Red Sox 11, Astros 1: How It Looks When Absolutely Nothing Goes Right

I just don't know what to say about this game...it wasn't just "not fun". It was brutal from beginning to end.

Right now this team has a collection of talented players, but as a team they are just not able to put it all together at the same time. And in some games, like tonight, they can't put any of it together at all. The team went all the way through the starting pitching rotation this last time with great outings, but that streak came to an end tonight.

Last time out, Dallas Keuchel gave up two runs in a loss at home. He looked much better in that game and the hope was he had turned a corner towards being the Keuchel of last season. April 2016 Keuchel came back tonight. In the first inning after giving up an infield hit, Xander Bogaerts took a low pitch out to left for a quick 2-0 lead for the Red Sox. It didn't get any better as the night went along. A walk, a wild pitch, and a single led to their third run in the second inning. In the bottom of the third David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez hit back-to-back doubles, and Chris Young followed with a single off the Green Monster as the Sox added two more runs.

Keuchel settled down and kept them off the board for a couple of innings, but in the sixth two one-out singles followed by a Mookie Betts home run ended the scoring off the Astros starter. He ended his outing giving up ten hits and eight runs. He struck out four but walked three.

As has been the case more often than not this season, the Astros offense went into a stall tonight. Jose Altuve and George Springer led off the top of the first with singles, but three straight strikeouts ended that threat. In the second inning they got a run on the board. With one out Luis Valbuena got a bunt single, followed by the first solid hit by backup catcher Erik Kratz (a double to center field) to put runners at second and third. Jake Marisnick reached base when Dustin Pedroia made an error on his chopper to second, and Valbuena scored.

No really. That is really how we scored our only run.

The bats didn't do anything the rest of the night worth mentioning. They had no answer for David Price. For some reason when the Astros threw a ball right over the plate, it got hit. Usually pretty hard. But when the Astros swung, it was over/under/around everything Price threw. It was almost alarming how bad they were at making contact at times.

While the Sox were busy scoring at will on their way to their fourth consecutive double-digit run outing, the Astros were getting double-digits of their own...in strikeouts. The 2-3-4 hitters (Springer, Correa, and White) accounted for six of the total 12 K's. They ended up with seven hits, four of which were from Altuve and Springer.

Josh Fields was in for mop-up duty, and things went bad for him also. In two innings he gave up four hits and three runs, although only one was earned due to an error on Marwin Gonzalez.

Oh well, it was just one game, right?  RIGHT? It wasn't fun, but we as fans should be getting used to the fact this team will not be fun to watch at times. Game two of the series will be tomorrow night at 6-ish Houston time. The most exciting part is Lance McCullers will make his season debut against knuckleballer Steven Wright for Boston. Let's see if Lance can get this series tied. Or at least keep them in single digits...