A-Pauley-ing Relief Job Ruins Laffey-bly Good Start.

Blue Jays 1 Red Sox 5

Credit/blame Minor Leaguer for the title.

All was good until Aaron Laffey left the game. He pitched very well, 6 innings, just 3 hits, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts, 10 ground outs, 4 fly outs. A really good start. He deserved a win.

The game was lost on bad bullpen performance/management. Jason Frasor came in to start the 7th and got a couple of quick (wrong word with Jason pitching) outs then gave up a homer to Saltalamacchia to tie the game. Farrell came out and pulled him from the game. I don't know why, one bad pitch, but he's been good this year. Farrell put in Luis Perez to face lefty Ryan Kalish. Kalish doubled. Farrell pulls Perez and in comes David Pauley. David Pauley, with the game on the line. A hit batter, walk and single later, and the game wasn't on the line anymore. Pauley was lucky Jeff Mathis saw that the Mike Aviles was caught between 2nd and 3rd or that inning might still be going.

Then Pauley comes out for the 8th. Double, single, double later and he's gone (along with any chance we might win). He faced 6 batters and gave up 4 hits, hit a batter and walked one. The only out, with him on the mound, had nothing to do with his pitching. Scott Richmond came in and mercifully got us out of the inning. Nice job Scott.

So Farrell has a quick hook on Frasor and Perez, two pitchers that should have bought themselves some faith from their manager, but Pauley gets a lot of rope. Good work Farrell.

We didn't do much on offense. Edwin Encarnacion drove home Brett Lawrie for our only run of the game. We had 7 hits, one walk. Two hits each for Rajai Davis and Adam Lind. Lawrie had the only extra base hit.

Davis had an interesting game. He leads off the 2nd with a single. Just what you want, speedster on base to lead off the inning. I figured we could get some more runs off DiceK, but he promptly gets picked off. He got picked off yesterday too, right? Then, in the 6th inning he makes just a terrific throw to get Dustin Pedroia at the plate. David Ortiz doubled, Rajai bobbled the bal when he tried to pick it up. I didn't think he had a shot at Dustin, but he made a perfect throw and Jeff Mathis made a nice tag. I didn't think Rajai had that in it.

Jay of the Day? Easy, Aaron Laffey (.419 WPA). Honorable mention to Edwin. Suckage goes to Pauley (-.335), Frasor (-.130), Johnson (-.143) and Jose (-.142, 0 for 4, k). Give one to Farrell too.

Tomorrow we have a day game, 1:35 Eastern start. Lefties Ricky Romero (8-1, 4.34) and Jon Lester (4-5, 4.48) battle to get their team the series win.