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The pain and suffering of a Roman Anthony-less squad continued tonight with yet another bleak showing by Boston\u2019s offense. It surely doesn\u2019t help when Alex Bregman is robbed of a homer in the eighth by Blaze Alexander, or Trevor Story hits a 100-mph flyout that is a home run in 23\/30 parks. It\u2019s also not great to strike out seven times in six innings against Brandon Pfaadt (who has a 7.47 K\/9 this year and a 5.33 ERA) while only scoring one run. Nor is it ideal to rack up a single hit in three innings against Jake Woodford, Jalen Beeks (thanks for your contributions to the 2018 WS, btw), and John Curtiss \u2014 who have a combined 3.96 ERA.<\/p>\n
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But on the other side of the ball, the Sox were really never able to recover after a rare Trevor Story error in the second allowed the Diamondbacks to score three runs to take an early lead. Even with the help of yet another beautiful play by Ceddanne Rafaela in center field, as he climbed the wall in front of Chase Field\u2019s infamous pool to reach over and rob a Corbin Carroll home run, Boston just couldn\u2019t find its groove. Another miscommunication between Rafaela and Jarren Durran in the outfield (which, how that\u2019s happening 143 games into the season is beyond me) cost another run in the seventh and took all of the wind out of Boston\u2019s sails.<\/p>\n
Lucas Giolito once again somehow had an acceptable outing with only two earned runs (four runs total scored due to Story\u2019s error), but struggled massively with more traffic on the bases, as has been the trend since the All-Star break. As I\u2019ve said \u2014 and will continue to say \u2014 before (and after) every Giolito start, the wheels will fall off the cart eventually, and every time he goes out there, it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess if it\u2019s bound to happen then. Another start with a WHIP well over 1.00 (actually a clean 2.00 tonight), and he somehow escaped the inevitable once again. As far as I\u2019m concerned, these results can\u2019t be held out through the end of the season or an incoming playoff run, but hey, they\u2019ve largely lasted since the middle of July, so maybe they\u2019ll keep on keeping on!<\/p>\n
While last weekend\u2019s series loss to the Pirates was cause for general concern, I\u2019m willing to argue that this series against the Diamondbacks has been even more troubling. The Mariners have kind of found a groove on the back of another second-half surge by Julio Rodriguez, the Royals (somehow) continue to win and Texas has bounced back as well. All of this, and the fact that the Yankees are looking more and more like their May and early June selves, is the opposite of good news for a Boston team that\u2019s been good, but doesn\u2019t currently have a lineup that shows it.<\/p>\n
Three studs<\/p>\n
Ceddanne Rafaela<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t get a hit, but his robbery was the highlight of the night. And, he only struck out once \u2014 progress is progress!<\/p>\n
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Brennan Bernardino<\/p>\n
While it didn\u2019t count for much, Bernie had an impressive outing from the \u2018pen tonight, which is especially impressive after Alex Cora tried to kill him earlier this week. A 1.1 IP appearance with two strikeouts and only one hit allowed is something I\u2019ll take any day of the week.<\/p>\n
Masataka Yoshida<\/p>\n
Leadoff Masa is here and he\u2019s beautiful. The only RBI of the night came from the king himself, and he looked relatively solid at the plate, with his usual ground ball propensity included. I will take three hard-hit balls from a Masa Man still looking to power up.<\/p>\n
While I debated Jarren Duran\u2019s efficacy to be included in this category, I couldn\u2019t justify including him just for his two hits, as his performance in the outfield continues to both befuddle and infuriate me every game. I\u2019m just thankful he wasn\u2019t leading off tonight \u2014 righty starter be damned.<\/p>\n
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Three duds<\/p>\n
Lucas Giolito<\/p>\n
This might be a bit harsh on my part, but watching Giolito consistently allow multiple hitters to reach base each inning is genuinely about to drive me crazy. I appreciate his relative limitation of damage as far as the score goes, but long innings with multiple baserunners are the exact opposite thing that a team with a struggling offense needs.<\/p>\n
Carlos Narvaez<\/p>\n
Right when I thought he was back, I realized it was still over. That might be a tad bit dramatic, but a 0-for-4 night with two strikeouts will land you on the duds list basically no matter what.<\/p>\n
Alex Bregman<\/p>\n
The almost-homer would\u2019ve been clutch, but I unfortunately can\u2019t give out many points for almost. No strikeouts on Bregman\u2019s end, but as the only other 0-for-4\u2019er, he was delegated to The List tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pain and suffering of a Roman Anthony-less squad continued tonight with yet another bleak showing by Boston\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[72,5,30643,141,48,2542,654,5361,789,1396,1538,38,18680,657,604,45537,27730,3992,585,792,4,89,2543,1567,1035,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-298614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-alex-bregman","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blaze-alexander","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-boston-red-sox","13":"tag-bostonredsox","14":"tag-brandon-pfaadt","15":"tag-brennan-bernardino","16":"tag-carlos-narvaez","17":"tag-ceddanne-rafaela","18":"tag-corbin-carroll","19":"tag-diamondbacks","20":"tag-jake-woodford","21":"tag-jalen-beeks","22":"tag-jarren-duran","23":"tag-jarren-durran","24":"tag-john-curtiss","25":"tag-julio-rodriguez","26":"tag-lucas-giolito","27":"tag-masataka-yoshida","28":"tag-mlb","29":"tag-red-sox","30":"tag-redsox","31":"tag-texas","32":"tag-trevor-story","33":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115162554690930406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}