Red Sox 6, Royals 2: THE FUCKING PABLO REYES GRAND SLAM GAME

Should baseball exist after last weekend? It’s tough to say. The Red Sox got swept and thoroughly embarrassed themselves after largely standing pat at the trade deadline, earning them some scorn from the sizable contingent of Sox fans who wish the team would get off the fence and buy or sell, and not sift through the mud for diamonds when you already have the cash to fly private. Anyhow, the Red Sox played the Royals tonight anyway and wore the City Connect jerseys behind Brayan Bello.

Bello worked himself into jam in the first, putting runners on first and third with two outs, before Matt Beaty rolled one to second base to end the threat. Masa Yoshida hit a one-out single to destroy the no-hitter against Cole Ragans, but nothing came of it.

Trison Casas blistered one to the right-field wall in the second but... it was caught. Nothing much happened until the third, when future Hall of Famer Pablo Reyes made his way to third base with no outs. Yoshida eventually drove him home with a single to make it 1-0, Sox. A lead! Yes!!!!

Meanwhile I wrote a whole Chaim Bloom column between that and when the Royals found themselves with runners on the corners with no outs and blew it after a pop-up and a double play. Baseball is still good at times, it appears! And then Bloom’s lasting contribution from the Mookie Betts trade, Connor Wong, doubled in a run to make it 2-0! Life is good, maybe? Anyhow that’s how the inning ended.

Bello made it through six innings without giving up a run, which ruled. You know what made it worse? When the Sox fell apart, and Bello and Josh Winckowski combined to give up two runs to make it 2-2 heading into the bottom of the seventh.

It sucked. It sucked! At least we saw Jarren Duran (didn’t start) and Alex Verdugo (recently moved into doghouse) in the bottom of the eighth. Nothing came of either, but it was nice to see them, and we went to the ninth.

With one out, Rafael Devers hit a ground-rule double to right, putting him in scoring position. We like that. We REALLY like that. This led to the bases loaded, two outs, winning run on third, for Reyes. Very exciting times and all that. And he HIT A FUCKING GRAND SLAM TO END IT:

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