didn’t allow a hit in 1.1 innings of work.
• Jarren Duran is Very Fast. He had three stolen bases, including one with two outs in the ninth that put him into scoring position.
• The Red Sox struck out 17 times yesterday. They struck out 11 times today. Neither is good, but they somehow have one win to show from this combo.
• With his two-out single in the ninth to tie it, Justin Turner went from the lowest WPA on the team to the second-highest, so that’s neat.
• They gave us hope with a two-out rally to tie it, then the White Sox flipped the two-out-runner-on-steal-a-base-score-on-a-blooper play right back on Kenley Jansen.
• I *personally* did not think the ninth-inning error on Casas should have been ruled an error. It took a tough hop and came off the bat at 103 mph, It’s a play he definitely could have made, which is frustrating, but not quite error-worthy. (It was changed to be called a single by Sheets post-game).

Here’s how WPA saw it:

Three Studs

Triston Casas (2-4, HR, 2 RBI)

Justin Turner (1-5, RBI)

Rafael Devers (2-3, 2 R)

Three Duds

Adam Duvall (0-4, 2 K, 6 LOB)

David Hamilton (0-4, K, 2 LOB)

Christian Arroyo (1-3, RBI, K)

WPA Play of the Game

Of course, Casas ranks first on the WPA leaderboard for a reason, as his 108 mph, 391-foot homer with two outs in the top of the sixth put Boston up 3-2. His swing is so pretty and I will be watching this clip for the rest of the day because just look how dang happy he looks rounding those bases.