Yankees 16, Red Sox 1

 

In football, when a team is getting blown out and acknowledges in the closing minutes that it has no possible route to victory, sometimes they pull their quarterback and star receivers and put in the backups and scrubs. Th opposing team usually responds by resting its starting QB too as there's no point in risking an injury, and instead of rapidly firing off passes to the sidelines to control the clock and score another TD, they run out the clock and take the win. Some teams (cough, Ohio State, cough) might try to run up the score in that situation to impress the polls, but that's generally considered a classless move.

Same thing in the NBA. A losing team might sit its starters in the fourth quarter and put in the bench players who don't otherwise see many minutes. The other team will slow down and run out the clock, and not have their leading scorers go for a burst of easy baskets against the weaker defense in the closing minutes.

Then there's the New York Yankees. This afternoon, when the Red Sox were down by a score of 10-1 in the eighth inning and their bullpen was depleted, they put infielder Andruw Monasterio on the mound as a relief pitcher as a sort of "white flag" acknowledging their defeat. In baseball, a team can't run out the clock like in football or basketball, but they can still try to end the game as quickly as possible, take the easy win, and give their players some rest. They wouldn't be expected to deliberately strike out, but they could bunt, trot to the bases, and certainly put in their substitute bench players. 

But that's not what the Yankees did. They kept their starters in, took full advantage of Monasterio's lack of pitching skills, and hit homer after homer and scored six more runs in that eighth inning, running up the score like TCU against Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow A&M.

Classless, vulgarian motherfuckers. May their whole team and fan base rot in hell.

This Red Sox suffered two low points this season (so far). The first occurred on June 24 when we lost a series to the hapless Colorado Rockies and fell to 32-46, 14 games below .500. The other was today, when we lost the third of four to the Yankees in the Bronx, the last two by a cumulative score of 25-3. The Elder Gods of baseball could have allowed that total score to be 28-3 to echo the Patriots' low point in Super Bowl LI before coming back to victory and signal that better things were ahead for the Red Sox, too, but they wouldn't even give us that.

A low point in today's low-point game occurred in the fifth inning, when obnoxious show-boater Jizz Chism hit a fly ball into deep center field and Ceddanne Rafaela made a spectacular diving catch. But the umpires ruled the ball had hit the ground and after a long-ass review by MLB headquarters located in, wait for it, New York, they ruled that it wasn't a catch. Shown from a different angle, it appeared that the ball may have indeed touched the ground, but only for a fraction of a second and after it was already in Ceddanne's glove and he had control of the ball. Yes, the picture above is an AI recreation, and the player shown is higher off the ground than Ceddanne was when he made the catch, but it's also a clearer and less blurry image than the stop-action frame of the actual play (and I don't have copyright to images of MLB games). 

But New York HQ gave the New York team the base hit, and two plays later, a two-RBI single brough Chism home (even though he never should have been on base to begin with). Fortunately, considering the final score, that one run didn't matter anyway, but all the momentum and confidence seemed to swing the Yankees way after that play.

Cheaters never prosper. New York may have won the game, but in the long run, they're still the classless, vulgarian motherfuckers in the Bronx.

What's more, today's game marked the return after long absences to the IL of Roman Anthony and Trevor Story. Both played well, Roman going 2-for-4 with a single and a double, and Trevor going 2-for-3 with a single, a double, and a run. However, a game that should have marked the start of a new offensive spark to the team will instead be remembered as an embarrassment and a new point of contention in the long history of Red Sox-Yankee animosity.       

So the damage is done. Boston (74-63) is 8½ games back from Tampa Bay in the AL East, and four back from the second-rate second-place Yankees in the Wild Card standings with 25 games left to the season. Three of those remaining games are later next month in Tampa Bay, but 16 are against sub-.500 teams, although the Sox do seem to generally play better against quality opponents, this weekend not withstanding. 

So anyway, that was humiliating, but all we can do is get back up, dust ourselves off, and get back to it. Tomorrow, the Sox return home to Fenway to host Seattle (64-73). Payton Tolle (8-6, 3.09) will start the first game against the Mariners' George Kirby (9-10, 4.02).

Let's flush this one down like a toilet bowl after a meal of diarrhea lettuce and get back to our earlier, winning ways.

Yankees 9, Red Sox 2

 

Absolutely disgusting. 

The loss was made all the worse because the Sox managed to get New York starter Max Fried off the mound after only 3⅔ innings, after Sogard had managed a solo home run off him in the third. Brayan Bello, on the mound replacing opener Alec Gamboa after 1⅓ innings, was wild in the third, giving up three runs with a walk, a hit-by-pitch, and a handful of singles, but after that he settled down, pitching two innings of three-up/three-down baseball. But the Yankees apparently rattled his cage with a double steal of second and third in the sixth inning and he wound up giving up a fourth run to New York before betting relieved.  

The wheels came completely off the wagon in the eighth, when the Yankees added five more runs and the Sox left reliever Raymond Burgos in the game despite the cavalcade of runs because why burn through another reliever on a lost cause?

Worse, the Boston offense was totally lifeless, getting only six hits all game. Two of those were in the top of the eighth, so up to that point the Sox were 4-29 at bat (.138). The two eighth inning hits - an Abreu double followed by a Contreras triple - resulted in a second Boston run, but the bottom of the eighth saw the five-run disaster.

Ugly loss, but like whatever. Can't win 'em all, especially on doubleheaders. The Yankees lead the series 2-1 for now, but there's another game today. 

This afternoon, Ranger Suarez (5-3, 3.35) takes the mound opposed by the Yankees' Will Warren (8-6, 4.39). In Ranger's last game in the Bronx, back on June 7 before the turnaround began, he struck out six and gave up only one run in 6⅓ innings (his turn in the rotation didn't come up during the late June sweep of the Yankees in Fenway). Boston lost the game after Slaten gave up five runs in the bottom of the eighth (sound familiar?), but Ranger was solid.  

The Red Sox knocked the snot out of Warren in Fenway back on June 26, scoring five runs off him on seven hits. Warren walked three and didn't get a single K on the Sox. That's the kind of performance we can use today.

A win by Boston today would result in a split of the road series and give Boston the tie-breaker in the event that the season ends with the Sox and the Yankees tied in the standings. A win today will also help wash the disgusting taste of last night's loss out of the mouths of the Sox and their fans. 

This is history, man. Series like these are the things that fans will talk about for generations. One last game in the Bronx for this season, one last time facing the pinstriped motherfuckers (at least in the regular season). Let's play some long ball!

Red Sox 6, Yankees 0

 

The mighty Boston Red Sox, the team that has scored more ninth inning runs this season than any team in MLB, turned a close nail-biter of a game into a laugher with a four-run ninth this afternoon. It was beautiful. Frame it and hang it on a wall.

Wilyer Abreu, the only lefty in the starting lineup, opened up the game with a solo homer in the first inning, and then Adley Rutschman made it 2-0 with some heads-up base running on a passed ball in the fifth. Big Jake Bennett pitched six shutout innings with seven K's, no walks, and only three hits to keep the Yankees scoreless. Garrett Whitlock returned from the IL for his first appearance since August 9 and threw a perfect inning of relief - no runs, no hits, no walks, and a strikeout. 

The ninth-inning fireworks opened with an Andruw Monasterio two-run double. Nick Sogard brought Monasterio home with a double of his own, and Ceddanne Rafaela brought Sogie home with a single to left center. It took Yankees reliever Ryan Yarbrough 39 pitches to make it through the ninth inning alone. 

The four ninth-inning runs meant the Sox didn't have to use closer Aroldis Chapman in the game, saving him for the second game of today's doubleheader. Instead, Jovani Morán was immaculate closing out the ninth with one K. no runs, no hits, no walks, and no drama.  

The Red Sox returned the favor of a shutout to the Yankees and now trail NY by only two games, with two left in this weekend road series.

I said in an earlier post today that Raymond Burgos will make his very first career start in game two of the DH tonight (third game of the series) but it now appears that reliever Alec Gamboa (1-0, 1,31) will start. Either way, the opener will probably only pitch for one inning and then turn the ball over to right-handed pitcher Brayan Bello (5-6, 4.68). Bello had a rough start to the season and the Sox kept the ball out of his hands for all the games against the Yankees so far this year, but he's improved as a long reliever and has a career 5-4 record against New York. His career 2.35 ERA against them (65 innings) is his best of any team he's started against more than three times..  

The fragile Max Fried (4-4, 2.81) makes a rare returns from the IL for the Yankees tonight for his first game since August 13. Back on April 22 (i.e., in the dark days before the turnaround), he crushed the Sox in Fenway with nine Ks and only three hits and no runs over eight full innings. However, he was also on the IL between May 13 and July 22 this year, and didn't start during the Red Sox' sweep of the Yankees in Fenway last June, which incidentally sparked the season turnaround. 

After his long stretches on the IL and the resurgent Sox' new prowess, it remains to be seen if Fried can still master the team like he did last April. But that's what games are for and what makes baseball, well, baseball. Stay tuned, don't go anywhere tonight (I don't care that it's Saturday), and cheer the Sox onto a sweep of the doubleheader.

It appears that the Sox will start the same righty-intensive lineup as game one against the left-handed Fried in game two, with Abreu again the only lefty in the starting lineup. It worked against Rodón, why not Fried?

Yankees 1, Red Sox 0

 

So New York scored a run, one run, and beat the Red Sox in the first of this weekend's four-game series. Big deal. Doesn't mean shit. Yankees still suck.

Game one was always going to be a hard one for Boston. New York was starting their ace, Adolph Shitler, while the Sox rotation had their fifth starter, Patrick Sandoval, open. Sandoval pitched well - spectacularly for a fifth starter - and pitched a game that statistically was nearly identical to Shitler's. Sandy threw seven K's to Shitler's eight, and gave up three hits, compared to Shitler's two hits. Sandoval stayed in the game for 5⅓ innings, one out less than Shitler's 5⅔ innings, and threw 96 pitches to 23 batters, compared to Shitler's 102 to 24. 

If the very best the Yankees can throw at the Red Sox is almost statistically indistinguishable from the effort of Boston's worst starter, I feel good about the Sox' chances in the rest of this series. 

Both teams loaded the bases in the sixth, and both team's relievers ended the inning without allowing a run. That was a tense inning.

So the Red Sox are now three back from the Yankees in the AL East and the Wild Card standings, with three games left to play in this series and two of them are in a double-header today. Hope you didn't have plans for today.

Big Jake Bennett (8-6, 3.49) will start the first game against the Yankees' Carlos Rodón (4-2, 3.15). Back on June 27, Bennett got the win in a 4-1 game in Fenway against the Yankees, a game that arguably kick-started the Sox' amazing mid-season turnaround. Big Jake's numbers weren't spectacular in that game - three K's, three hits, one run - but he lasted 6⅓ innings and benefited from a pair of home runs by Yoshida and Seigler. Neither batter is in the lineup today - Yoshida's on the IL with a hamstring injury and Chad Tracy is starting the right-handed Nick Sogard (.257) at second today instead of the left-handed Tony Seagulls (.250).  

The lefty Rodón gave up a two-run single to the right-handed Caleb Durbin the day after Big Jake's win, as Boston completed the sweep of that series. The Durbinator (.255), who also stole two bases in that game, is most definitely in today's lineup, and we're counting on him for big things today. In fact, Tracy is going all-in with righties today, platooning as many into the lineup as possible, including putting Eli White (.259) into left field instead of the left-handed Jarren Duran (.219). Wilyer Abreu (.255) is the only lefty in this afternoon's starting lineup. 

Max Fried (4-4, 2.81) will return from the injured list to start the second game of today's doubleheader for the Yanks against Raymond Burgos (0-0, 2.70) in his very first career start and opening for Brayan Bello (5-6, 4.68). But who's got time to worry about that now? One game at a time, baby.

Marlins 4, Red Sox 0

 

Sonny Gray gave up seven hits and two runs over five innings. Reliever Wyatt Olds gave up two more runs. The Red Sox batters went 5-of-31 at the plate with nothing more than singles, and left nine runners on base. They won the series in Miami, but lost the finale.

The loss snapped the five-game win streak, but no reason to freak out. Boston (73-60) is still 7-3 in their last ten, and has the day off today. 

The big series in Da Bronx starts tomorrow - four games, including a Saturday double header, against the Yankees, who now lead Boston by 2½ in the Wild Card standings. This series is crucial for the Sox's playoff hopes. They currently enjoy a comfy 5½-game cushion in the Wild Card with 29 games left to play and most likely will qualify for the playoffs. But the format for the playoffs now has the number two Wild Card team playing all three of the games on the home field of the number one Wild Card team. Three games in three nights, and the first team to win two goes on to the next round and the season's over for the other team. 

I get it - MLB wanted to speed up the first round so that the division leaders aren't waiting around for too long to begin their League Championship Series. But requiring the number two team to win two of three on the number one's home field seems like a pretty tough requirement to advance. So much depends on the standings.

The first game of this weekend's series on Friday night has the highly questionable Patrick Sandoval (1-2, 4.54) against New York ace Adolf Shitler (11-6, 2.16), who currently enjoys the lowest ERA among  American League starters. Good, let's get that punk out of the way and over with at the start of the series. If the Sox can get through Shitler in game one, the Yankees still have an advantage with a bullpen ERA of 3.02, best in MLB and higher that Boston's 3.24, fourth in MLB, although the difference is not as pronounced and Boston's closer Aroldis Chapman has an ERA of 1.81, while New York's David Bednar has an ERA of 2.35. 

New York will have the pitching advantage in the game, but the Yankees' team batting average (.231) is the third lowest in all of MLB, while the Sox' .250 is sixth highest.

Then there's the intangibles. Yankees suck and Red Sox rule, and dirty water stains pinstripes every time.

Let's go! Season-defining series in the very belly of the beast. All the marbles. Bring it on! 

Red Sox 7, Marlins 3 (11)

If you had "Jarren Duran hits grand slam in the 11th inning" on your bingo card for yesterday, you might be pleasantly surprised by the current balance in your bank account.

After another pitcher's duel down in the subtropical climes of Miami last night, the score was tied, 2-2, after nine innings, with both of Boston's runs coming on a pair of Mickey Glasper home runs. Both teams got the ghost runner home in the tenth inning, and then with the bases loaded and only one out, the embattled Jarren Duran (.209) stepped to the plate . . . 

The ball went 432 feet into deep right center. Willson Contreras, who got on base with a single to lead off the inning, scored. Jahmai Jones, who was walked in a pinch-hitting appearance for Glasper, scored. Andruw Monasterio, who got on base on a fielder's choice that got ghost runner Wilyer Abreu out, scored. And Jarren Duran scored. 

Despite his low batting average, Duran has 18 home runs (third on the team), 66 RBIs (tied for fourth with Rafaela), 99 hits (fifth), 60 runs (fifth), and leads the team in stolen bases (18). His four triples are tied with Abreu for most on the team. He may have a low average, but when he connects, he makes it fucking count, and last night, after going 0-for-four with two K's, he won the game with the biggest exclamation mark a single player can provide.

That's five straight wins for the Sox. This team didn't win five straight all season until the four-game sweep of New York (Yankees suck) last May, followed by a win over the Nats. They're next five-game streak was the start of their historic 15-game streak, and then they did it again earlier this month to spark a nine-game streak. Looks like they've got a new streak going now.

It gets better. Last night, the Rays conveniently lost, so Boston (73-59) is now only five games back from Tampa Bay in the AL East (their .553 record would lead any other division of the AL, and put them in second in two of the three NL divisions). Even better yet, New York lost (Yankees suck), so now the Sox are only a game-and-a-half back from them in the division and in the Wild Card standings. First place in the Wild Card would give them the home field for all three games, so it's about more than mere pride.

Let's sweep Miami and squish that fish tonight. The Sox will play their ace, Sonny Gray (16-3, 2.79), although I would  have preferred to see him start against New York this weekend (Yankees suck). Gray is a career 3-1 against the Marlins in six starts, with a career 1.96 ERA versus the team. Miami will counter with Ryan Gusto (0-3, 4.37), who hasn't yet pitched a single inning to the Sox. Is he ever in for a rude awakening.

Red Sox 4, Marlins 2

The mighty Boston Red Sox beat the Miami Marlins, 4-2, last evening for their fourth straight win. It was another comeback win, with the Sox trailing, 2-1, at the top of the eighth. Wilyer Abreu scored on a wild pitch to tie the game and then in the ninth, Anthony Seigler hit his first career triple to score Eli White from first for Boston's first lead of the night, and then Nick Sogard (Sogie!) brought Tony Seagulls home with a single for the insurance run.

Reliever Erik Miller got the win for Boston, but all this was made possible by the starting pitching of Ranger Suarez (five innings, one run on four hits, and four K's) and the middle relief of Brayan Bello (two innings, one run on two hits, and one K), and, of course, Aroldis Chapman's close out.

The never-say-die, come-from-behind Boston Red Sox have the most ninth-inning runs (0.53 per game) than any team in the majors this season. Since May 25th, they have the best record (50-29), the most wins (tied with Milwaukee), and allowed the fewest runs (282).   

Tampa Bay won last night, so Boston (72-59) is still six back from first in the AL East, but New York was idle so the Sox are now only 2½ back from the Yankees in the Wild-Card standings. Wouldn't it be interesting if the Sox entered the Bronx on Friday a mere half-game back from New York? 

To get there, the Sox are putting their studly rookie starter, Payton Tolle (8-6, 3.08), on the mound tonight for his first look at the Marlins. Miami will start righty Tyler Phillips (3-6, 3.67), who's pitched all of one inning against Boston.

Red Sox 5, Giants 4

The mighty Boston Red Sox tend to play up or down to the level of their competitors, generally playing well against teams with winning records and looking like shit against teams with losing records. With yesterday's 5-4 win over the Giants, the Red Sox completed their first sweep of a sub-.500 team since the Mets back on July 12 and their first sweep against any team since the White Sox on August 6. 

Yesterday, the Sox came back from a three-run deficit to San Francisco with a second-inning solo home run by Nick Sogard, his second of the season, and a pair of singles by Rafaella and doubles by Wong and Gasper in the third and fourth. After that it was a pitching duel with the Giant's "Tugboat" Wilkinson getting knocked out of the game in the fourth with four runs, seven hits, only two K's, and a 6.35 ERA. Tugboats apparently don't like the Dirty Water. Big Jake Bennett also gave up four runs and seven hits but over seven innings and with six K's. Relievers Guerrero and Chapman both went 1-2-3 in the eighth and ninth innings, respectively. 

Don't look now, but at 7-3 over their last 10 games, the Red Sox (71-59) are currently the hottest team in the American League. Tampa Bay and New York both won their games yesterday, so Boston is still six games back from first place and three back from the second-place Yankees. As I've said here over and over again, Boston's path to the World Series doesn't go through the division championship but through the Wild Card, where they have a comfortable 6½-game cushion. However, catching up to the Yankees would give them the home field in the Wild Card games, but considering that they're only two games over .500 at home but ten games above on the road, that might be a mixed blessing. When it's all said and done, however, I'd rather play a best-of-three series against New York in Fenway than in Yankee Stadium.

We'll see how well we fare (and most likely who will win the Wild Card chase) in Yankee Stadium this weekend, but first there's a three-game road series in Miami (67-64) starting tonight. Ranger Suárez (5-3, 3.41) starts tonight against the Marlins' Sandy Alcantara (13-8, 3.46). Suárez is a career 6-2 in Marlins Park, and in his last game in Miami, pitching for the Phillies, he dominated the Marlins, striking out eight while giving up only one run over seven innings in a 4-2 Philly win. 

Alcantara has a 1-1 record against the Sox in three starts. Last year (August 15), he kept Boston to one run over six innings with seven K's, although the Sox eventually won the game, 2-1 with a Trevor Story walk-off RBI single.

Let's squish the fish with a sweep of the Marlins, and then march out of Yankee Stadium on Sunday in first place in the Wild Card standings.

Red Sox 3, Giants 2

 

Now that's some big-dick energy right there! Down 2-0, bottom of the ninth, the mighty Boston Red Sox rally for three runs, culminating in a Wilyer Abreu walk-off RBI with one out. 

The eminently suspect Patrick Sandoval gave up two homers early in the game, but stayed in for 5⅔ innings with seven Ks and five hits. But San Francisco starter Blade Tidwell stayed in just as long with seven K's of his own and kept the Sox scoreless with only three hits. The pitching duel spilled over into the bullpen for the seventh and eighth innings until that final, climactic ninth when Eli White scored the game's first Boston run with an RBI single, followed by a Nick Sogard one-run double, and then, finally, Abreu's game-winning hit.  

Raffie went 0-4 for the Giants.

Down but not out, the Sox found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Tampa Bay and New York both lost yesterday, the third straight loss for the Rays, so now Boston (70-59) is six games out of first place and three behind the Yankees. But the Red Sox' path to the World Series doesn't run through the division title, and their cushion in the Wild Card standings now stands at a comfortable 6½ games.

Big Jake Bennett (7-6, 3.46) goes for the sweep this afternoon (3:15 pm) against someone named Matt "Tugboat" Wilkinson (0-0, 0.00) in his second MLB appearance. Tugboat's only other game was a two-inning start against Cleveland last week, so he's still pretty damn green. 

The Sox will teach the Giant's little Tugboat that the difference between San Francisco Bay and the Boston Harbor is we've got the Dirty Water.    

Red Sox 6, Giants 4

 

What? They booed Devers? Sure, his exit from the Red Sox organization wasn't the the most graceful moment in Boston sports history, but after all he had done for the team over the years, couldn't they look past that last contentious chapter? In any event, he got a home run, so who's laughing now? Red Sox fans, that's who, because it was a meaningless run and Boston won the game.  

With two outs in the bottom of the third and Sogard on base with a walk, Abreu singled and then Contreras homered to deep left center. Then the Red Sox loaded the bases back up with a pair of singles and a hit-by-pitch on Durran, and then the Giants walked in a run, followed by another on a hit-by-pitch on Gasper. With that, the Giants finally pulled starter Logan Webb, but couldn't they have left him in just a little longer? We were just starting to have fun!

But be careful about gloating - in the top of the next inning, the Giants got back-to-back homers after two outs, including Raffie's hit that made the game 5-4, Red Sox.  However, Boston starter Sonny Gray recovered and pitched two shutout innings after the homers and the bullpen of Miller, Gamboa and Chapman were hitless in three innings with only one walk. By the way, former Giant Erik Miller's ERA is still 0.00 after 8⅓ innings with the Red Sox (Gamboa's is 1.40 and Chapman's is 1.90).

Abreu tripled in the sixth inning and scored Sogard for the final score of 6-4.

Last night's win in Fenway lifts the Red Sox back to .500 at home (32-32).  Tampa Bay lost last night, to Boston (69-59, overall) is now seven games back from first and four behind New York. 

Tonight, lefty Patrick Sandoval  (1-2, 4.76) starts against righty Blade Tidwell (0-0, 4.33). Sandoval has had his challenges this season, losing his last two starts, including a five-run meltdown in Pittsburgh last week. Let's see if he can salvage his fading reputation with a win over the Giants tonight.

Tamara Klink Safe

 

Tamara Klink is safe - she successfully made it out of the Chukchi Sea ice field to Nome, Alaska, although it wasn't easy and for a day or two, I wasn't sure that the Sardinha 2 hadn't sunk.

After sailing west into the Northwest Passage, finding an open route through an ice field in the Chukchi Sea and making it almost as far as Wrangell Island, Russia's Northern Sea Route Administration told her she was in violation of their closure decision and ordered her to turn around back to the Bering Sea. The way to Wrangell and the East Siberian Sea beyond was free of ice but the way back to the Bering was now choked with heavy ice, even worse than when she had first crossed it. But despite the fact that she was exhausted and desperately needed sleep after her first crossing, she was nonetheless ordered by the Russian authorities to turn back and cross the ice field a second time under penalty of arrest and prison.  

She complied, sailing as close to the coast as possible, where the currents push ice away from the shore. As she proceeded, the ice concentrations got worse and worse but she had to keep sailing on because the wind was forecast to start pushing more ice against the coast, making things even tougher. Her boat hit some ice in the dead on an Arctic night, and she found seawater in the bilge but couldn't tell where it was coming from. "I’m getting less and less sure we’ll make it out alive," she wrote in her ship log.

"With this fog, ice, and 25kt of wind, I’m not even sure they could see my life raft. And would anyone bother to mount a rescue? Why would they spend energy trying to save a recreational foreigner when they have so many other things going on? 

"I feel very naive and stupid for having come here. I wish I had stayed at home, with my family. I wish my dreams were more ordinary — like finding love and having a house. I wish I had someone else onboard to share shifts and allow me to sleep."

As she advanced through the labyrinth of ice, the clock was ticking. With worsening weather in the Bering Strait, the longer it took her to get through the ice, the worse the conditions would be crossing the Bering. But there was nowhere for her to stop, even with her boat taking on water. The potential lagoons were far behind and trapped in ice, and in any event, the charts were too poor for her to feel safe there when the wind picked up. "Besides that," she noted, "I cannot stay here, I NEED to leave this land" even if it meant crossing the Bering  in a storm while bailing water out with buckets.

Sleep deprived and trying to navigate between 20-minute naps, she hugged the coast trying to distinguish hallucinations from reality. "I see more and more pieces of ice with human faces and shapes. They seem to be dancing, changing expressions, drifting toward the boat." Despite her exhausted condition, she had to climb the mast twice in the middle of the ice fields, and managed to find open paths even in the densest areas. She kept pushing on until she was finally far enough from the coast for ice to become rare. That night, as she made it into open water, she wrote, "I pushed myself and the boat to our limits. We overcame every obstacle we met on our way." 

"But," she added, "I still have the feeling of defeat."

Unfortunately, the challenges weren't over. The seas were building in the Bering Strait and while she would have been intimidated by the forecast three days earlier, after all she had been through in the Chukchi ice field, she was starving for open water, no matter the size of the waves. "I am thankful I am still alive and sailing by myself in a floating boat," she said, "instead of drifting on a piece of ice like Shackleton and his crew." 

The Bering Strait has a bad reputation but as she crossed amid 30- to 40-knot wind gusts, she couldn’t care less. "What’s the worst thing that can happen?," she wrote. "Capsizing?" The waves got bigger and washed over the deck as she crossed, with one eventually hitting her boat from the side so violently the boat heeled and everything on the shelves fell over her "as if it were raining books." 

She finally made is across the Strait to Alaska's Bering Peninsula but for some reason, the Sardinha's online tracker stopped updating when she was only a few miles outside of Nome. Day after day, the tracker kept showing the boat in open water just off the coast, when there was no conceivable reason that she wouldn't pull into harbor to repair leaks and get some rest. What's more, fellow Arctic sailor Ella Hibbert was there aboard the Yeva, and if there's anyone who would understand what she had been through and provide assistance or just moral support, it would have been Hibbert. I feared the worst: after first crossing the Chukchi ice field and then the Bering Strait, her leaky boat had sank just before she finally made it to Nome. 

But fortunately that was not the case, and when the tracker finally came back on line, it showed she not only had reached harbor in Nome, but she had already left, sailing south to points as yet undisclosed. 

Diamondbacks 7, Red Sox 6 (10)

 

A home loss and Arizona avoids the sweep, but I'm okay with the loss because the Sox at least tried. On the very first Arizona pitch of the game, Nick Sogard got his first MLB home run, so the Sox came out of the gates with guns blazing. Jarren Duran homered in the third, but the Diamondbacks jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the sixth inning. However, not conceding defeat, Mickey Gasper responded with a three-run homer in the bottom of the inning to tie up the game. 

In the tenth inning,  Jovani Morán basically shit the bed, first by allowing an RBI single and then loading up the baes with walks and then walking in a second run before a double play finally got him out of the inning. But the Red Sox still didn't give up, and scored one run in the bottom of the tenth to split Arizona's lead in half, but wasn't able to score that second run they needed. 

But at least they tried.

Starter Payton Tolle went five inning with six K's and three runs on six hits. However, reliever Greg Weissert gave up two runs in the bottom of the sixth, and let's not talk any further about Morán's tenth inning performance. 

The Red Sox (68-59) are 8½ back from Tampa Bay and 3½ back from New York. However, their path to the World Series doesn't run through the division title but through the Wild Card, where that have a  comfortable 5½-game cushion. 

They're off today, and start a weekend series against the woeful San Francisco Giants (52-74). However, if we're seen anything from the Red Sox this season, especially since the All-Star break, it's that they thrive against division-leading teams and struggle against the basement dwellers. However, ace pitcher and 20-win candidate Sonny Gray (15-3, 2.65) will start Friday night's game, so we have at least a chance of not getting swept at home by the Giants.      

Red Sox 9, Diamondbacks 4

 

The mighty Boston Red Sox have won back-to-back home games, finally reaching .500 at Fenway, and threaten to sweep the Diamondbacks. 

Last night was the Adley Rutschman show. He opened the scoring in the first inning with a two-RBI single, and then after Ranger Suarez gave up a grand slam to Arizona in the third, tied the game up with a solo home run in the bottom of that inning.  He finished the game two of four at the plate with a homer, three RBIS, and a walk. 

What Rutschman did early in the game, Mickey Glasper did late, hitting a solo homer in the sixth and an RBI single in the seventh. All but one player in the Boston lineup had at least one hit, and five had two. 

Ranger Suarez had a rough third inning, what with the grand slam and all, but still went 5⅓ innings with only those four runs, four hits, and three strikeouts. The bullpen of Guerrero, Miller, and Olds went 3⅔ innings without any runs, and both Miller and Olds are still rocking their 0.00 ERAs after a combined 8⅓ innings in Boston. 

The Rays lost last night, so the Red Sox (68-58) sneak up to 7½ back from first in the AL East.

They go for the sweep of Arizona this afternoon (4:10 pm) with Payton Tolle (8-6, 2.97). Tolle got roughed up in Arizona last year, giving up five runs, including two homers, but that was only his second MLB game and he's a much better pitcher now.   

The D-backs will start Brandon Pfaadt, the scourge of spellcheck, who's 7-1 with a 3.11 ERA. On September 6 last year, the day after Tolle's loss, Pfaadt had seven strikeouts against one run in six innings versus the Sox. The Sox went 1-2 in that series last year, but this year they're looking to sweep.

We're No. 3!

 

Only 18 more days until college football, eleven if you're USC. The Dawgs host Oklahoma this year and have road games at Alabama and Ole Miss, and QB Gunner Stockton is expected to come into his own this season. 

Finally, something new to talk about other than baseball and stranded Arctic sailors.  

Red Sox 11, Diamondbacks 1

 

The team that can't seem to beat teams with losing records - the A's, the Jays, the Pirates - apparently has no problems with teams with winning records - the Rays, the Dodgers, and now the Diamondbacks. The team that once couldn't win in their home park now seems unbeatable in Fenway. Go figure.

Last night, the mighty Boston Red Sox (67-58) walloped the Arizona D'backs, 11-1. Gasper was in at DH in place of the ailing Yoshida and hit a solo homer in the seventh. Contreras homered, too, and every Boston batter had at least one RBI - Abreu and Gasper each had two. Bello went 4⅔ innings with three K's and one run, and the bullpen - Weissert, Moran, and Wyatt Olds in his major-league debut - gave up only one hit in three shutout innings. Olds went three up and three down, including two strikeouts in an impressive first appearence. 

See? That's how you do it. Feels good to win, doesn't it?

To add a touch of intrigue to the proceedings, D'back All-Star second baseman Ketel Marte was a no show for the game. No one knows why. 

Ranger Suarez (4-3, 3.25) is going to try to make it two straight tonight. Suarez, a former Cardinals National Leaguer, has struggled with Arizona over the years, with a career 1-4 record against them and a 6.91 ERA, the highest of any team he's faced more than twice. He'll be opposed by Arizona's Merrill Kelly (8-10, 5.11), who has a 2-1 record over the Red Sox and a 2.66 ERA. Back in August 2024, Kelly gave up two home runs in Fenway, but those were to Casas and Devers and, well, they're not going to help us now.

Pirates 8, Red Sox 3

 

Of, for fuck's sake. It's the Pirates, the 61-65 Pirates. You can't win a series against them?

Part of the problem with this year's mercurial Red Sox season is no one can explain exactly what went right to cause them to go on their epic 27-3 run, so no one knows what to fix now that they're 2-7 since their last nine-game win streak ended. We don't know what's wrong now if we don't know what was right then.

But I'll tell you one thing that's not right: Patrick Sandoval. He gave up seven runs in the first three innings of yesterday's game In the third inning, he gave up three singles and one double for two runs before getting his first out. Then he gave up two more singles and a walk for two more runs, before getting a batter to hit into a sac fly for the second out, but also allowing a fifth run.   

Before returning to active duty on July 9, Sandoval was out since June 2024 with an injury. He returned to the game a little rusty and two years older, and maybe - I'm just tossing out ideas here - maybe he's not the pitcher he was before his injury and shouldn't be starting for the Red Sox down the final stretch of the season. Let him work on his pitches and timing for the rest of this season somewhere in the minors, and then call him up nest year if and when he's back in the groove. 

And the offense! What offense? The first six batters in the order has only one hit in 22 at bats (.045), and the only scoring yesterday came from the bottom third of the order - Duran, Seigler, and Wong. And Wong, the last batter, hit a three-run homer, accounting for 100% of Boston's scoring yesterday.

Absolutely pathetic.

The Red Sox (66-58) limp home from last week's road trip with a 2-5 record against two teams currently in last place in their divisions. They start a six-game home stand tonight, but their record at Fenway this season, despite the success of The Streak, is only 29-31.

They'll have their hands full in the first series against the Arizona Diamondbacks (66-59). Tonight, Boston will start rookie reliever Alec Gamboa (0-0. 1.59), but that's probably just a decoy to get Brayan Bello (4-6, 4.84) into the game without melting down in the first inning, as he's prone to do. Bello pitched against Arizona in a September 7 game last year, with three runs on four hits and two Ks in six innings.  The D-backs will start rookie Mitch Bratt (1-1, 3.74) for his first game against the Sox.

It's Over

 

The Yeva has been docked in Nome, Alaska since the 13th of August, and Ella Hibbert finally announced today that Russia's Northern Sea Route Administration had told her to end her attempt at crossing the Northeast Passage this year due to an unusually heavy amount of ice blocking the entrance to the Chuhchi Sea. She is therefore abandoning her plan to complete her Arctic circumnavigation this year, but vows to try again next year. 

Her permit for the NSR states that she must remain in “ice free waters” during her passage, unlike Canada's Northwest Passage, where one is allowed to find paths through the ice fields. Presumably, the permits for Matt Rutherford and Tamara Klink (if she had one) had the same or similar stipulation.

Tamara made it about halfway to Wrangell Island (the olive-colored blob at the very top of the map north of the red-colored ice field) before being ordered to turn back. Unfortunately, that means she had to pass through the thickest portion of the ice field again although open water was accessible just a little further to the west. She's been having an absolutely harrowing experience returning, fighting sleep deprivation and worsening weather conditions, and has complained of hallucinations and ice damage to the boat, the Sardinha. Her updates have become confused and garbled, often self-contradictory from one sentence to the next. To be honest, I'm worried about her, but take some comfort that she's currently rounding Cape Dezhnev, entering the Bering Strait and out of the Chukchi ice field. It gets better, Tamara. Hang in there.

I'm also suspicious of Russia's motives. Sure, there's ice in the Chukchi and no one wants to have to make a rescue in easternmost Siberia even in August, but I wonder if they have other reasons for closing the Northern Sea Route. They're at war against Ukraine, which has been using unconventional strategies including drone warfare to overcome Russia's conventional military superiority, and who needs some random sailboats along your northern coast doing god knows what under those conditions? Also, with Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and Yemen taking hostile actions in the Red Sea, I wouldn't be surprised that Russia wants to assert it's sovereignty and control over passage over the NSR and not show the world that young women can sail right through in solo sailboats. Better to allow only large, corporate cargo ships accompanied by nuclear-powered Russian icebreaking vessels to show the world that they're in charge up there.

Red Sox 4, Pirates 0

 

Relief! Not the pitching, but the comforting sensation that, yes, this team is capable of beating a last-place team, at least some of the time. 

Last night, Wilyer Abreu homered 432 feet into deep right center in the second inning. Then, after seven suspenseful innings of holding onto that 1-0 lead, Andruw Monasterio finally hit a two-RBI double in the ninth for some insurance and Jahmai Jones brought Monasterio home on a single.

Sonny Gray pitched like the professional that he is, going a full seven shutout innings  with six Ks and only five hits. Erik Miller took care of the Pirates in the eighth, three up and three down, and Aroldis Chapman even managed to make it through the ninth without any unnecessary drama, three up, three down, including two strikeouts. 

The biggest news from the game may be that Masataka Yoshida apparently hurt himself while running to second base on a double in the third. He was taken out of the game with a noticeable limp, and it was announced that he was dealing with left hamstring tightness. The Red Sox will likely put him on the IL and make some changes to their roster.

Meanwhile, the baseball gods appear to regret some of the misfortune they sent the Red Sox way, as they caused Tampa Bay to lose two straight to the last place Orioles, and the Yankees to lose three in a row, the last two to those pesky Jays. So Boston, although 4-6 in their last ten, is now 8½ back from the Rays and two back from New York. The Sox have a 5½-game cushion in the Wild Card standings with 39 games left to play.

The first of those games starts this afternoon when smokin' Patrick Sandoval (1-1, 3.30) takes the mound in the rubber game against Pittsburgh. Catcher Adley Rutschman (.071) is in the game as the DH in place of Yoshida. The Pirates will give reliever Lake Bachar, recently acquired from Miami, his first start as a Pirate - he started four games for the Marlins this season against 34 relief appearances, and has pitched in relief three times for Pittsburgh this season. 

In case you're interested, Boston has a long history of defeating pirates. Boston crews who were captured and forced into service by pirates often waited for an opportunity to rebel, occasionally managing to overpower their captors and sail the ships directly into Boston Harbor to face justice. Captured pirates were typically taken to sites like Bird Island for execution and their bodies placed on display as a warning to other mariners. In 1726, three hundred years ago, the minister Cotton Mather attempted to save the soul of the captured pirate William Fly, although Fly remained defiant right up to the gallows. In other words, Boston doesn't take any shit from pirates.

Pirates 8, Red Sox 4

 

It's not just the losing, although the losing is plenty bad in and of itself, but it's losing to last-place teams like the A's and the Blue Jays and now the Pirates.

The first week of August, the Red Sox went 6-0 against the first-place Dodgers and White Sox, and then the second week they went 1-5 against those aforementioned last-place teams. During the first week of August, the Sox scored 54 runs. During the second week, they scored 25.  

Last night, big Jake Bennett have up four runs on five hits, including one HR, in four innings.  The usually reliable Boston bullpen gave up four more runs, including another homer. Offensively, Nick Sogard got a pair of RBIs and Yoshida made things look kind of interesting with a two-run single in the top of the ninth, but other than that, the offense continues to look lifeless.

So here's the deal, this shit's gotta stop and gotta stop now. Tonight, the Red Sox are playing their ace and starting Sonny Gray (14-3, 2.79). Gray was let down by the lack of Boston scoring in his last start, a 2-1 loss to the Jays, but struck out eight White Sox batters on August 5  On the other side, the Pirates are starting Jared Jones (2-4, 5.03). In his last two starts, Jones gave up eight hits, three runs and two homers against the Brewers and then a career-high eight runs against the Mets, not lasting more than four innings in either game. 

But as we've seen this second week of August, it doesn't matter who's on the mound if the Red Sox aren't hitting. We need some hits and some run production and we need it now. So by the power invested in me by Caesar Augustus, patron saint of this hothouse month, I hereby command the Boston batters to launch baseballs out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny starting tonight. Hit them out of the park and over the Roberto Clemente Bridge, even all the way to the Andy Warhol and Rachel Carson Bridges. Just hit, baby. 

Danger in the Arctic

In a recent update, Tamara Klink announced that after eight days of cruising around the Chukchi Sea trying to find a passage among the floes of sea ice, she was told to turn back due to the ice conditions in the Russian Arctic. 

The sea-ice map above shows that the polar ice cap has shifted away from Scandinavia and the Kara Sea and toward the north coasts of Alaska and easternmost Siberia. Matt Rutherford had managed to cross over Scandinavia and practically tapped on the ice cap north of Svalbard, and has gotten across the Kara Sea as far as the choke point surrounding the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The map above shows a large body of ice south (i.e., to the right) of the islands, which is probably why Rutherford tried to sail north around the islands before being told by the Russians to turn back. 

Klink is stymied by the ice north of easternmost Siberia (i.e., the top of the icefield shown above). She is returning to the Bering Strait but temperatures are dropping and strong winds are approaching and she currently finds herself trapped by the ice. There are no harbors or anchorages in that part of Siberia and as she gets closer to the coast, the pieces of ice get tighter as she tries her best to leave the area. To make matters even worse, the other night, as she tied her boat off against some ice in order to get a little sleep, she saw a bear on the iceberg and had to quickly retreat. 

Klink is a savvy and experienced Arctic explorer, and we send her our best wishes as she figures out a way to escape the trap she's in quickly and safely.

Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 0

 

We're back, baby! We're back, we're going to the World Series, and we're winning the motherfucker!

Yesterday afternoon, the mighty Boston Red Sox shook off their five-game losing streak and defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-0, behind eight masterful innings by Payton Tolle and a grand-slam home run by Caleb Durbin. (Side note: despite the Georgia heat and humidity yesterday, I went out for a 6½-mile walk, and as soon as I got back into the house, all hot and dripping with sweat, I tuned into the Red Sox game on the radio just in time to catch Durbin's hit on the first play I heard. Great timing, but this isn't about me.) Willson Contreras hit an RBI double in the first inning, and after Tolle's eighth inning grand salami, Masataka Yoshida scored a one-run RBI and Durbin singled for his fifth RBI of the day. 

Durbin went eight, two-hit, scoreless innings on only 91 pitches. He threw 61 strikes, even if he only recorded four K's in the game. He was one inning away from throwing a Maddux and I'm frankly a little surprised that Chad Tracy didn't keep him in the game for the ninth to give the bullpen another day's rest and let Durbin earn his reward.

But most importantly, the Sox ended that ugly five-game skid they've been riding. They're now 28-8 (.778) in their last 36 games, and 33-10 since the start of last June's four-game sweep of the Yankees (.767).    

However, due to their historically bad start to the season, Boston is still only 65-56 (.537) on the year and in third place in the AL East, 9½ back from Tampa Bay, who at 74-46, currently hold the best record in MLB. Fortunately for the Red Sox, their path to the World Series doesn't go through winning the division but through the Wild Card standings, where that have a comfortable five-game cushion for the second playoff spot.   

Their path to the World Series doesn't go through winning the division, but every night before bed I get down on my knees and pray to Cthulu and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that they at least beat the Yankees in the final standings (but this isn't about me). New York lost last night and as of this morning, the Sox are three games behind the Yankees in the standings. 

It's on to Pittsburgh, the crown jewel of the Allegheny Valley, to play the Pirates (59-64), the last-place team in the NL Central. FWIW, I had season tickets to the Pirates back in 1993, but whatever (long story, and this isn't about me). Although Boston has six more wins and eight fewer losses than Pittsburgh, the Pirates actually lead the Red Sox in every major offensive statistic (team batting average, runs scored, home runs, on-base percentage, slugging, and stolen bases). However, the Red Sox enjoy a team ERA advantage (3.48 vs. 4.32) as well as fewer walks, home runs allowed, WHIP, and BAA. Defensively, the Pirates lead only in number of strikeouts (1,137 versus 1,034).

Tonight, Big Jake Bennett (7-5, 3.17) starts the first game of the series for his debut against the Pirates, while Pitt will put Bubba Chandler (5-8, 4.26), the pride of Lawrenceville, Georgia, on the mound to face the Red Sox for his first time. 

The Red Sox are hungry to atone for their losing streak and to regain some of the ground they lost during that stretch, while the last-place Pirates know that once again there's no post-season for them this year, so Boston has the edge on the intangibles like momentum, enthusiasm, and motivation.

Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 4

 

Again? A fifth straight loss? Imma gonna be honest with you - watching the 27-3 run through July and early August was more fun that watching this five-game losing skid. I mean, technically, they're now 27-8, which doesn't sound too bad, but it doesn't feel the way it sounds. It feels like two separate streaks - 27-3 and 0-5. 

 

The game was tied, 1-1, until Boston reliever Tyron Guerrero allowed five runs in the bottom of the eighth. But there for a minute, it looked like some of that old 27-3 magic might have come back when the Red Sox scored three runs in the top of the ninth, had the speedy Jarren Duran on third, and the potential tying run, Nick Sogard, at the plate. But Soggy hit into a groundout, and that was that for the comeback.  Better luck tomorrow, boyos. 

The Blue Jays currently enjoy a 9-3 season record over the Red Sox (64-56) this season. Disgusting. However, Boston is still six games ahead of the fourth-place Jays, six back from the Yankees, and ten back from first place Tampa Bay. But the Red Sox' path to the playoffs doesn't go through the division championship, and they still enjoy a 4½-game cushion in the Wild Card standings.

This afternoon (3:07 pm), Payton Tolle (7-6, 3.20) starts against veteran journeyman Max Scherzer (1-4, 7.25). The Red Sox, who've been making every Toronto pitcher look like the second coming of Cy Young in this series, are 3-1 against Scherzer, and back on September 24 of last year, rocked him for ten hits, including a Yoshida home run, to win 7-1. 

C'mon guys, you've beat Scherzer before and you can beat him again. I mean, you can't spell "Beantown" without a W. 

Bureau of Curious Behaviors

 

I have no idea what they're doing up there in the Arctic. I hope everyone is alright.

First, we have Ella Hibbert and the Yeva appearing to be sailing back to Alaska after harboring overnight in Siberia. Today and yesterday, she's been sailing east across the Bering Strait apparently straight toward Nome. Is she having equipment problems and needs something that can't be shipped to her in Russia in a timely manner? Is it a health issue? We don't know because she hasn't posted an update since August 2 before she left Saint Paul Island and all we can do it follow her route.

Update: After posting this, I found a post by some other person saying that when Hibbert was in the port of Providenia in Russia, she needed to replenish her fuel supply but attempts to contact anyone there were unsuccessful. Perhaps she's now headed to Nome to fuel up before taking on the Northeast Passage. 

Then there's Matt Rutherford and the Chimera, still way up north at the 80th parallel in the Kara Sea, but for some reason now turned around and heading west instead of east. He had been fairly consistent with at least daily updates to his media feed, but has been silent the past two days with no explanation as to why he's reversed course.

And who knows what the hell Tamara Klink and the Sardinga 2 are up to in the Chukchi Sea. Searching for a path through sea ice? Reacting to changing wind directions? Lost? Just playing around? Her most recent Instagram update was yesterday but was recorded back when she first left Nome last week.

So, yeah, I'm confused. Everybody seems to be going in the wrong direction. But I'm neither a sailor nor an Arctic explorer, so what do I know?

Update 2: Rutherford just announced this evening that the Northern Sea Route Association within the Russian Government, which controls the Northeast Passage over Siberia, has decided that the ice conditions are too hazardous to permit any recreational vessels to pass through. In other words, access denied, and he has turned back to sail the 5,000 miles to his home in Annapolis, Maryland. Bummer.

That may also be why Ella Hibbert is now a mere dozen or so miles outside of Nome, Alaska. She may have not found the fuel she was looking for in Providenia, but she may also have been told to "turn back."

Update 3: Tamara Klink just posted that she indeed had been looking for a path through the sea ice in the Chukchi Sea, but seeing nothing but ice around here and on the satellite map, she's heading back to the Bering Strait. 

Long story short, for a season that looked like it might have had as many as three solo sailboats passing through the Northeast Passage, it now appears that there won't be any. Bummer.

Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 4

 

Veteran catcher Adley Rutschman made his Red Sox debut last night. Boston lost, 5-3.

It was Boston's fourth straight loss, but it wasn't Rutschman's fault. He caught a fairly good game, and very nearly hit a Dylan Cease fastball out of the park (it went foul by only a few feet). He finished 1-3 on the night, with a single, a strikeout, and two walks.   

The frustrating thing about last night's loss was the Sox succeeded in knocking pitching ace Dylan Cease out of the game with 104 pitches after five innings. They got five hits off of him, including an Abreu and a Rafaela home run, and the Sox led, 3-1, by the end of Cease's stint on the mound. But with the hard part of the night's work out of the way, they gave up two runs in the bottom of the fifth and Boston wasn't able to score against the Jay's bullpen, while the usually reliable Red Sox' bullpen gave up two more runs.     

Four straight losses after a 27-3 run. This most improbable of seasons continues to be unpredictable.

To make matters worse, now Tampa Bay is red hot, winning nine of their last ten games, and Boston (64-55) trails the Rays by nine games in the AL East. Friendly reminder that the AL East is a rough neighborhood, and third-place Boston's .538 average would put them in first in either the AL Central or AL West. 

But the Red Sox path to the World Series doesn't run through the division championship but through the Wild Card race, where they have a 4½ game margin and trail New York for the top berth by three games.

Ranger Suarez (4-3, 3.32) will start the third game if this four-game series tonight. On July 25, he pitched four shutout innings against the Jays with six Ks, and is a career 2-0 against the Jays in three starts. He'll be up against former Angel José Soriano (9-6, 3.24). He gave up two home runs to Boston in relief back in 2024, including one to Jarren Duran, and in a June 4 start last year, the Sox rocked him for seven runs on eight hits in only 3⅔ innings. 

But past results are no indication of future performance, or so we're told, and it remains to be seen if the Red Sox are going to allow themselves to lose a second straight series and set themselves up to possibly be swept for the first time since June 18, when the Jays swept them in Fenway.