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Top Play (WPA): The Red Sox sent Alexei Ogando out to face Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki for the 10th inning. Guess how that went. The inning started with a leadoff triple from Donaldson ( 0.287). On first glance it looked like a home run, but replay showed it just barely missed leaving the park, and the play actually almost resulted in an out at third base. Donaldson would eventually score on an RBI single from Tulowitzki, and Ogando would allow three more runs in the frame.

Bottom Play (WPA): The winning Blue Jays actually had the bottom five plays, per WPA. Although it seems strange on the surface, it makes sense considering they had roughly 458 base runners in the first nine innings and scored just one run. The absolute bottom play for Toronto came in the sixth. After Henry Owens gave up a single to Tulowitzki, gave him second on a balk then third on a wild pitch, Jean Machi came in with runners on the corners and one out in a 1-1 game. While the sixth seems like quite the demotion for the former closer, it was actually a pretty huge situation and the team needed his ground ball-inducing abilities. He came through, getting Chris Colabello to ground into the 6-4-3 double play (-0.178).

The Red Sox’s bottom play came in the bottom of the ninth. David Ortiz drew a one-out walk, then was taken out of the game in favor of pinch runner Rusney Castillo. For some reason, Boston sent Castillo, and he was thrown out by a mile by Russell Martin (-0.097), giving the Red Sox a bases empty, two-out situation.

Key Moment: The key moment would have to be that top of the 10th inning. Surprisingly, the Red Sox bullpen was in the midst of a solid outing, with Machi, Noe Ramirez, Junichi Tazawa and Robbie Ross all doing the job earlier in the contest. Ogando actually could have gotten out of trouble in that inning, too. After intentionally walking Encarnacion, Toronto had runners on the corner with one out and a double play would’ve kept the game tied. Ogando did get the ground ball from Tulowitzki, but it found a hole. After that, there was a questionable balk call and a wild pitch that scored two runs before an at bat was completed and the game was essentially over. This bullpen, man.

Trends to Watch: This section has to start with Boston’s starter, Henry Owens. While the results were good, especially considering the lineup he was facing, there were still signs that he is not ready to be a full-time contributor just yet. Mainly, it’s the control that’s an issue, as he had a couple wild pitches and hit batsmen in the contest to go with his four walks.

Xander Bogaerts defense is so impressive. After years of questions regarding his ability to stick at the position long-term, the young shortstop has shown this year that he has the tools to stay there for a while. He made a few good plays last night that he wouldn’t have made at this time last year. The most encouraging this was there were all different kinds of plays, ranging to either direction, making strong throws and quickly starting double plays.

On the other side of that coin, Blake Swihart still has plenty of strides to make behind the plate. We knew he was raw back there, and the struggles aren’t overly surprising, but they’re still worth pointing out. There were a few wild pitches that a more experienced backstop would probably block, as well as a rushed throw that resulted in an error rather than an easy out.

Coming Next: The Red Sox finish out their series against the Blue Jays tonight as Joe Kelly looks to continue his great recent stretch against Drew Hutchison. They’ll be off on Thursday (go Pats!) before heading to Tampa to take on the Rays in a series beginning Friday night.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images