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Stop us if this is starting to get repetitive.
Chris Sale lost again (0-5), throwing almost no fastballs—relying primarily on sliders and change-ups. The lanky lefty
did last seven innings, giving up just two earned runs, but it wasn't enough to compensate for Boston's continuing pathetic offense (three runs in the last 18 innings). On Sunday afternoon, the Red Sox offense
basically consisted of
Rafael Devers and
Michael Chavis (two hits each)—with a
smattering of
Mookie Betts,
Jackie Bradley Jr., and
Christian Vazquez (one hit each). Sale ended up striking out eight (he K'd 10 in his previous outing), but only lowered his ERA to 6.84 in
the eventual 4-2 loss. You've got to think something is wrong with Sale—even when he did throw fastballs, they topped out at 92 MPH. Don't be surprised to see the ace shut down for a while (even though the starting rotation is
already short-handed with the shelving of
Nathan Eovaldi for
at least six week). Boston has now sunk to an abysmal 11-17—
7.5 games off the AL East lead. Something had better give—and
soon.
