RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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TORONTO — Instant reactions to the Red Sox (64-56) losing again, this time by a 6-4 score after the bullpen implodes late against the Blue Jays:
1) A close game turned into a pretty bad loss as a result of an eighth-inning implosion in which steady reliever Tyron Guerrero wasn’t himself, a Willson Contreras misplay proved costly and the Blue Jays scored five runs in a hurry.
With the score tied 1-1, Guerrero allowed back-to-back singles to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Alejandro Kirk to lead off the inning before Kazuma Okamoto lifted a soft flare into foul territory near first base. Contreras drifted over to make the play but turned too quickly in an attempt to threaten a throw to second — and dropped the ball.
That was ruled an error and Okamoto made the Sox pay seconds later with an RBI single to left with the runner narrowly beating Jarren Duran’s throw home. From there, things went south fast. The hard-throwing Guerrero walked Andrés Giménez (intentional) and Ernie Clement (unintentional, to force in a run) and left with Boston trailing 3-1.
Alec Gamboa entered with no outs and the bases loaded and allowed a George Springer sacrifice fly to plate a fourth Toronto run before Myles Straw effectively put the game to bed with a two-run double in the left field gap. In total, the Jays had six men reach on four hits and two walks.
2) The Red Sox have lost five straight games for just the second time all season — and the first time in many months. Their other five-game streak came on the opening road trip of the season when they dropped two games in Cincinnati and three in Houston.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the five losses have come by a combined 11 runs (2.2 runs per game). Still, it feels like their luck has turned, albeit in a rather small sample.
After winning nine series in a row, the Sox have dropped their last two.
3) For Tyron Guerrero, it was the type of night that will ruin the back of a baseball card. He entered with a sterling 2.03 ERA and 34-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 31 innings and had posted a 0.99 ERA with 27 strikeouts in his last 27 outings entering the game. But things unraveled fast.
Guerrero was tagged for four earned runs, three hits and two walks without recording an out. His ERA rose more than a run — to 3.19.
After the game, the Red Sox revealed that Guerrero pitched the eighth over setup man Garrett Whitlock because Whitlock is dealing with elbow inflammation and was unavailable .
4) Boston hasn’t gone down easy in recent days and that was certainly the case in the top of the ninth. Suddenly trailing by five runs, the lineup got to mop-up man Matt Waldron enough to make things uncomfortable for Toronto. The Sox scored three times in the ninth in another comeback bid that fell short.
Contreras worked a one-out walk, then Wilyer Abreu doubled and Caleb Durbin singled him home to make it 6-2. Duran’s RBI double made it 6-3 and brought the tying run to the plate. At that point, the Jays turned to closer Louis Varland.
Andruw Monasterio’s sac fly made it 6-4. But Varland prevented further carnage by getting Nick Sogard to ground out to end it.
5) The Red Sox did a pretty good job against ace Dylan Cease on Tuesday, chasing him from the game after five innings and scoring three times. They had less success against José Soriano, an underrated arm who has had a breakout year and was traded from the Angels to Toronto at the deadline. Soriano allowed just four hits and one run (a Contreras homer) in six strong innings.
Boston had just five hits before the ninth inning.
6) Long before the error, Contreras looked like an early hero with a big homer that tied the game 1-1 in the fifth.
With Boston trailing by a run, Contreras got a 3-2 curveball on the edge of the plate and smoked it 408 feet with an exit velocity of 105.9 mph to tie the game with his team-leading 24th homer . Before that blast, he was experiencing something of a power outage, at least by his standards, in recent weeks. Entering the game, he had homered just once in an 18-game span.
Clearly, getting hit in the head with a pitch, being sick and dealing with various lower-leg injuries have hampered Contreras in recent weeks. But he’s coming out of it and tied a career high in homers Wednesday.
7) Ranger Suarez was better than his last outing, when he lasted just three innings against the White Sox, but still rather unremarkable against the Jays. He allowed one run on six hits while striking out two batters and walking one in five innings. Suarez threw 81 pitches before being pulled.
The Red Sox are going to need Suarez to go deeper into games down the stretch but they are still building him back up from his injured list stint.
8) Chad Tracy raved about Abreu’s defense before the game and the fifth inning brought yet another example of how elite it is. With two men on and one out, Vlad Guerrero Jr. hit a liner toward Abreu, who made a sliding catch and then fired a one-hop bullet to first base, where Brett Bateman was doubled off .
At the time, it felt like a major momentum shifter. It made Suarez’s line look much better than it otherwise could have, too.
9) Durbin deserves a ton of credit for his toughness. His left pinky finger, which has been various levels of painful since he dislocated it in late June , is clearly bothering him, as evidenced by how he sat with a trainer in the clubhouse before the game and spent a good chunk of time trying to make his batting glove more comfortable with modifications.
Durbin appeared to aggravate the injury in the fifth inning when he fouled a pitch off and grimaced while dropping the bat. Tracy and a trainer came out to visit him but Durbin stayed in the game.
It’s abundantly clear he’s not at 100%, but Durbin is doing everything he can to stay in there.
10) It sure feels like the Red Sox are back to trying to do too much on a nightly basis. Case in point: in the fourth inning, Ceddanne Rafaela singled for the first hit off Soriano,...
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