Given all that, you can see that this three-gamer in Toronto is pretty important. We here at BP Boston aren’t typically in the habit of previewing every series. Maybe we should be, but the season is so long and there are only so many John Farrell jokes and on-pace-for stats one person can legally be subjected to over a six-month span. So we mostly don’t. But this! This is an exception, because this is very important. It’s not the playoffs, but if you wanted to look at the next 23 games as a series between the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles, and Yankees, you wouldn’t be all that wrong. So, with that out of the way, hello. I’m Matt and together we’re going to preview the heck out of this series.

SERIES NOTES

1. The Blue Jays starters have the fourth-best ERA in baseball this season and the best in the American League. The Red Sox are tenth on that list.

2. Over the past 30 days, Red Sox starters have the second-best ERA in baseball and the best in the American League. The Blue Jays are 15th on that list.

3. Make some sense out of points 1 and 2, please. I double dog dare you.

4. Reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson is at it again, and by “it” I mean being incredibly good. Has he been better than Red Sox MVP hopeful Mookie Betts? By WARP, and both commonly used measurements of WAR, Betts has been better.

5. By WARP, and both commonly used measurements of WAR, Mike Trout has been better than Betts though so, please people, I love Mookie Betts too, but can we give the best player in baseball the best player award?

6. Who is the starting third baseman for the Red Sox? Yoan Moncada was a 21-year-old prospect in Double-A, then he was the starting third baseman for the Boston Red Sox, and now he’s a 21-year-old prospect with a lousy albeit small batting record and a seat on the bench. For now it looks like Travis Shaw’s job to lose.

7. Can Shaw lose it again? Considering his body of work you’d sure think so, but where does Farrell go now? Moncada again? Maybe for a short period of time but you have to think Farrell will try harder to keep both feet out of his mouth by declaring the rookie the unquestioned starter again. Maybe Aaron Hill has something left in the tank? Maybe Aaron Hill has a tank! That could be helpful.

8. The Red Sox bullpen has been mediocre this year and downright bad recently but consider: the return of Koji from the DL (one perfect inning pitched, two strikeouts) and the new and improved Joe Kelly (three IP, five hits, no runs, five strikeouts, no walks) might just be the keys to… drat. I almost made it through that sentence with a straight face.

9. It’s true Koji and probably Kelly to a lesser extent could help the bullpen, but that’s mostly because they couldn’t make it worse. There’s no harm in flicking lit matches at your neighbor’s house but if it’s already engulfed in flames. Flick all you want.

10. The Jays bullpen has been about as lousy as Boston’s. The differences seem to be three:

    1. The Red Sox pen has been hurt by walks

    2. The Blue Jays pen has been hurt by home runs

    3. Roberto Osuna, who has given up seven homers in 60 innings, has been better than Craig Kimbrel, who has walked 22 in 44.1 innings.

    4. You see what I’m saying here.

11. Both teams crush the snot out of the ball.

12. The Red Sox crush more snot out of more balls, making them better snot-crushers out of balls. Their certificate is surely in the mail.

GAME 1: Rick Porcello vs. Marco Estrada

1. You have to go back to July 24 to find the last time Rick Porcello gave up four or more runs in a start. Before that, you have to back to June 23. So, fun with arbitrary endpoints: since June 24, Rick Porcello has given up three or fewer runs in every start except one.

2. Marco Estrada was the pitching surprise of last season. He had one of the lowest BABIPs in baseball history and then he started pulling the same garbage again this season. But then the second half of the season rolled around and, despite most of his underlying numbers looking the same, Estrada’s ERA has shot up from below three to 5.00. The baseball gods do exist and they find Marco Estrada’s precious ERA hilarious.

3. David Ortiz will not be pitching today, but he will be back in the lineup for the first time since last Sunday. Big Papi has 23 games left and, maybe, hopefully a few more if the Sox can win a few more of those 23 than they lose. Don’t think Big Papi doesn’t know that. I’d suggest buckling that safety belt.

GAME 2: Eduardo Rodriguez vs. J.A. Hap

1. What is Eduardo Rodriguez? Here are his runs allowed for all his starts dating back to July 27: 3, 1, 3, 1, 0, 5, 0. He’s either been amazing (two shutouts, one cut short by injury), very good (multiple one run starts), or a mess. In the first of those three run performances he didn’t make it out of the fifth inning, and in the second he didn’t make it out of the fourth. Then he carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning last start. I suppose this is what promise looks like up close. If he gets on a roll, oh gosh, baseball would need to watch the heck out.

2. Happ is, as far as I can tell, Estrada. He’s been very good, much better in fact, than anyone had a right to expect. But, like Estrada, over the past month he’s come apart a little bit, mostly due to giving up home runs.

3. There’s a narrative out there that the Red Sox aren’t as good against left-handers, which would seem to give an advantage to Happ, but it’s not true. The Red Sox have an .820 OPS against right-handers and an .811 OPS against left-handers. Not that OPS is the greatest statistic but it paints the picture just fine.

4. At this point Red Sox will have faced two of Toronto’s best three starters and have a very real shot at winning both games.

GAME 3: Clay Buchholz vs. Aaron Sanchez

1. This is the game where Toronto has the clear advantage in the pitching matchup. Sanchez hasn’t been as dominant of late but he’s been almost as effective. The strikeouts are down a bit and the walks have come up, both of which could be a result of him plowing past 170 innings (he’s two thirds short), about 35 beyond his career high. The Jays have been toying with the idea of shutting Sanchez down, moving to a six-man rotation, skipping his starts, and/or sending him to outer space, all with the intent of limiting his innings. Problem is, they’re in a dogfight for the AL East and indeed the playoffs and they need this guy.

2. Clay Buchholz stars in, As The World Turns. Buchholz went from sure second starter to back end of the rotation guy, to bullpen cast-off, to back of the rotation guy, to bullpen cast-off, to back of the bullpen guy, to vital rotation piece. The latest incarnation of The Clay is indebted to to Steven Wright’s injured shoulder for the opportunity, but his non-injured shoulder for seizing it. In his last three starts, Buchholz has pitched 19 innings, given up three runs, struck out 18, and walked two. He’s pitching like the guy he was supposed to be at the beginning of the year. Remember Derek Lowe’s 2004 season? How weird would that be?

The totality of the series is going to result in one of three things: the Blue Jays sweeping and taking a two game lead over Boston, the Red Sox sweeping and taking a four game lead over Toronto, or a split of some sort keeping things pretty close. In fact, the Red Sox are in a very good position because by winning just one of these, they insulate themselves from losing a share of first place.

Of course, they could do much better than that. We’ve waited all year for this team to realize its potential and kick things into a higher gear. This is as good an opportunity as they’ve yet seen. This year’s Red Sox have specialized in squandering good opportunities but they still have a few chances left. The season isn’t over yet.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

For example, just look at the team’s record. The Red Sox stand, after their win in Seattle last night, at 59-48, two games back of both Baltimore and Toronto in the AL East. Looking slightly deeper than just wins and losses, you can see that both Toronto (+86) and Boston (+83) score more runs than they allow by a good margin, while Baltimore (+30) doesn’t belong in that group.

Looking even deeper, we publish something called Third Order Winning Percentage here at BP. It’s available under the Standings header, just click on Adjusted Standings. Doing that will show you the Red Sox have the best third order winning percentage in the American League. They’re not way ahead of Toronto’s .599, but they are ahead. I should note that, as I write, these stats haven’t been updated to reflect Thursday’s games.

Recall the Red Sox have the fifth best record in the American League and it seems something isn’t quite adding up. This team should be better than they are. That feeling we fans have felt over the last month isn’t just that the team has been losing, though they have, but it’s how they’ve been losing.

When the Red Sox win, they win by almost four runs on average. When they lose, the same thing happens, only in reverse.

I looked at the last month plus of the season from July 1 onward to see how the Red Sox have been playing relative to their competition. I found that when the Red Sox win, they win by almost four runs on average (3.7 to be exact). When they lose, the same thing happens, only in reverse. When they lose it’s by a lot, 3.3 runs. Part of this is just the way numbers work. Every game is won by at least one run so that’s the starting point. Boston then is out-scoring their opponents by almost three runs more than necessary when they win and losing by almost two and a half runs when they lose.

But all that does two things. It reinforces the idea that the team is good (when they win it’s by a lot) and when they lose, it makes us feel that the team is falling apart or some other cliche.

So maybe that’s why it feels like the team is perpetually under-performing, or is not as good as they could be. On some nights the Red Sox bludgeon their opponents, but only on some nights (“Why not all nights??”). On other nights the pitching comes apart or the offense never gets going and Boston loses by a good bit. The truth though isn’t really that way, even if it feels like it. The Red Sox aren’t a bad team. They are out-scoring their opponents significantly so we know they’re not a bad team. They’re not a great team either though, or at least they sure haven’t performed like it.

Part of that is in the sequencing of events. The Red Sox as a team are hitting .285/.351/.469 this season. That means the average Red Sox player in any situation has had that batting line, which is pretty outstanding. But the Red Sox haven’t been able to put that line up in every situation. For example, when the game is late and close (Baseball Reference’s definition), the team’s slash line drops to .256/.316/.393. That’s a significant drop. Like replacing Jackie Bradley with Bryce Brentz. Similarly the Red Sox have been terrible with the bases loaded. No great reason for it, that’s just how it’s worked out this year. They’ve hit a Vazquez-ian .239/.280/.391 with the sacks full and that, as anyone who watched the Red Sox leave a billionty-seven men on base last night, means a lot of squandered opportunities to score, opportunities which would normally net them a few runs are netting them nothing. No nets, nothing at all.

There’s nothing intrinsic to the construction of this roster that has made the team lousy in important situations. In fact, they aren’t uniformly bad in important situations. With men in scoring position, the team is hitting .284/.368/.481 which is a slight step up from the team average. They’re even a few points of OPS better with men on base. There have just been a few crucial situations where the team has rolled snake eyes a few more times than you’d think they would’ve given their team.

I think there’s one other component at work here and that is star power. The Red Sox have two things in that vein, big names and a big offense. With David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia having great seasons and the emergence of the young stars like Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, and Bradley, the Red Sox have been putting a lot of runs on the board (most nights). But with star power comes expectations and in baseball there’s more to winning than three or four great hitters. The Red Sox also have David Price and Craig Kimbrel, but Price’s results have been lousy this year and Kimbrel, as a reliever, just isn’t important enough to have a massive overall impact on the team’s record.

Ultimately this isn’t a terrible place to be, despite the drowsy and depressing play over the last month. The Red Sox are close to the division lead, have the smallest of leads for the second Wild Card, and they’re due for things to start going their way a bit more. I don’t mean to chalk a bad month up to luck, variance, or the baseball gods. That’s part of it of course, but the Red Sox own their record. They’ve played a lot of bad baseball since July 1. But the good news is they’ve got a team that can rebound. There’s nothing to say they can’t improve with the bases loaded. There’s nothing to say they can’t come through a few more times late and close. here’s nothing to say David Price and Drew Pomeranz can’t pitch more like the pitchers they were expected to be and less like the ones they’ve been recently. Indeed, the chances of those things happening are, individually at least, pretty good. The trick will be doing them all while nothing else goes horribly wrong.

The fact that the Red Sox can beat their opponents by so much reflects positively on their offense. The fact that they’ve had the same though slightly lesser thing happen to them in their losses is less promising. For that we need to look at the scouting. Pomeranz is new. Price should be better. Porcello has been quite good. This team can win more. They have the talent. We’ve seen it.

It’s been a bad month. Nobody on the Red Sox or who watched the Red Sox would deny that. While there are reasons to worry, the Red Sox are better than they’ve played. BP’s Third Order standings think so. The team thinks so. I think so. Now they just have to prove it on the field.

Photo by Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports Images

The Red Sox have been tailing the Orioles and staying ahead of the Blue Jays for some time now, and even though they regained the divisional lead for a short while last week, they did a fine job of squandering it by losing four of their last five games – and unless they can beat Michael Fulmer and the Tigers today, five of their last six. What’s worse is that they’ve done so while playing at Fenway. With the road trip that’s coming up, that sort of mediocrity can’t be allowed to happen anymore. The Red Sox are facing an uphill battle when it comes to the next two months.

While the Red Sox have enjoyed 58 of their 98 games played at home, that leaves them having only played 40 games on the road. 41 of their remaining 64 games will be on the road. Fourty-one! For context: the Blue Jays have just 32 more games on the road, while the Orioles have slightly more, with 34. The Red Sox also don’t have a homestand longer than seven games for the rest of the season – two six-gamers, a seven-game stretch, and the final three-game series against Toronto at the very tail-end of the season.

Red Sox reality: 34-24 home, 21-19 road means 23 of 41 on road including trips of 11,10,9

— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) July 27, 2016

The worst part? The Red Sox haven’t even gone on one of their West Coast road trips yet. The first of two massive 9+ game ventures start Thursday, while the second one comes during the first week of September. This team has been historically meek when it comes to traveling cross-country to play baseball, and there’s been nothing to convince us that 2016 will buck the trend. The 2013 version of the Red Sox went 9-7 on their road trips – and it wouldn’t have been a winning record if they didn’t face National League competition on the second trip. Even the good Boston teams struggle on the road, especially if the road goes along the Golden Coast. All-in-all, it’s not looking good on the scheduling front.

But wait, there’s more! Remember the first series of the season? You know, in Cleveland, where one game got postponed twice? Yessir, it’s back. Thanks to that one game getting bumped all the way to August 15th, the Red Sox will have to play 23 games in 23 days in August, starting on August 9th against the Yankees and ending on August 31st, against the Rays. That massive stretch of no off-days also includes a 13-game road trip, which is comprised of three games against current first place teams (one at Cleveland, two at Baltimore), four games against Detroit (a second-place team), and four at Tampa Bay. Those games against first place teams? Yeah, they’re clustered at the front of the trip, too. What a doozy that’s going to be. The dog days of August are here, real, and they might just eat the Red Sox up.

The scariest part of this whole thing might just be how Toronto looks right now. They too suffered an awful June, and just like the Red Sox, they’ve picked it up in July. Thing is, luck hasn’t been going their way. The Blue Jays are an unlucky 10-18 in games decided by one-run. Now, there’s been a lot of talk about how a team’s record in one-run games can be attributed to just plain luck, but let’s face it: the Blue Jays are a good baseball team and aren’t going to be that bad at close games forever. With some luck and little bit of improved performance, those numbers are going to start reversing. They’re dangerous, and they’re poised to make a strong second-half surge, even more so than the Orioles.

But what this really means for the Red Sox is that they cannot continue to squander home games. There’s precious few of them left, and they naturally perform much better in Fenway, so they need to start capitalizing on what they have left. Luckily for them, they don’t face a team anywhere close to first place until the Orioles in mid-September. The Red Sox will see the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Royals, and Rays in Fenway over their next 12 home games. That’s where they’ve got to bear down. The Red Sox have a massive +66 run differential at home – which is more than Baltimore’s +55 and their incredible 37-15 record at Camden Yards – and they need to lean on that if they want to keep up with Baltimore and Toronto in the pennant race.

This all could just be pessimism. The Red Sox sloppily split a series with the Twins and have bumbled their way to a losing series against the Tigers, and look terribly unsettled right now. Will they bounce back from this? Probably. But there’s a lot to be said about having a half-game lead on the Orioles going into a four-game set hosting the worst team in the AL, and coming out of it 1.5 games behind. The Red Sox can’t let an opportunity like that slip away again, if it does happen again.

The odds don’t look good. Toronto and Baltimore have a lot more home games, and they only have two west coast road trips between them. The Red Sox have two on their own. This is where those home wins count just a little bit more. The Sox need to tighten it up while playing at Fenway, or they’ll be forced to win on the road, something that they haven’t been able to consistently do – even when they’ve won it all.

Photo by David Banks/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): With one out in the top of the seventh inning, Josh Donaldson doubled off of Noe Ramirez (.135), driving in Ryan Goins to push the score to 5-1. A Jose Bautista homer in the fifth counted as Toronto’s second-best play of the day (.098), while RBI singles by Chris Colabello in the first (.094) and Edwin Encarnacion in the seventh (.083) also helped solidify this one for Toronto.

Boston’s best play came courtesy of Mookie Betts, who singled home Marco Hernandez with two outs in the fifth (.106). That run scored was part of a really nice MLB debut for Hernandez, who got on base twice, stole a base, took another base on an error and looked competent in the field. If only he was dressed appropriately for the weather. 

Bottom Play (WPA): In the bottom of the ninth inning, John Farrell inexplicably let Chris Young face Roberto Osuna. Young had a good at-bat, but, as expected, he eventually struck out for the worst WPA play of the day (-.049). Other damaging plays include a Hanley Ramirez strikeout in the fourth, an Ortiz fly-out in the sixth and a Shaw fly-out in the fourth.

There’s not much to see here. That will happen when you’re held hitless until the fifth and only record four hits all day.

Key Moment: Hanley Ramirez led off the bottom of the ninth with a bloop single, and Travis Shaw followed that up with a two-run homer into the bullpens, his first bomb of the year.

Then the Young strikeout happened. Osuna is a good closer, and the odds that the Red Sox would be able to score another two-plus runs wouldn’t be good no matter who’s batting. But that Farrell would let Young and later Ryan Hanigan bat for themselves with Brock Holt and Dustin Pedroia sitting on the bench is … troubling. There were whispers that Holt might be sick, but in his post-game presser, Farrell simply said he wanted Young to get the at-bats, which is a pretty weak line of reasoning that late in the game.

Trends to Watch: It’s always easy to second-guess a manager when his moves don’t work out, but Farrell made a few decisions yesterday that were questionable from the get-go. For one, there was starting Young — who absolutely, positively can’t hit RHP — over Holt. Yes, Young has barely played this year and you can’t sit him forever, but the Red Sox are facing a lefty today and tomorrow. One more game wouldn’t have killed him.

Next, there’s bringing Noe Ramirez into a one-run game with a runner on to face the heart of Toronto’s order in the sixth. Ramirez is either the worst or second-worst arm in Boston’s bullpen (I’m looking at you, Robbie Ross) and while the sixth inning is a bit early to bring in your big guns, going to Ramirez shows a lack of understanding of leverage on Farrell’s part.

If you want a good trend to cling to, how about Steven Wright? The knuckleballer hurled his second consecutive quality start against one of the best lineups in baseball and continues to serve as Boston’s most underrated pitcher. He’s not someone you count on every five days in an ideal work, but at this point, it’s reasonable to prefer him to Joe Kelly when Eduardo Rodriguez returns.

Coming Next: Clay Buchholz and J.A. Happ will face off in the final game of this series tomorrow morning. Sounds like a high-scoring matchup to me, which means the Red Sox will lose 1-0. Hopefully someone will teach Farrell about pinch-hitting and bullpen usage between now and 11 a.m.!

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports

Last Friday night, Kelly was building momentum. Through three innings in Toronto, facing the league’s most powerful offense in hitter-friendly Rogers Centre, he’d recorded four strikeouts and allowed just one run. Go back further and Kelly had six solid starts in spring training, posting a 2.63 ERA with 22 strikeouts and eight walks. Go back even further and Kelly had a fine second half in 2015, notching a 3.77 ERA and a 2.78 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Then the fourth inning happened. Kelly faced six batters without recording an out, quickly erasing those positive feelings you were developing toward the righty. “Hey, this guy might be alright after all,” you were probably thinking, only to have your hopes dashed by a string of hard-hit singles, a hit-by-pitch, and a 387-foot Josh Donaldson exclamation point.

What went wrong with Kelly, as it often does, was his command—the stuff’s great, of course. Though the results were solid in innings one through three, much of his early success on Friday night could be classified as a mirage. Kelly threw a first pitch strike to nine of 14 batters in those innings, but during the 12 at-bats that went at least three pitches, he was ahead in the count (after pitch three) in just four of them. He was consistently falling behind against a good offense, and when that happens bad things are bound to happen. In the fourth inning, another bout of Kelly’s wildness caught up to him, as the Jays finally made him pay for missing his spots.

I examined Kelly’s outing on Friday night and classified each pitch into a bucket based on whether Kelly hit catcher Ryan Hanigan’s target or not—let’s call it command percentage.

Kelly started off with poor command and it trended downhill toward the end of his outing. In the third and fourth innings, Kelly hit his target just 22 percent of the time. In those two innings, just 15 percent of his fastballs went to Hanigan’s target. Without establishing the fastball early in the count, Kelly couldn’t stay ahead of hitters—and it’s not like his breaking pitches are of the get-me-over variety.

Whenever Hanigan called for a fastball up in zone, Kelly delivered one so far up that it served little purpose other than to put Toronto’s hitters in better counts—the up-and-in fastball that glazed off Kevin Pillar’s helmet being the most extreme example. Further, whenever Hanigan called for a slider down in the zone, Kelly threw a pitch so low that Jays hitters rarely offered at it, particularly when they were ahead in the count. In the end, Kelly’s struggle to get ahead in the count forced him more toward the heart of the plate, and that’s when Toronto did its damage.

The inevitable fourth inning hit parade provides a perfect example of Kelly’s downfall. Here’s a 2-0, 95 mph two-seam fastball to Russell Martin:

Hanigan wanted the pitch on the outside edge, but instead it leaked over the inner half allowing Martin to redirect it back at Kelley. Next up, here’s a first-pitch 96 mph two-seamer to the following batter, Ryan Goins:

Hanigan wants this fastball up, and he comes out of the crouch to exaggerate that desire. This time Kelly’s fastball ends up belt high and out over the plate, and Goins promptly rips it into center field to load the bases. After falling behind 2-0 with two sliders to the next batter, Darwin Barney, here’s what happened on pitch No. 3:

Hey, look, it’s a carbon copy of the first image. Again, Hanigan is set up on the outside edge of the plate, and again Kelly’s two-seamer ends up on the inner half, right in Barney’s wheelhouse, to the extent that Barney has a wheelhouse. We could go on, of course, and we will. Just one more.

Perhaps the most amusing (or disheartening) example of Kelly’s lack of command came in the third inning against Edwin Encarnacion, where Hanigan set up in the same spot—I mean, pretty much exactly the same spot—for six straight fastballs. Kelly came close to hitting the glove once:

The cluster of colored dots around Hanigan’s glove represent the approximate area where he set up on each pitch of the at-bat, and the dots of corresponding colors scattered all over represent the approximate area where each pitch ended up. On Kelly’s sixth and final try against Encarnacion (the white dots) he finally entered the vicinity of Hanigan’s target, but the rest of his efforts all missed by significant margins, one high and four others low and/or inside. He was probably lucky to escape with a walk.

Kelly’s maddening because he throws hard and—all joking aside—appears to have solid stuff. It’s just that most of the time he doesn’t have the ability to execute any type of consistent game plan. When the stuff is on, the command is off. When the stuff is off, forget it. There’s still hope Kelly can improve because he’s relatively young and he’s put up solid results in the past, but each passing disastrous start adds to a mounting pile of evidence that says maybe he just isn’t going to put it all together.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): WPA is a weird thing. By this metric, the most important play of the entire day came in the top of the seventh inning when … Travis Shaw walked (.059). Yep. That’s it.  A Josh Donaldson single to center with a man on in the first takes the runner-up prize (0.54), while a Blake Swihart single in the fifth (0.48) finished third.

In terms of the two plays that actually resulted in the score changing, Josh Donaldson’s solo homer off Noe Ramirez in the eighth earned .033 WPA, while an Edwin Encarnacion fielder’s choice and rare Dustin Pedroia error in the first inning scored two and resulted in .030 WPA.

If you’re surprised the Red Sox didn’t do more damage against Jays’ starter Marco Estrada, perhaps you’ll be unsurprised to learn that his changeup was devastating. He threw it early and often, and it had more than one Red Sox batter flailing at pitches in the dirt. When Estrada doesn’t have his command, he can get lit up in a hurry, but Sunday served as a reminder that he’s a good mid-rotation asset for the Blue Jays when it’s all clicking.

Bottom Play (WPA): In the top of the eighth inning with one out and Dustin Pedroia on first, Xander Bogaerts hit an absolute rocket … right at Darwin Barney, who blocked the ball and was able to turn a double play (-.082). This was really the last time threatened in the game, though Hanley Ramirez did reach base in the ninth. Other bottom plays for the Sox include Chris Young flying out with a runner on in the seventh (-.054), Young striking out swinging with two on in the second (-.047) and Jackie Bradley Jr. stranding a runner in the fifth (-.044). It was not a good day for Chris Young.

For the Jays, the worst play of the game came in the bottom of the fourth inning with the bases loaded, when Wright got Barney to hit into a fielder’s choice to end the inning (-.047). I cannot believe I have already mentioned Darwin Barney twice in a game recap in 2016.

Key Moment: With two out and Pedroia on first base in the third inning, Xander Bogaerts hit a double to deep right field. Brian Butterfield was aggressive and sent Pedroia home, but a perfect relay from Jose Bautista to Ryan Goins to Russell Martin led to our Muddy Chicken being called out. Everyone wants to kill third base coaches when the runners they send get thrown out — and there’s definitely an argument to be made that Butterfield should’ve held Pedroia with David Ortiz on-deck — but really, Toronto needed perfect execution to nab Pedroia. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, the Blue Jays were up to the task.

Trend to Watch: Honestly, there weren’t a lot of new trends we can use as takeaways in this one. Mookie Betts is ice-cold at the plate right now. Hanley Ramirez looks competent at first base. Blake Swihart has trouble catching Steven Wright. Wright walks tight-ropes every time he takes the mound, etc. You already knew most of these things.

One fact that may surprise you: Wright was the first Red Sox starter to last into the seventh inning this year.

Coming Next: The Red Sox celebrate their home opener at Fenway by throwing David Price at the undefeated Baltimore Orioles. The O’s will counter with Yovani Gallardo in a matchup that should favor the Sox on paper, but with this Orioles lineup you’re never safe.

Photo by Nick Turchiaro/USA Today Sports Images

As for 2016, our starting point, PECOTA, will tell you the Rays will win by three games over Boston, five over Toronto, six over New York, and 18 over Baltimore. FanGraphs has a different projection, featuring the Red Sox by four games over the Blue Jays, six over the Yankees, seven over the Rays, and nine over the Orioles. Look up other projections and they’ll tell you something different. That’s because there isn’t a clear consensus on who has the best team this season. Things are jumbled. I present this paragraph on the throwing spaghetti at a wall that is 2016 to indicate that, as we stand now, things are pretty equal as long as you aren’t Baltimore. If you are, well, sorry.

The most difficult thing to do in sports isn’t to win, it’s to predict the future.

Of course, team performance in 2016 won’t necessarily be indicative of team performance five years from now. Many of the players currently on AL East teams will be gone by then. Don’t believe me? Okay, who played shortstop for the Red Sox in 2011? Who was Boston’s top prospect back then? Right. This is hard. And we’ll never know for sure until the time has come and gone, but there are some ways to start to figure out how things might go in 2020 in the AL East right now. We here at BP publish a number of articles which may be of assistance, most notably the Top 10 prospects lists for each team and, within those, the 25-and-under lists. Those lists show us who the good young players are and what we might expect from them. We can combine the quality in those lists with what we know about the current state of the franchises going forward and that should give us our answer, or what will pass for it. Remember, this is guesswork. Intelligent (I hope!) guesswork, but guesswork.

Since this is BP Boston, let’s start with the Red Sox. We know the Sox have a strong farm system, but we also know it’s a very young farm system. Much of the strength of the system is in players that haven’t played above A-ball yet. That’s okay, though, as Boston also has Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Blake Swihart at the major league level, and some help on the pitching side of things as well. The next five years of this franchise will depend on two things. First, how well the top-tier prospects develop, like pitchers Anderson Espinoza and Michael Kopech, as well as bats like Yoan Moncada and Rafael Devers. Second, it will depend what kind of team GM Dave Dombrowski builds around the team’s already existing young core of stars and promising pre-star-level players. That, combined with the owner’s willingness to spend and Dombrowkski’s mostly smart (though kind of scary if you’re prospect-hugger like me) penchant for winning trades, bodes well for Boston in the long run.

The Blue Jays are in a far more precarious spot. They don’t have the system Boston does, though they do have some promising young players like Anthony Alford and Connor Greene. The depth of the system isn’t there though, at least not right now. That’s the bad news. The good news for Toronto is most of their good young talent is already at the major league level. Marcus Stroman shows signs of being a front-of-the-rotation stud, and Dalton Pompey, Aaron Sanchez, and Devon Travis all showed promising though varying degrees of ability. As currently constructed the Jays don’t have the Red Sox’s ability to spend, though that comes with it’s own curses for sure. The new front office also comes well regarded. The future is bright in Toronto thanks to a talented veteran roster, but unlike in Boston, the further you project out, the hazier it gets.

The Yankees are somewhat the opposite of Toronto in that the further you project out, the more promising they get. It’s right now that is hazy. That has less to do with the specifics than the fact that they are the Yankees and can bring in a Manny Machado or Bryce Harper should one of those players hit the market. As for their good young players, almost none are in the majors. The almost is Luis Severino, who throws gas and should break camp with the rotation, but after him the rest of the Yankees are grey beards, or would be if the Yankees allowed beards. The strength of the Yankees 25-and-under players is Severino and outfielder Aaron Judge, who wouldn’t look out of place on an NBA court. Those are nice players to have, but it takes more than a powerful right fielder and a single good young starter to make a franchise go. The Yankees are coming off an off-season that saw them be the only team to not sign a free agent to a major-league contract. That’s astounding. In the next few seasons older players and their contracts will fall away, and the way the younger Steinbrenner’s spend that space under the luxury tax threshold will dictate how good this team will be in five years.

In Baltimore it’s the Manny Machado show. Dude is crazy good and somehow still just 23. To put him in cotext, he’s Baltimore’s Mookie Betts, but if Betts had just put up a seven-win season instead of a five-win season. Jonathan Schoop is both good and promising, though in a step down from Machado kind of way. After that is when things start to fall apart. The Orioles’ inability to develop starting pitching, which has plagued them for over a decade now, needs to be rectified before Kevin Gausman, Hunter Harvey, and Dylan Bundy all explode like Spinal Tap drummers. The Orioles as currently constituted are a veteran-heavy team, led by Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, and J.J. Hardy, 30 or older all. Machado and Schoop are a good start in the way that Severino and Judge are good starts (though they’re much better than Severino and Judge) (probably) but it’s not enough. With the Orioles lacking the desire and/or ability to bring in top of the rotation starters like David Price and Zack Greinke, they simply have to create the good pitchers themselves.

For the Rays, the challenge is to constantly reinvent themselves. This goes for the team but for the front office as well. Fortunately, they seem to have hit upon a strategy that works for them, and as long as they continue to scout well, they should have some level of success on the field. Their system now is probably the second-strongest in the division behind only Boston. Number one prospect Blake Snell could step in and help the Rays rotation this season. Beyond him, the upside might not be present but the low ceiling means lots of major league average players coming to Tampa, which means the team doesn’t have to spend money on the James Loneys of the world. Smart trading will also help and the Rays’ newish front office has bolstered the team by acquiring players like Corey Dickerson. Things look bright in Tampa, but as always, holding on to star players and continuing their good drafting will the difficulties going forward.

At the end of the day, we can’t know who will win in 2020, but the sheer tonnage of talent, from high-ceiling arms to power bats, in the Red Sox minor league system, combined with the will to win of ownership and a capable front office, give the Red Sox a powerful combination of smarts, money, and talent. That’s the total package, folks. Things aren’t perfect, but when 2020 rolls around, based on these crude data points, the Red Sox should have won more than their share of the division championships.

Now, please burn this article so there are no copies around in 2020 to throw in my face after the Orioles have run off five straight AL East Division wins. Thanks.

Photo by Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports Images

The team that Dombrowski inherited has not been easy to change; of last year’s team, the only players to depart as free agents were Rich Hill and Craig Breslow, and while the former’s late-season flash of brilliance may be missed, the latter was unlikely to have a pronounced role. A few days after those players elected free agency, the Red Sox outrighted Alexi Ogando and Allen Craig and his now-onerous contract to the minors, and to this point, those four players and Ryan Cook (lost on waivers) are the only ones from the 2015 major league picture who may not be among the rows of smiling faces in the 2016 team photo.

Dombrowski has managed to put his stamp on this team already, but what he hasn’t done is violently shake up the roster.

Fully purged of major league Craigs, the front office made its first major move of the offseason in picking up a new one. The addition of Craig Kimbrel almost definitely made the bullpen better, but also made it more difficult to upgrade. The REd Sox hope to enjoy more complete years from the better-utilized Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara, and Joe Kelly is too good to not gamble on, especially in light of potential need in the bullpen. Tommy Layne and Steven Wright both have something to offer if used in their optimal roles, and both are out of options. Robbie Ross may be the most spare of spare bullpen parts, and yet after Uehara, his may have been the steadiest of hands in the bullpen last season.

Where position players have those pesky positions to worry about, one can always upgrade a starting rotation with an ace. But while the addition of David Price may or may not fix the rotation, it does do to the starting crew what the Kimbrel pickup does to the bullpen; further changes to the rotation may be difficult to the point of leaving value on the table. It may be that no team would value Clay Buchholz as highly as do the Red Sox, and if you’re looking for someone to bet against Rick Porcello, don’t look at Dombrowski. Trading Eduardo Rodriguez would threaten to make this team the post-dynasty Yankees, and while the bulk innings of decent quality contributed by Wade Miley are why he’s valuable, they also make him something of an upgrade bottleneck.

Dombrowski has managed to put his stamp on this team already, but what he hasn’t done is violence to the roster. No valuable player has been cut, no useful but below-average player marginalized. He does have a mandate for change, though, and may yet declare some contract money a sunk cost, or some decent player not good enough to worry about losing. If the pitching staff is all but calcified–and that’s not a given–change may be coming on the position player side of things.

Small problem: every position player currently slated for a starting role is either a Red Sox institution, within a year and a half of signing a long-term deal, or part of the team’s young core. We could quibble about whether Jackie Bradley, Jr. fits in that last category, but with a solid platoon match in Chris Young on board, Bradley wouldn’t be an easy subtraction either.

The “backup plan” part of the offseason tends to come later in the offseason than December, and so even though the Red Sox are likely to pick around for rehabbing pitchers and journeymen outfielders like the rest of the sport, that’s not what we’re likely to see out of the team in Nashville. None of us know what the Red Sox know, and we may not agree with their priorities even if we knew them and had the same information. But ask yourself: if you were tasked with re-making the Red Sox into a contender and agreed there were no more roster holes to fill, what would you be looking to do at the Winter Meetings?

The Red Sox may have all manner of conversations this week, but Hanley Ramirez may dominate the team’s end of the rumor mill.

Chances are you’d wish you could snap your fingers and make the contracts of Pablo Sandoval and/or Hanley Ramirez disappear. And since the former would be about as easy to move as Benjie Molina standing between a runner and home plate, you’d probably focus your energy on trying to move Ramirez. You wouldn’t be playing with house money anymore, but you would be playing with house time; the Red Sox don’t need to do anything this week. Reality is setting in around the game right now — a deal like the Great Dodgers Contract Purge is not likely to happen, but depending on what happens this week, the Red Sox could end up in the right place at the right time by keeping their fingers on the pulse of possible Ramirez destinations.

Whether it’s in the rotation, bullpen or on the position player side, at this point the Red Sox would need to subtract to accommodate more additions, although the order of those don’t necessarily matter and Boston’s back-end starters could generate a ton of interest this week in a new spending climate they helped create. The Red Sox may have all manner of conversations this week, but Hanley Ramirez should dominate the team’s end of the rumor mill. What would that look like, you ask? Well, about that…

With no uber-prospect knocking on the door for playing time at first base, the Red Sox have almost nothing to lose by trying Han-Ram there to start the season. All it has to be is better than awful; with David Ortiz out of the picture after the 2016 season, a worst case scenario has Ramirez playing out the last two years of his contract as a potentially overpaid but eminently useful DH. That could make for an uncomfortable 2016, but it does mean that the Red Sox won’t just cut Ramirez. Dump in a trade that requires eating a ton of money, sure, but not cut.

Just as Ramirez’s defensive shortcomings and positional mystery make him a wild card for Boston, they make him very difficult to move. His contract is so big that if he’s traded somewhere to be a first baseman, that team is betting on him being a first baseman; an expensive backup option is as unlikely as Ramirez displacing a young, established starter. What the Red Sox are looking for in sizing up potential trade partners, then, are three things: 1) teams that can play Ramirez at DH now, 2) teams with a hole at first base who are also a little desperate; or 3) teams who currently have a plan in place for first base, but that can move that player somewhere else on the diamond (probably outfield). All three kinds of teams would be better trade matches if they had a bad contract or two of their own. Sure, there could be some team out there willing to give Ramirez another shot to play elsewhere in the infield (third base, if anything), but that’s a matter of lines of communication, not of advancing talks.

With the acknowledgement that in trade talks, any team can shut things down unilaterally, some fits we might hear:

• Baltimore Orioles. When Nick Cafardo reported at the end of last month that the Red Sox were looking to move Ramirez, he followed that with this: “The Mariners, Orioles, and Angels seem to be the targets, and all three make sense.” It’s not clear to me whether that’s part of what Cafardo was reporting, or whether that was just his opinion, but all three teams are probably priorities if the Red Sox are actively looking for fits. The awkward part of this math is that the Red Sox might look at Chris Davis if they did move Ramirez — but the Orioles are unlikely to trade for Ramirez unless Davis is already off the board. Mark Trumbo is actually a fine first baseman, which would slot Ramirez nicely at DH — and although the Orioles dealt with a little catcher logjam by trading Steve Clevenger for Trumbo, they may have been a little surprised when Matt Wieters accepted their qualifying offer. Prospect Chance Sisco may be two years away from contributing for Baltimore, and catchers that far from the majors are anything but sure things. Although it would involve taking on two players with current question marks at once, a deal that sent both Ramirez and Christian Vazquez to the Orioles could start a conversation, with Wieters sharing time with Blake Swihart and Ortiz in Boston for 2016.

• Seattle Mariners. I don’t see how the Angels fit in trade; C.J. Cron may be replaceable at DH, but Albert Pujols may need that spot — and since the team doesn’t have a similar contract to send back. acquiring Ramirez in a salary dump seems like a very unlikely way for new GM Billy Eppler to put his first stamp on the team. While Trumbo’s first team may not be a fit, though, his third might be as promising a destination for Ramirez as his fourth. The conversation would almost definitely be short; if we hear rumors of talks and a declaration from Jerry Dipoto that he’s not interested, that might be the kiss of death for Boston’s trade chances. Why? Because as Cafardo reported or observed, the team actually does make sense, and so Dipoto passing might be read as acting from a position of better-than-market knowledge about Ramirez. The Trumbo swap means that some mix of Jesus Montero, Seth Smith and Shawn O’Malley may cover most of the 1B/DH playing time, and there’s enough flexibility there for Ramirez to fit in comfortably in some way. The years involved may end up being the problem, if Dipoto is actually open to the idea: the DH spot may be needed for Nelson Cruz not too far down the line.

• Toronto Blue Jays. If one division rival makes sense, why not another? The Blue Jays had success veering wildly toward offense, and yet if Jose Bautista is in right field and Edwin Encarnacion is at first, there’s playing time available at DH with Ramirez almost definitely an upgrade over Justin Smoak. Dombrowski’s Canadian counterpart may prefer to keep DH open for regular rest for Bautista, Encarnacion and especially Troy Tulowitzki, but Mark Shapiro would probably listen — and if the talks expanded to include Wade Miley, R.A. Dickey and a prospect or two, they might gain some traction. Heck, you might even fit Alexi Ogando into a swap.

• Atlanta Braves. Hear me out. No, the team doesn’t have a DH slot to use, and no, they aren’t looking to move Freddie Freeman. What they do have, though, is a need for some kind of outfield bopper, a willingness to make big changes and a significant commitment to Hector Olivera — with a lot of uncertainty about whether Olivera can actually play in the outfield. If the Red Sox really do eat a ton of the money owed Ramirez, the Braves have little to lose. And while the Braves did get some salary relief in taking on the puzzling Olivera, they can trade that contract at sticker price. Characterize it as unlikely, but possible — even though coming across a roster with Ramirez, Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher on it would be like coming across a bunch of furniture you left next to your apartment building dumpster a few months earlier.

• Miami Marlins. Admit it, trading Bad Hanley to the Marlins would feel at least as good as trading Good Hanley felt bad. If a deal were pitched to Jeffrey Loria as some kind of expanded roster sharing, maybe he bites? And while the team wants what seems like an unrealistic return for Martin Prado, the 11,000,000 dollars remaining on the Prado contract seem to form the makings of a promising trade scenario. The Marlins could be willing to try Ramirez at third with Prado gone, and if that didn’t work — or if they didn’t want to try — Ramirez makes for a nice platoon pairing with first baseman Justin Bour. This would be a salary dump kind of move, but adding Prado to uber-utilityman Brock Holt would allow the Red Sox to break camp with just four true outfielders, providing insurance for a Travis Shaw experiment and potentially enabling the team to carry all three of Blake Swihart, Ryan Hanigan and Christian Vazquez.

• San Diego Padres. Reports are that the team would be willing to move James Shields, but that they don’t want to eat money, and that they’d like a middle infielder back in return. That we’re hearing that Shields is available is some indication that he’s really available. And had Shields pitched about as well as expected in 2016, his contract would still be effectively a liability, with only his older seasons left on his deal and with the winner’s curse of the Padres paying more for him than anyone (including the Red Sox) were willing to pay a year ago. Sure, they could get an infielder back without kicking in Shields money — if they took another contract back. And while the optics of having two diminished recent Dodgers in the lineup may be a hard sell in San Diego, there’s room here for a match — and with Yonder Alonso traded to Oakland for Drew Pomeranz, default first baseman Wil Myers could slot back into the outfield. Deven Merrero would seem like a small price to pay to swap Ramirez for Shields, even if the Red Sox had to eat $30M of the $68M owed Ramirez while picking up the Shields tab. Wade Miley might also be a candidate to be included in that kind of deal, although it would change the dollars involved — and if the Red Sox trade Miley first, Shields/Ramirez becomes a lot more interesting.

This week should be as fun a Winter Meetings period as it ever is, but if your heart is with the Red Sox, there’s really no anxiety factor — the team can only make a strong offseason stronger, and there’s no way for failure to act to be a failure. We’ve only begun to see Dave Dombrowski remake the roster, with only the easiest parts out of the way. Regardless of the circumstances and whether or not it’s through one of the matches above, trading Hanley Ramirez would pave the way for even more changes — and it may be the biggest possible win the front office could pull off this week.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

Toronto Blue Jays – Current Record: 84-62

The Blue Jays have a 3.5-game lead on the Yankees heading into this weekend’s tilt vs the Red Sox, thanks in part to the impressive additions the team made at the trade deadline.  Since adding Troy Tulowitzki (who remains out of the lineup), Ben Revere and David Price, the club has surged to an incredible 39-16 record in the second half, winning over 70% of their games.  While they still have the second-best record in the American League no team even comes close to their +210 run differential, which is the best in baseball by an amazing 92 runs.  These guys can score and now they can pitch, and I view them as the odds on favorites to advance to the World Series from the American League.

Probables

Rick Porcello vs. Marcus Stroman, Friday, 7:07 p.m.

This is the matchup I am most looking forward to and I won’t have to wait long to get it.  If you would have told me in July that I would be looking forward to a Rick Porcello start I would have probably responded by saying something very mean to you.  Since the second half of the season has started, and more importantly, since Porcello came off of the DL, he has been a new man.  His second half ERA sits at a very respectable 3.12 and he has dropped his opponent batting average by a whole .043 points.  If he could have done this the entire year I wouldn’t have been complaining about that $82 million albatross of a contract extension.

Opposing Porcello is none other than the uber-talented 24-year-old Stroman.  Unless you have lived under a rock you know Stroman’s story; this spring training he tore a ligament in his knee and has worked his way back to the team in time for the playoffs.  This is only his second start since returning from the injury but, in his first outing at Yankees Stadium he held his own, giving up three runs over five innings pitched.  Make no mistake, the Sox are not facing him at his best but he still has some of the nastiest stuff of any young player in baseball and could give the Sox fits.

Wade Miley vs. R.A. Dickey, Saturday, 4:07 p.m.

The second matchup of the weekend has two pitchers who got off to incredibly bad starts to the season but have been much better as of late.  For the Sox, Miley gets the nod. He posted a first half ERA of 4.80 and has been much better as of late with a second half ERA of 3.87.  While this is nothing to write home about Miley has at least been serviceable and is only one start removed from his September 5^th complete game victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.  Don’t get too excited about him, but don’t get too down, either.

Going for the Jays is the 40-year-old knuckleballer with a name straight out of the roaring twenties, R.A. Dickey.  Say it in an old time baseball announcer’s voice….yep, its fun isn’t it?  Dickey has had the same type of story as Miley except his second-half success has been even more magnified.  Dickey dropped his first-half ERA of 4.87 by nearly two whole runs, sporting a stellar second-half mark of 2.98.  When the knuckler is knuckling it’s a hell of a thing.

Rich Hill vs. Mark Buehrle, Sunday, 1:07 p.m.

For the series and season finale we get Long Island Ducks pitcher, 35-year-old Rich Hill, opposing the immortal rubber-armed Buehrle.  If you haven’t heard Hill’s story yet I will sum it up for you.  Lefties live forever and Hill has battled injuries over the last ten years, finally finding himself healthy playing in the Independent League.  The Sox gave him a shot and he made the most of it, pitching well enough at Pawtucket to earn a major league start.  All he did with that one start was go out and strikeout ten Rays hitters over seven strong innings, allowing zero runs.  Someone make a movie about this guy.

While most Jay’s players have surged in the second half, Buehrle has seen his ERA rise from 3.43 in the first half of the season to 4.43.  His 3.66 mark on the whole season has been fine but he is certainly not trending in the right direction.  Nothing has changed here; Buehrle still relies on location and efficient use of his pitches to get ahead should be as formidable as always.

Opposing Lineup

Even without Tulowitzki, I don’t have to tell you how scary this lineup is, just look at it.  Donaldson, Bautista, and Encarnacion are without a doubt the scariest two though four hitters in baseball right now and even though the lineup thins out after Martin this is no easy test.

Ben Revere – LF – L
Josh Donaldson – 3B – R
Jose Bautista – RF – R
Edwin Encarnacion – DH – R
Justin Smoak – 1B – S
Russell Martin – C – R
Ryan Goins – SS – L
Kevin Pillar – CF– R
Cliff Pennington – 2B – S

Toronto has hit 207 Home Runs in 2015, this is good enough for the best mark in baseball.  The also lead baseball in doubles with a whopping 275 of them.  Sure, having no Tulo will hurt but not all that much.  Look for this lineup to score early and often and to threaten frequently.

Recap

I am looking forward to this series more than any other in recent memory mostly because of how well both teams have been playing recently.  The Red Sox have posted their two best months of baseball during August and September and everyone knows how good the Jays have been over the second half.  The Yankees are playing against the Mets this weekend, which is going to be tough series in its own right, one that could easily end in their being swept.  Should the Yankees do the sweeping, however, the Red Sox would be in a position to really help out the bad guys in pin stripes.  Of course I want the Red Sox to win and sweep the Jays … but maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they didn’t.

Best case scenario here is that the Sox and Mets take care of business and the division is settled by both teams head-to-head over the next few weeks.  I like the Sox chances in every game this weekend but I have to give the slight edge to the Jays and their incredible bullpen.  You can bet I will be tuning in.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

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