The Giants beat the Red Sox tonight 3-2. This ended the Red Sox’s five-game winning streak and evened up the series at one game apiece. Tonight, the Red Sox were oh-so-close to an incredible comeback. After being shut out all game, they scored twice in the ninth inning against the MLB leader in saves, Camilo Doval. Unfortunately, on the first pitch that J.D. Davis saw in the bottom of the ninth, he crushed a walk-off home run. For the Red Sox, tonight was quite a forgettable game. The offense was asleep for nearly the entire game, as two of their five hits came in the ninth inning. The Blue Jays beat the Angels today, meaning the Sox are now 2.5 games behind them for the final wild-card spot.
James Paxton had one of his weirder starts of the season. I say that because there was traffic against him all day; however, he only allowed a single run. His final pitching line was 5 innings, 1 run, 8 hits, and 5 strikeouts. I can’t remember the last time a starter gave up eight hits and only allowed one run! This speaks to Paxton’s ability to escape jams, keeping the Red Sox in the game.
In the first inning, after the Giants scored, they still had runners on second and third with one out. Paxton got Baily to strike out, Matos to ground out with the infield in, and Conforto to ground out to end the inning. In the fourth inning, Paxton faced runners at second and third with only one out after back-to-back hits. He proceeded to get Casey Schmitt to line out, and after he walked Yastrzemski, he got Austin Slater to fly out to end the inning. In his final inning of work, he gave up a leadoff single to Wilmer Flores. He would then get the next two outs before Matos reached on an infield single. Once again, Paxton escaped the jam by striking out Conforto, keeping the Giants’ lead to one. This is the type of performance that you would expect from an ace-caliber starter when they don’t have their best stuff. Tonight against his cutter, Paxton only got two whiffs on nine swings. That is a whiff% of 22%. On the season, the whiff% on his cutter is at 37.5%. Paxton was still able to give the Red Sox a quality start, despite not having his good stuff.
Tonight, the Red Sox teased us by making an incredible comeback, only to surrender the lead once again an inning later. As I mentioned, what made that comeback so impressive, was the fact that they were doing it against the best closer in baseball. Among closers, Camilo Doval is tied for the lead in saves, and opponents are hitting only .188 against him. After Yoshida drew a leadoff walk, Duran hammered a full-count pitch off the wall in right, for a double. The next batter, Justin Turner, drove them both in with a single, collecting RBIs number 67 and 68. The Red Sox would end up not scoring again, and as mentioned, they would lose one inning later on the walk-off home run. In a game with few positive takeaways, one of the only ones is that the offense is capable of something like that. They can look completely dead for eight innings, and then all of a sudden, jump on the MLB’s best closer. It will be very important for the offense to carry over their success in the final inning of tonight’s game, to the rubber game tomorrow.
The Red Sox will try to win the series tomorrow as they will play the rubber match at 4:05 PM. Both teams will have bullpen games in the finale, and for the Giants, it will be their second straight such game. The opener for the Red Sox will be Brennen Bernardino, who has been really good of late, as he has a 0.73 WHIP in July. The Giants will look to the 6’2” lefty, Scott Alexander, who has a 3.41 ERA in 34 games. The Red Sox will not only look to get this west coast trip started with a series win, but also collect their third straight series win.
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