It's about a six and a half hour plane ride from Boston to London, but it must have felt twice as long to the Boston Red Sox took after yesterday's 8-7 loss to the Chicago White Sox at Fenway Park.
It was the kind of loss that elicits a collective groan from the thousands in attendance and words that can't be repeated in polite company from the thousands more Red Sox fans watching elsewhere.
It began with another puzzling outing by one of the best pitchers in baseball, at least when he's not pitching at home. Chris Sale gave up five runs in a six inning outing that was all about an atrocious start when he allowed six of the first seven batters to reach base. He got better as the game went along and actually ended up striking out ten, but the bottom line is he hasn't won a regular season start at Fenway Park in his last 12 outings stretching back to last year.
But what really rankles is that despite Sale's early struggles, the Red Sox were in line to win the game and were instead betrayed by a 9th inning bullpen implosion. The Red Sox trailed 6-4 when they rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 8th, taking a 7-6 lead on a home run by Xander Bogaerts, and it looked like they'd be heading across the pond with a head of steam, riding the tailwinds of a three game winning streak and a sweep of Chicago.
But in the bottom of the 9th the White Sox had one on and one out when reliever Matt Barnes served up a meatball to Jose Abreu the Chicago slugger ate up and spat out onto Landsdowne Street, and just like that the Red Sox lead was gone and so was the win.
And while it's easy to blame Barnes for the loss the truth is he's not really a closer, hasn't been groomed for that role, and was more a victim of Boston's bullpen by committee approach to this season that has them without the services of last year's closer Craig Kimbrel.
Anyone who works on committees will tell you that things often get bogged down in them, and in this case, it's wins. So the Red Sox will now face the powerhouse NY Yankees for two silly games in England, and if the Yankee flight overseas probably felt like a hop skip and a jump after their dramatic 8-7 win over Toronto in the Bronx.
The Blue Jays and Yanks were tied 7-7 when Gleyber Torres hit a walk off single in the bottom of the 9th to plate Didi Gregorius with the game winner. Gregorius joined DJ LeMahieu in going yard earlier to extend the Yankees major league record to 29 straight games with a home run, and the long ball also helped the Yanks overcome an early 5-0 deficit to snag the win and complete a sweep of the Jays. No doubt someone is readying a bangers and mash metaphor for the home runs they'll be launching against the Red Sox in London.
The NY Mets fourth loss was extra painful because former Met Jay Bruce did them in with a walk-off RBI double in the bottom of the 10th that gave the Philadelphia Phillies a 5-4 win. The Mets bullpen blew a 4-0 lead in this one to spoil a great outing by Jason Vargas, who struck out ten.
Trailing 4-0 heading into the bottom of the 6th, the Vermont Lake Monsters plated six for all their runs in a 6-4 win over the Connecticut Tigers.
Nick Ward had himself a night for the Monsters, going two for three including a three-run homer, and Oakland's 2019 second-round pick Tyler Baum made a fine professional debut, retiring all six batters he faced with two strike-outs along the way.
In the NECBL the Vermont Mountaineers are now winners of four in a row after a 13-4 romp over the Winnipesaukee Muskrats.
Ryan Murphy gave up 3 runs on six hits while striking out six in six innings of work. Evan Giordano and Austin Gauthier had back to back run scoring singled in a four run second inning.
Ahead of the Mountaineers in the standings are the rival Upper Valley Nighthawks, who got a two-out solo home run in the bottom of the sixth inning from Gehrig Anglin to break a 4-4 tie, as the Nighthawks topped the Keene Swamp Bats, 7-5, but when you're first name is Gehrig, you're expected to hit big home runs.
