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Rick Porcello was cruising. His team had given him a slim 1-0 lead, but he had shut down the vaunted Astros offense for seven dominant innings—on a relatively low pitch-count. So, manager
Alex Cora understandably let the righty back out for the eighth inning—
wrong. A double and homerun later, Boston had squandered the lead and the game to Houston. The yin-yang bullpen coughed up a third run and that was all she wrote for your Red Sox in
the eventual 3-1 loss. Frustratingly, Boston
left ten runners on base—which, if even
half had been cashed in—would have spelled victory. The nine-hit attacked was led by
Xander Bogaerts (3-4, R) and
Christian Vazquez (3-4, RBI). The loss left the Red Sox 4.5 games behind the
new leaders of the division—
The Evil Ones.
