That felt like a really apathetic loss. The offense just straight up fell flat with no extra base hits. The managerial decisions just didn’t pay off—namely the Abraham Toro pinch hit for Connor Wong with the bases loaded. It’s the team’s first set of back to back losses since July 21-22, which is certainly a good few weeks back. They just got dominated by Dylan Cease and the insane Padres bullpen. Not much more to say, time to head to Houston and play good baseball.
Three StudsWilyer Abreu (2-f0r-4, 2 Ks)That’s It
Romy did techincally drive in the only two Red Sox runs of the game but otherwise, not much was happening there. Brayan Bello wasn’t outright terrible, but it was a pretty bang average game. It felt a lot like Monday against the Royals where he worked himself into difficult situations—but today, he couldn’t work himself out of them.
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Three DudsCeddanne Rafaela (0-for-4, 2 Ks)
Rafaela’s bat has cooled down tremendously since the All Star break and couldn’t come up when he came to the dish in some big situations today, including with the bases loaded. He made a stellar diving catch at shortstop but he needs to be in center field.
Masataka Yoshida (0-for-3, 1 K)Connor Wong (0-for-2, 1 K)
I’m going to lump these two guys together. Nothing is clicking for these guys. For Masa, he’s not used regularly enough to get into a rhythm—but why would he when there are better players ahead of him in the lineup. For Wong, this is the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season. He’s very lucky he’s Bello’s personal catcher, otherwise I’m sure Breslow would have been very aggressive replacing him at the deadline.
Play of the Game
It goes to Dylan Cease in general, who just shut down Red Sox bats for most of the day.