Messy ‘W’ is still ‘W’
Sox needed finale, and got it . . . barely
In addition to the heavy suitcases the Red Sox dragged into Fenway Park yesterday morning, they also dragged heavy hearts.
The suitcases were because at the close of business, the Red Sox would be climbing aboard a plane for a road trip through American Leagueleading Texas, then Tampa.
The bit about the hearts? These guys aren’t dummies. They know the mob is getting cranky, and loud, and that a third straight summer of lethargic baseball won’t be tolerated.
Yet there were the Red Sox yesterday, faced with the specter of a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox. Those fans who had it in them to stick out yesterday’s four-hour, 25-minute display of rocky baseball were rewarded with a 10-inning, 8-7 Red Sox walkoff victory when Xander Bogaerts lined a single to right- center off ChiSox rookie lefty Matt Purke. It was a crazy, wonderful ending to an epically sloppy, Island of Misfit Toys ballgame, in which Jackie Bradley Jr. tried dropping a bunt when he shouldn’t have, in which the Sox stranded 12 and were 4-for-15 with runners in scoring position, in which starter Rick Porcello gave up four runs on eight hits in just 51⁄3 innings ... and in which Chris Young busted up a hammy and went on the DL. Yet they won. There’s that. And for those of you who wonder if we — as in you, as in the media, as in ownership — are putting too much pressure on this banged- up- but- the- pitching-stinks-anyway ball club to start winning, it’s important to note the Red Sox played yesterday’s game as though it was the World Series.
It may have been the World Series of Poker, what with Bradley gambling on that bunt with runners on the corners and one out in the seventh and Red Sox manager John Farrell gambling on two full innings from closer Craig Kimbrel in a non-save situation. But, yes, they took this one seriously. Very seriously.
“We’re staring at a fourgame sweep at home, and that’s never a good thing,” said Farrell. “So you find a way to pull out all the stops . . . yeah, we did some things that, you know what, you do what you can with what you have in the moment.”
Bogaerts was asked, very bluntly, if the Red Sox were feeling a sense of desperation.
“For sure,” he said. “Definitely. We all were.”
Bless the 23-year-old Boomin’ Aruban for this breathtaking display of candor. Nobody wants to relive the pre-Impossible Dream years when the Red Stockings were annual laughingstocks. Closing out a homestand with an extrainning victory, ugly or not, is hugely important.
It’s not going to get any easier. The pitching is still a mess, as is the bullpen, as is a bench that has been reduced to September callups. And, well, you never know when Farrell’s going to do something that’ll inspire you to throw a beer bottle at the flat screen.
Then there’s left field, once the terrain of Williams, Yaz and Rice. Rewinding from yesterday, it has gone to Young (hamstring) from Blake Swihart (ankle) from Brock Holt (concussion) from Rusney Castillo (doesn’t know how to play baseball). After Young was helped off the field, Farrell sent in Ryan LaMarre, a seven-year minor leaguer who was picked up from the Cincinnati organization this winter. When Travis Shaw hit for LaMarre in the seventh, he took over in left, a position he played just four times in the minors and just once — for three innings — last year.
There’s also the sobering reality of the difficulties in every road trip, but this may be the rare time when it’s just as well that the Red Sox get out of town for a while. The natives are getting restless — try doing a “John Farrell” Twitter search and you run the risk of burning your fingers.
But, hey, the Red Sox are . . . desperate.
That’s a start.