Woes in 8th linger in win
Before last night’s series finale against the Blue Jays, Alex Cora was pointedly asked if he thought it would be important for the Red Sox to have a reliever in a specific eighth-inning role as they head toward the playoffs.
The manager insisted that he didn’t.
“I think we need versatility,” Cora said. “Guys that can match up with whoever we’re facing. …
“Obviously those decisions will happen before we play Game 163 or we play the Division Series. We’ll look at the matchups we like and the matchups we can exploit or we can go from there.”
Clearly, after last night, the decisions still might take a while to be made.
The Red Sox’ eighth-inning conundrum continued, and despite surviving for a 4-3 victory and a sweep of the Blue Jays thanks to a fielding gaffe, the team is running out of time to get it fixed.
Eduardo Rodriguez pitched six efficient innings, and Ryan Brasier pitched a 1-2-3 seventh before the eighth-inning train wreck ensued. The Sox led 3-1 going into the eighth when Cora turned to Bobby Poyner. After getting Danny Jansen to pop up, Poyner’s first pitch to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was smoked off one of the light towers above the Green Monster.
Cora then turned to Joe Kelly with two outs, and the results were disastrous, as he didn’t retire one batter. He walked Justin Smoak on four pitches, then gave up a single to Kendrys Morales before hitting Randal Grichuk with a pitch. With the bases loaded, and needing just one strike to get out of the inning, Kelly drilled Kevin Pillar with a fastball, which plated the tying run.
Kelly was booed off the mound as Cora turned to his third pitcher of the inning, Brandon Workman. Mercifully, he struck out Billy McKinney to end the frame.
“He didn’t execute (last night),” Cora said of Kelly. “He’s been good lately, but (last night), he wasn’t. He needs to get better. He needs to get better, and he knows it. (Last night) wasn’t a great night for him, but we trust the guy. It’s two outs in the eighth, we expect him to go out there and get the out, but he didn’t do it.”
But the Blue Jays were willing participants in handing the Red Sox a victory. In the bottom of the eighth, Bogaerts hit a one-out double to left. He stole third before the next batter, Blake Swihart, hit a pop fly to shallow right, but second baseman Yangervis Solarte couldn’t corral it and the ball bounced to the grass, allowing Bogaerts to score.
Bogaerts said he’s trying to pick his spots with being aggressive on the bases, and it paid off in that situation.
“I needed to get to third base,” Bogaerts said. “Coaches wanted me to try to get a good jump, see if I can get there, and it worked out. We got lucky.”
The eighth-inning disaster almost spoiled an encouraging start from Rodriguez, who threw six strong innings in just 78 pitches of work, a welcome sign for the lefthander who has had trouble keeping his pitch counts low. Rodriguez could have pitched deeper, but Cora was satisfied with what he saw.
“It was more about taking care of him,” Cora said. “It’s his third start coming out of the DL, obviously had the rehab starts, but I thought six was good, the way he threw the ball in the sixth inning was good enough for me and like I told him, he did an outstanding job, just keep getting better, is kind of like the plan we have right now.”
The Red Sox got homers from J.D. Martinez, his league-tying 41st of the season, and Rafael Devers, as they moved 101⁄2 games in front of the Yankees for first place in the AL East. The magic number to clinch their third straight division title is now at 6.