We said the Royals were pesky. They came in and proved it in Game 1.
Kansas City beat the Red Sox 3-2 at Fenway Park on Friday night. Not a great start to a series that matters. The Royals had no business being three up through three innings in this ballpark against this team—and yet there they were.
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Sonny Gray was the story, and not the good kind. Kansas City touched him for 10 hits across six innings and scored all three of their runs before the third inning was over. Sal Perez’s two-out single in the first got past a diving Caleb Durbin down the left field line. Then Carter Jensen’s double in the third went high off the Monster, and Vinnie Pasquantino followed by finding the hole right past a shifted-up Nick Sogard to make it 3-0. Three runs. None of them were bloops—decent contact, all of it—just well-placed at the worst possible time.
Gray settled in after the third—and yes, technically this was a quality start, six innings and three earned, which is almost funnier than getting shelled would have been—and the bullpen held Kansas City scoreless in the eighth and ninth, including stranding a runner at third with one out in the top of the ninth. But the damage was already done.
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The Sox made it interesting in the fifth. Mickey Gasper, playing DH, led off with a laser into the bullpen—his ninth of the year, because that’s what Evil Mickey does—to make it 3-1. Then Willy Abreu doubled off the Monster to knock home another run and cut it to 3-2. A laser and a Monster shot in the same at-bat sequence, and suddenly the comeback math was right in front of them. Seth Lugo had been hittable all night, and now the crowd was into it. You could feel the thing tilting.
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Then it didn’t. Nick Hoffman replaced Lugo to start the sixth, and Kansas City’s bullpen—Hoffman, Carson Thomas, Nate Pearson, Steven Cruz—held the Sox to nothing the rest of the way. The Royals are a bottom-five bullpen by ERA in baseball. The Sox had four innings to score one run against them and couldn’t do it. Eight hits for the game, two runs. It has nothing to do with Gray.
Evil Mickey could hit double-digit home runs at this rate. Nine already. It feels unfathomable for a catcher-slash-DH who wasn’t supposed to be this kind of bat, but here we are.
The Rays clinched a playoff spot tonight. Other teams are punching tickets to October. The Sox still have the lead and still control their own destiny—but it’s nut up or shut up time. Boston needs to be next.
Studs
Mickey Gasper
Nine home runs now. DH or catcher, doesn’t matter—Evil Mickey finds a way. The solo shot in the fifth didn’t win the game but it started the only momentum the Sox could muster all night.
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Wilyer Abreu
Two hits, including the RBI double that made it a one-run game. Willy showed up. The rest of the lineup needed to find a way to push one more across.
Duds
Sonny Gray
Six innings, three runs, ten hits. Gray didn’t blow up, but he never had command of the game either. A team with a losing record put up 10 hits against him at Fenway. Not the kind of start you need when this series matters.
The Sox Offense vs. a Bottom-Five Bullpen
The Sox had the momentum after the Abreu double. They couldn’t do a thing with it. Kansas City’s bullpen is one of the worst in baseball by ERA, and Boston got four innings against them and came away scoreless. Not one run. That’s the dud of the night. That has to change tomorrow.
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Play of the Game
Gasper’s shot to start the fifth. It was the moment the game flipped from a comfortable Royals win to something Boston could actually take. They just couldn’t finish the job.
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