Red Sox Comeback Falls Short After Eduardo Rodriguez Allows 4 Home Runs To The Blue Jays
The first thing you have to do when talking about Sunday’s game is tip your hat to Blue Jays starter, Marco Estrada. That was no fluke. That’s one hell of a pitcher on the other side, who has pitched well against the Red Sox in the past.
Now, that’s not the only reason why the Red Sox lost. It’s a big reason, but it’s not the only reason. It was just a weird, weird outing for Eduardo Rodriguez in the series finale against Toronto. The first thing that sticks out to you is that he allowed four home runs, but those were the only four hits that he allowed all day. In 5.2 innings of work, Rodriguez allowed just those four hits, but they all left the yard.
If Rodriguez only allowed four hits, then he must’ve been missing a lot of bats otherwise, no? Well, not really. Not at all, actually. He only had five swings and misses throughout his whole start, and didn’t strike out a single batter. Rodriguez threw 99 pitches in his second start of the season, and 82 of those pitches were fastballs. Rodriguez rounds out his repertoire with a changeup and a slider, but barely used his slider at all. In 21 starts last season, Rodriguez threw his fastball 68.7% of the time, his slider 11.8% of the time, and his changeup 19.5% of the time. In his first two starts this year, he’s using his fastball 75% of the time, a slight increase in using his changeup at 18.6% of the time, and the use of his slider has dropped to 6.4%.
To my knowledge, none of the writers in the clubhouse asked Rodriguez why he’s been so dependent on his fastball, or why he’s gotten away from using his slider. They did ask, however, if he was healthy, and he said that he was. Take that for what it’s worth. When we last saw Rodriguez in a major league game before his knee injury, his fastball velocity was averaging 95.3 MPH. Through his first two starts this year, his fastball is averaging 93.7 MPH.
But I also think that this was to be expected, and not a reason to panic. Yet. The calendar says June, but you have to put yourself in an April mindset in regards to what you’re seeing from Rodriguez right now. I understand that Red Sox fans are running out of patience with this pitching staff, which is absolutely fair to feel that way, but you have to treat Rodriguez as a separate case, given the circumstances.
But this doesn’t all fall on Rodriguez here. The Red Sox were getting no-hit with one out in the bottom of the eighth, before Chris Young hit a solo home run to break up the no-hitter and the shutout. Young made a bad first impression on Red Sox Nation, starting out hitting .176 with a .587 OPS and no home runs through his first 34 at-bats. But, since then, Young is hitting .386 with a 1.222 OPS, 5 doubles, 4 home runs and 11 RBI in 44 at-bats.
The comeback continued in the bottom of the ninth with doubles by Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, and Hanley Ramirez, followed by a pair of singles from Jackie Bradley Jr. and Young, but the game ended on a pinch hit strikeout from Marco Hernandez. They made it interesting at the end, but ended up falling to 5-7 in one-run games this year.
This play would not have stuck out to me as much had the Red Sox not lost by a run, but here we are. Xander Bogaerts came to the plate with two runners on and nobody out in the first inning — an inning in which the Red Sox have scored more runs (56) than any other inning — and he fuckin’ BUNTED. He’s now second in the American League in hitting (.345), but nevertheless, he’s the best pure hitter in that Red Sox lineup next to David Ortiz, and he’s bunting in that situation? Not only is he hitting .345 with an .896 OPS this season overall, but he’s hitting .361 with a .944 OPS with men on base this season. And you thought that was an opportune time to drop down a bunt? Come on, man.
After his hitting streak ended, Bogaerts even said something along the lines of how he was relieved it was over so that he could go back to dropping down bunts here and there. I honestly thought he was joking. The dude who was leading the league in hitting when he said that should NEVER be dropping down bunts, ESPECIALLY when you have men on base. And not only that, but it was a TERRIBLE bunt. The three worst things you can do when you’re bunting is bunt the ball hard, bunt the ball back to the pitcher, and fail to advance the runners, and he did all three of those things. He’s gotta be smarter than that.
With the loss, the Red Sox fall to 14-15 against American League East teams, while going 19-9 against everybody else. This was the first series that the Red Sox have lost at Fenway Park since the Rays took two out of three from the Red Sox on April 19-21.
Final score: Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 4