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 rubber match for the Sox 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 be swept tonight for the first time since June 18, when the Jays swept them in Fenway.