The Toughest Loss
The mother of missed opportunities passes the Red Sox by
A few weeks ago there was a fire in my house. I found a bunch of smoke in my basement, couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, and ended up calling the fire department and evacuating the house. It was quite a show, with three fire engines on the block, all manner of fire-based people running through my living room and throwing axes into my basement wall, and when it came down to it, a fair bit of damage. The culprit was an overheated lightbulb that caused a wooden sconce to catch fire. We’re all fine though a bit shaken up, but thanks to charred sheetrock and torched wires, the basement has smelled like barbecue ever since. It’s going to take a lot of work, a lot of time and effort, to clean up and get that smell out, and frankly I’m pretty tired of smelling it already. But it’s going to be here for a while and I don’t have much choice but to get used to it.
That’s how I feel about last night’s game. It’s going to be a lot of work to get the bad smell of last night’s game out of the season, but unlike my basement, it’s not entirely clear it can be done.
I won’t rehash the whole thing here, but in case you missed the game, the Red Sox put together what is becoming a standard 2021 Red Sox performance. To be specific, that consists of several spectacular things and several boneheaded things. Throw all that in a blender, and hopefully what comes out is a win. In this case though, Nick Pivetta’s outstanding 6.2 innings of no-hit ball (seven Ks, 2 BBs), and the bullpen’s yeoman’s work weren’t enough as the offense no-showed.
This all resulted in a 1-0 loss when, with two outs in the ninth, Manuel Margot singled, stole second, went to third on Christian Vazquez’s lousy throw (and Xander Bogaerts’ lousy non-catch of Vazquez’s lousy throw), and scored when a Matt Barnes curveball bounced 10 feet away from Vazquez. It was impressive base running by Margot, but he only took what the Red Sox gave him, which was three bases with two outs in the ninth inning of a tied game that would decide first place in the division.
As you might imagine, that wasn’t the only mistake the Red Sox committed. Hunter Renfroe was thrown out at home trying to score from second base on a Christian Vazquez single to center in the seventh. Vazquez, who wisely took second on the throw home, was, one pitch later, picked off. It’s not often you have a guy thrown out at home and at second base in the same inning, but there you go.
Anyway, the particulars are less important than the fact that there were particulars. Opportunities abounded and the Red Sox squandered each of them in succession. I don’t want to leave you with the impression that the Red Sox didn’t play well though. They did, if nothing else, pitch very well. Pivetta was impressive from the beginning, throwing all his pitches for strikes, and featuring as biting a curve as I’ve ever seen from him. For all the discussion of how pitching will now be completely different without wet cement or whatever to help grip the ball, Pivetta either cheated far better than anyone in baseball has yet cheated, or he put the lie to the need for such substances in the first place. His fastballs had impressive velocity and his breaking pitches broke with the best of them. This was a fantastic and promising performance.
Hunter Renfroe also make a great running catch on the warning track in right field to keep the no-no intact. That was nice, too.
In the end though, this game was about missed opportunities, both on the field and off. The Red Sox ran into outs on the bases, they hit balls hard that the Rays turned into outs numerous times, and they again featured one of their worst hitters in the spot in the batting order that gets the most plate appearances. This time it was Michael Chavis who a few days ago wasn’t good enough to be on the major league roster at all. When did the leadoff spot become the place to ditch the guys who can’t hit?
Part of me wants to chalk this all up to just one of 162. You can’t win ‘em all is something I’ve certainly written here before and that’s true. While this one was close and the Red Sox had their chances, that describes most games. That’s baseball, after all. An endless series of opportunities. Some of them you convert on, and some you don’t, and that’s usually the deciding factor in any single contest.
But this game felt different. It was a playoff game, or certainly as close as the Red Sox have come to one since the World Series in 2018. The pace was fast and there was obvious intensity from both sides. Both teams recognized the importance of the game and to Alex Cora’s credit he managed like it was an important game. Cora went to his bullpen as soon as there was reason to despite the fact that his starter was throwing a no-hitter. Cora pulled Darwinzon Hernandez after three batters for Adam Ottavino because the Rays had two runners on base and one out. Cora wasn’t worried about burning the bullpen. He went for it and Ottavino pitched brilliantly to get out of the jam Hernandez had created. Cora pulled Bobby Dalbec for pinch hitter Marwin Gonzalez to get the platoon advantage. That ended up not mattering as Vazquez got picked off second, but the idea was there.
Those moves all belied the importance the Red Sox placed on the game, so to come away with the loss in such a winnable game, a game the Red Sox seemingly had in their grasp numerous times, and all in such a brutal fashion, well, it leaves a stink in your basement that you can’t easily remove.
The Rays are now ahead of the Red Sox. There are many games remaining to fix that, but for now Boston is looking up at Tampa in the standings. They’re also facing a three game series against the Yankees in Fenway Park starting today. That’s another opportunity, a chance to start cleaning up the mess. Or a chance to light another fire in the basement.