Bad start for Stripling, Jays lose to Red Sox

Red Sox 7 Blue Jays 3

Once again, Ross Stripling had all sorts of troubles in the first inning and was much better after that. But, the first inning was all the Red Sox needed. The top of the first started single, home run, home run, single, double. After a couple of outs, another double, and it was 5-0.

It looked like we were going to get some of the runs back in the bottom of the inning. Marcus Semien led off with a walk, and Bo Bichette doubled off the center-field wall, but Marcus had his head down around third and ran through Luis Rivera’s stop sign. By the time he stopped, he was too far third and was an easy out. Vladimir Guerrero doubled, bringing home Bo, but it could have been a 2-run double. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a walk, but a ground out (Grichuk) and strikeout (Gurriel) ended the fun.

Semien has been so good. Lately, I guess we’ll put away the tar and feathers for now.

The Red Sox got another home run in the second and one more in the eighth.

We hit into a bunch of double plays. Well, if three is a bunch. We did get 2 more in the seventh, Reese McGuire got on with a bunt single, and Semien homered.

Red Sox starter, Garrett Richards, wasn’t particularly sharp, but he got double plays when he needed them, and a few hard-hit balls found gloves. We had 9 hits and 3 walks, so maybe we should have scored more than 3 runs.

Semien, Hernandez, and McGuire had 2 hits each. Jays not reaching base were Gurriel and Biggio. Davis had 2 walks.

Defensively we had a rough time too. A ground ball that could have been a double play went through Biggio (the next batter hit another double-play ball at him, and he turned that one). Originally called an error and changed to a hit. Gurriel took a rather arcing route to a fly ball and had it go off his glove. Also, not an error. There is something wrong with official scoring. And a fly ball fell between Davis (in center) and Semien. I thought Davis should have taken it, but he didn’t call it and backed off. He should know to call those.

The only Jay with the number for JoD was Semien (.140), but I’m taking the award back for getting thrown out at third.

Suckage: Stripling (-.367, no kidding) and Gurriel (-.115, 0 for 4, 2 k). Bo had the number too, but I think he got credit for Semien’s bad moment.

Tomorrow we have the rubber match, Steven Matz (5-2, 4.29) vs. Nick Pivetta (5-0, 3.16).

We had 635 in the GameThread. I led us to a rather sad defeat.