Blue Jays blast Sox with 8 homers
Most by an opponent at Fenway Park
The Red Sox were fortunate their disastrous 2020 season was played behind closed doors. But this weekend, they’ve given their fans an in-person opportunity to see what it was like last year.
During an impressive turnaround to start 2021, there haven’t been many days like Sunday, but it represented an embarrassing low for the Red Sox as they turned back the clock to 2020 with another short outing from their starter and a poor return for Ryan Weber. There were plenty of boos to go around among the 22,595 at Fenway Park as the Red Sox gave up eight home runs — the most they’ve ever allowed at Fenway — and were clobbered by the Blue Jays, 18-4.
The loss marked the worst of the season for the Red Sox, who weren’t even beaten this badly last year. During a stretch of bad pitching that began last weekend, Sunday was easily the low point.
“We need to do a better job, bottom line,” manager Alex Cora said. “We’ll talk about it and we’ll make adjustments. I know these guys are capable. It’s been a horrible week for us pitching-wise. Obviously, we had some comebacks and all of that, but for us to keep going and stay where we are, we have to pitch.”
It was ugly all the way around.
By the time the eighth inning came, the Red Sox had thrown in the towel. For the first time this year, a position player came on to pitch as Marwin Gonzalez threw a shutout eighth and Christian Arroyo pitched the ninth, when he allowed the Jays’ eighth and final homer on a two-run blast to Rowdy Tellez.
The Red Sox came into the weekend as the only team in the majors that hadn’t given up three homers in a game this season. But that flipped emphatically.
A day after they allowed five homers in a 7-2 loss, Martin Perez and Weber combined to serve up seven of the eight homers to the Blue Jays, who seemed to hit it farther with every blast. It was the most the Red Sox have given up since allowing seven to the Orioles on June 2, 2016.
“They’re just putting good swings on pitches in the middle of the plate,” Cora said.
It got out of hand quickly. Perez, fresh off a poor twoinning start last week, managed to be even worse on Sunday. He gave up two first-inning home runs — including a three-run blast to Teoscar Hernandez — to put the Red Sox in an early 4-0 hole. The lefty gave up another in the second as he lasted just 1 1/3 innings, the shortest outing by a Red Sox starter this season.
“I’m not locating the ball where I want it,” Perez said. “When that happens you can’t have a great game. It’s no excuse. My last two have been hitting good against me. That’s part of the game. It’s still early, man. We just need to make an adjustment and not try to do too much, but just go out there and throw zeroes because we’ve been hitting good.”
Perez’s ugly day continued a troubling trend for Red Sox starters, who have posted a 9.23 ERA over their last nine games. The Red Sox are 5-4 over that stretch while facing explosive lineups in the Astros and Blue Jays, but overall success is clearly not sustainable if the pitching continues like this.
Weber — who entered the 2020 season as the Red Sox’ No. 3 starter — was recalled from Worcester to provide innings behind Perez for a taxed bullpen. But it only got worse. He allowed four homers — including a second from Hernandez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s MLB-leading 21st of the season — as the Blue Jays ran him for 11 earned runs on 13 hits over 5 2/3 innings.
“It sucks to see Weber go out there for 96 pitches and then we have to bring Marwin and Christian,” Cora said. “The effort was great by those three, but at the end of the day, we’re putting ourselves in a bad position. It’s not only giving innings. We have to be better, also, in the first inning. Yes, our offense is good, but at the same time it would be good to put a zero up and come back and get the lead and go from there.”
The Red Sox haven’t got a quality start since Nathan Eovaldi pitched seven strong innings in a June 4 win over the Yankees. More than a week later, they need one from him almost desperately on Monday.
“Kind of like we were saying about them a few weeks ago: hitting is contagious, pitching is contagious, too,” Cora said. “Tomorrow go out there and compete and have a good start, and from there build up. But right now, it’s been a tough week for us.”