Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 3

 

Walker Buehler served up batting practice in the first inning, giving up consecutive homers on two back-to-back pitches. Boston tied the game up in the second, but then Buehler gave up to more runs on two hits and three walks in the fourth, and that was it for today's Exercise in Futility.

The Red Sox lose again. Seven losses in the last ten games after an 8-2 win streak. .500 baseball either way. The Blue Jays leave Fenway two games further ahead of Boston in the standings than when they entered.

Next up is a three-game home series against the Cincinnati Reds (44-40). Starting pitchers tomorrow are, oh, does it matter? We're gonna fuckin' lose.  

 

     

Yeva, Greenlanded

 

The Yeva is currently harbored in the small village of Qaqortoq, located within a system of fjords on the southeastern coast of Greenland. There's three Qs in "Qaqortoq" and not one of them is followed by the letter U. Trails from the town lead through rugged mountains to the old Norse settlement of Igaliku, and to the southeast, hot springs at Uunartoq sit beside a bay dotted with icebergs. The area has had a continuous human presence for roughly 4,300 years, beginning with the Saqqaq culture. DNA evidence suggests that the ancestors of the Saqqaq came from Siberia and that they subsequently remained largely isolated from other populations. It is not known whether they crossed in boats or over ice.

Anyway, on her circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle and needing to find a safe place to repair the Yeva's heater, Ella Hibbert sailed into Qaqortoq's harbor. She reported that she spotted a pod of right whales  before landing in Greenland and that she also had her first visual sighting of an iceberg.  While in port, on top of fixing her heater, she'll probably top off her fuel and water, and get in a good sleep. 

To watch for icebergs at sea, she's had to restrict sleep to 20-minute shifts. However, one of the consequences of waking up too quickly or too early is a phenomenon called sleep inertia, that groggy period between waking and being fully aware. The more abruptly you are awakened, the more severe the sleep inertia. Transitioning between sleep mode and awake mode is a gradual process - our brain-stem arousal systems (the parts of the brain responsible for basic physiological functioning) are activated almost instantly, but our cortical regions, especially the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain involved in decision-making and self-control), take longer to come on board. As a result, instantaneous decision-making is challenging when abruptly awakened, so one can only imagine how Hibbert's mind reacts to a blip on the Yeva's radar indicating an iceberg up ahead after a brief, 20-minutes sleep. 

From Qaqortoq, the Yeva will sail north back up to the Arctic Circle and then pass north of Baffin Island through the Baffin Sea. From there, she'll pick a route through the Northwest Passages depending on the extent of sea ice and head west over the top of the North American continent.

Red Sox 15, Blue Jays 1

 

Well, cool. The Red Sox get in their entire allotment of monthly runs in one game. Save some of those runs for July, boys!

Seriously, nice to finally see a win and an end to that six-game losing streak. For the record, Abreu, Rafaela, and González homered. Nearly every player in the lineup got a least one hit, and Roman Anthony and Romy González got three each. Also, Giolito pitched seven solid innings with only one run, six hits, and five K's over seven innings.

Walker Buehler (5-5, 4.29) pitches tomorrow in the rubber game against Eric Lauer (4-1, 2.21). Let's win this homestand series, guys! 

Blue Jays 9, Red Sox 0

 

No runs. None. Zero. Not one goddamn player in a Red Sox uniform crossed home plate even once the entire goddamn game.  Meanwhile, the pesky Jays scored nine times.

Sixth consecutive loss. It shouldn't feet this bad - I'm used to losing, I've been a Sox fan since 1975 - but to play so listlessly is frustrating and painful to watch. 

We've still got three more months of this shit to go through.  

Yeva, Farewell

Ella Hibbert has rounded Farewell Point and is currently about 35–40 miles off the southern tip of Greenland. 

The Yeva is deep in iceberg territory now, so Capt. Hibbert is keeping her eyes peeled and the sails reefed, but is still getting bashed about by the high winds. To handle the gusts, Hibbert's running smaller sails and the hydrovane is doing the steering. 

Today, the sun finally came out after three gray days at sea, which is a boost for  morale. 

This is now Day 17 of the voyage, and she's covered 1,217 miles so far. Hopefully, conditions will be calmer as she leaves the North Atlantic and sails the Labrador Sea into the Northwest Passage.

Angels 5, Red Sox 2

Richard Let's-Call-Him-Dick Fitts gave up back-to-back homers in the fourth innings, erasing a 2-0 Red Sox lead, as the Angels complete a series sweep of the Red Sox. Boston got only one hit in the game after the first inning.

The Sox (40-42) are two games below .500 and seven games back in the AL East. We're only five ahead of least-place Baltimore. A playoff berth looks like a distant dream at this point.  Pitchers Kutter Crawford, Hunter Dobbins, Josh Winckowski, Nick Burdi, Justin Slaten, Liam Hendriks, Tanner Houck, and Chris Murphy are all of the IL, as are batters Alex Bregman, Triston Casas, and Masataka Yoshida. Half the team is below .250; five are below .200. The Boston Basin is slowly sinking into the sea.

This !@#% west coast road trip is finally over. The Sox are off today to fly back home for a six-game home stand against the Blue Jays (42-37) and the Reds (42-39). On Friday night, Brayan Bello (3-2, 3.31) will start against Toronto's José Berríos (3-3, 3.51), but does it really matter anymore?

Angels 3, Red Sox 2

 

Dagnabbit! Four straight losses in a row! This west coast road trip has turned into a disaster. 

To make it worse, this loss follows an absolute pitching masterpiece by Garrett Crochet - 10 strike-outs over seven scoreless innings, with only three hits and three walks. By the top of the 8th, the Sox had a 1-0 lead, but then Greg Weissert gave up Christian Moore's first homer of the night in the bottom of the inning. Tied, 1-1, the game went into extra innings.

Marcelo Mayer singled to score Rafaela in the top of the 10th and Boston took a 2-1 lead. But in the bottom of the inning, Justin Wilson gave up Moore's second homer of the night, which also scored the baserunner, and just like that, the Angels won, 3-2. 

The Sox are once again below .500 and once again closer to last place than first. 

Boston will try to avoid the sweep this afternoon (4:00 pm Eastern) with Richard Don't-Call-Him-"Dick" Fitts (0-3, 4.71) against the Angels' Yusei Kikuchi  (2-6, 3.01). Loser versus loser. Can't wait.

  

Yeva, Greenland Adjacent

Ella Hibbert is making some significant progress and figures she's about two days from the southern tip of Greenland. The weather is raining, foggy, and cold, and to top it off the Yeva's heater is down. "It’s getting pretty bloody cold out here," she says. She'll make landfall in Greenland later this week to fix the heater.

In the meantime, visibility is low (rain and fog) and the radar is on. She's officially on iceberg watch, plodding along through the mist, one chilly mile at a time.

Angels 9, Red Sox 5

 

Boston gave up five runs in the first inning and four more in the eighth for their second straight 9-5 loss and third consecutive loss overall. It's back to .500 baseball (40-40). Remember that 8-2 run last week? Yeah, those were the days.

Crochet (7-4, 2.20) pitches tonight. Although he hasn't yet started a game against the Angels in a Red Sox uniform, we've won the last four games that he's started. Let's see if we can make it five as he goes up against the Angels' Tyler Anderson (2-5, 4.56). We lost to the Angels, 7-6, the last time Anderson started against us back on June 2 in Fenway, although he lasted only 4.1 innings and didn't get the win.   

Yeva, Becalmed

We're pleased to learn that Ella Hibbert and the Yeva have managed to push through that low-pressure cell east of Greenland and are now in somewhat calmer waters. She spent two days hand steering through the storm, screaming at the wind, and crying into the waves in what she describes as a total emotional reset moment. 

But now she's managed to get some rest, eat for the first time in two days, and tidy up the cabin. She's still only about halfway from Iceland to Greenland but at least conditions are somewhat more manageable, at least until she encounters the next storm.

Giants 9, Red Sox 5

Raffy didn't homer against us this time, but Mike Yastrzemski, Casey Schmitt, and Willy Adames all homered against us and Boston loses back-to-back games in San Francisco. Raffy did score on a Heliot Ramos double in the seventh, though, so there's that.

The wind must have been blowing out today. Refsnyder and Romy González both homered in the fifth, and Rafaela homered in the sixth to give the Sox a brief 5-4 lead. But the Sox gave up four runs in the seventh, including one on a González fielding error, and Adames' HR in the eighth gave the Giants their four-run, final lead. 

And with that, Boston gives up the last spot in the Wild Card standings to Cleveland.

On to L.A. for a series against the Angels (37-40). Tomorrow (9:38 pm Eastern) Walker Buehler (5-5, 5.95) goes against someone named Jack Kochanowicz (3-8, 5.38) to end this Pac Rim road trip.

Giants 3, Red Sox 2

It was bound to happen: Devers gets his revenge. Bottom of the second, up by one, one on, and Raffy homers to deep (385 ft.) left center and gives the Giants a 3-0 lead. It was his first home run in a Giants uniform. Ironically, the ball was caught by a fan in the stands wearing a Red Sox jersey.

Boston's bats were pretty quiet until the 9th when the Sox scored two runs. Otherwise, this was Raffy's game. 

Bello gets the loss, even though he went six innings and struck out six. 

The rubber game's tomorrow at 4:00 - the rebuilding Lucas Giolito (3-1, 4.73) against Giants ace Robbie Ray (8-2, 2.68).