Rangers 6, Red Sox 1: A soggy, uninspiring mess

In a very forgettable game, there’s one play worth remembering for all the wrong reasons.

In a game that was even more one sided than the final score indicated, the Rangers cruised to a five run victory in a contest that was never competitive.

Most of this had to do with Nathan Eovaldi just pitching much, much better than Lucas Giolito. It wasn’t even close! Giolito allowed a run before the Boston bats ever came to the dish while Eovaldi allowed just one run all night. Giolito couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning, Eovaldi got through six. Giolito allowed five runs in a single inning, Eovaldi allowed just five hits his whole outing.

A certain percentage of baseball games are going to come down to one starter vastly outpitching the other. Nothing more, nothing less. And honestly, that’s fine as long as it doesn’t happen too often.

But you know what’s not fine? What happened in that very first inning.

It was raining, Giolito had no command out of the gate, the team’s been struggling, and everybody knew they had a tall task ahead with Eovaldi on the other side. This is where serious teams buckle down. This is where you try to use to elements to your advantage and hope that a dome team from Texas is more uncomfortable playing in the slop than you. This is where you can go a long way to proving you’re not soft.

Instead, this garbage happened:

Look at the atrocious attempts on this exchange!

There’s only one guy making an actual big league effort here, and it’s Wyatt Langford. Giolito made an uncompetitive pitch and was caught snoozing, and Carlos Narvaez assumed the play was over once he made the block. Awful!

If this happened late in the game when things were out of control and it was kind of obvious it wasn’t their night, that’s one thing. But to have it happen in the top of the first inning before Eovaldi even threw a pitch and we knew what he had is inexcusable.

It’s even worse in context. This came on the back of a bevy of blown leads and botched opportunities. The Sox had an off day to regroup and recalibrate following their disastrous week, and setting the tone should have been a priority in what figured to be an uphill climb all night. Given the situation, they should have come out like a swarm of angry hornets looking to protect the nest, and instead, they came out looking lethargic and inconvenienced by the clammy conditions.

Again, this didn’t change the result of the game, but it’s just the latest troubling sign that these Sox will fold in the face of the slightest adversity. Facing a good pitcher late in the game when you need a competitive at bat? Quick strikeout. Need to lock in defensively through the ups and downs of a full nine innings? They lead all of baseball in errors. The other team is punching back after you jumped out to an early lead? Cower and contribute to their comeback. The weather was frigid at Fenway when battling the Blue Jays? Apparently the frozen Fahrenheit figure converted to Celsius whenever Toronto had to make a play.

Bottom line is this is the second time a dome team has come to Fenway and looked far more comfortable in the elements than the Red Sox. It’s not why they lost tonight, but it is why they fell behind so quickly and the poor fans who bought a ticket to this game got an even lousier experience than they were already in line for.

Speaking of weather, I hear it can get quite chilly here in the second half of October. But hey, the good news for this group is they won’t have to deal with that if they keep playing like this.

Three studs

Dustin Pedroia on the Unobstructed Views NESN altcast: Unlike many interviews, Dustin Pedroia is a great listen! He’s knowledgeable, intense, focused, funny, and insightful. Below is just a brief clip where he talks about how he spoke with Alex Bregman before he came to Boston, but the whole 30 minutes he was on there was entertaining.

Sean Newcomb: He was tasked with the unceremonious role of mop up man, but he did a great job. Not only did he hold he Rangers to zero runs over his four innings of work, but he also saved the rest of the high leverage arms who now get two days of rest combined with Monday’s off day. If the Sox manage to win a couple of close games on the back end of this series (wishful thinking, I know), Newcomb’s outing tonight is a big reason why.

Brennan Bernardino: Got four outs and didn’t allow a run between Giolito and Newcomb bookending things, and all four came via strikeout.

Three Duds

Lucas Giolito: His stuff was bad, his line was bad, and his alertness in the first inning left something to be desired. He did have this candid interview about his pitches after the game though, so at least that was nice:

The entire lineup: Nobody had a multi-hit game, and for the 20th time this season, they struck out at least ten times as a group. Sure they were facing a good pitcher, but they also looked terrible. (And do not blame this on the weather! The Rangers had 16 hits in these conditions, which is four more than they’ve had in any other road game for them all season.)

Letting Nathan Eovaldi get away: Since we’ve already given duds to everybody who started the game for the Sox in the first two slots, we should also add some demerits to the front office for letting Eovaldi get away when they did. He’s a solid rotation option they could have had for a reasonable price who likes pitching at Fenway, and has a level of moxie the current club could really use right now.

Play of the game

If it was player of the game, it’s Eovaldi, but as play of the game, the only thing really worth remembering from this one is how Wyatt Langford caught Lucas Giolito and Carlos Narvaez napping. Hopefully the Sox show up actually ready to play tomorrow.