Beckett gave up five runs, four earned, over six innings. He walked three and struck out seven and threw ninety-six pitches. So, like I said, it wasn’t the worst start ever. If the batters batted around a little bit, it actually would have all been fine. Sadly it was not to be.
Beckett gave up a triple with one out that led to a run during a fielder’s choice in the first. One single later, he gave up an RBI single. In the second, he gave up a double and a walk that both turned into runs after he gave up an RBI double. He had a one-two-three inning in the third and fourth, and the unearned run scored in the fifth thanks to a throwing error by Middlebrooks, which allowed a single to stretch into a double and then a run on another single, just getting around Shoppach’s tag.
That, by the way, was ridiculous. Colby Rasmus was out. Anybody could see that he was out. Rasmus claimed that his hand touched the plate under the tag, but you could clearly see that Shoppach had the plate blocked. Rasmus didn’t touch it. It may have looked like he touched it, but he didn’t touch it. And if he didn’t touch it and Shoppach tagged him, which he did, then Rasmus should have been out. Not that it ended up mattering, but it’s an issue of dignity and principle. Anyway, then Beckett faced one above the minimum in the sixth.
Miller faced the minimum in the seventh, and Melancon faced the minimum in the eighth while giving up two straight doubles for another run in the ninth.
We, on the other hand, had the gross displeasure of being held to only one run throughout the entire game, and we were lucky even to score that. We scored in the bottom of the ninth. Ross struck out, Middlebrooks singled, Nava pinch-hit for Shoppach and walked, and then Aviles grounded into a force out for the reason why we weren’t completely shut out. Salty pinch-hit for Ciriaco but struck out to end the game.
Our only other big opportunity came in the seventh, when we had two on with nobody out, but then Aviles struck out and Ciriaco grounded into a force out, which put runners at the corners, but then Ellsbury popped out and that was it.
So the final score was a keenly disappointing 6-1. Both teams posted nine hits, but they went four for ten with runners in scoring position while we went 0 for 7. They left five on base; we left eight. And they hit five extra-base hits; we hit none. Middlebrooks went two for four, and Shoppach went two for three for our only multi-hit games.
Beckett took a well-deserved loss for a mediocre start. Honestly, it wasn’t horrendous – it wasn’t necessarily even that bad – but it wasn’t great either, and depending on how you look at it, either his start or our lack of run production cost the game. Obviously in reality it was some combination of both. But we’ve been over this so many times already; both the offense and the pitcher have a responsibility to keep the team in the game, and when neither does its job, the team loses unless it gets lucky. And we are too good with too much potential and with too much ground to cover during the second half to just sit around and rely on luck. Yesterday was a case in point. We were very unlucky.
Boston Soul 