It was a memorable night for Jack Anderson. Everyone else on the Red Sox side of things? That was another story.
The feel-good moment that came with the Red Sox rookie pitcher striking out the side in his major league debut, perhaps, can be put in a brighter light in days to come. But for now, that isn’t really an option.
After their 6-0 loss to the Twins, the Red Sox now stand at 6-11, having suddenly put the hope and promise garnered by winning four of five firmly back in the rearview mirror. The thought that Monday’s blowout loss to Minnesota was simply an aberration went out the window in a Tuesday night defeat that only continued to bubble up negativity.
For starters, there was the starter.
So far, the Red Sox formula for winning isn't all that complicated. When they get a quality start, they are 6-0. When they don't, it's 0-11. And when the other team scores first, the record is 0-7. Thanks to a less-than-inspiring outing from Sonny Gray, all of these trends continued.
Gray allowed five runs on nine hits over four innings, allowing the Twins to carry another hard-to-overcome advantage heading into the later innings. And not helping matters was an offense that did an about-face from what it had displayed in recent games, being shut down by the key piece of last season's Jhoan Duran deal, former first-rounder Mick Abel.
"I felt OK, and then I just couldn’t focus as well as I needed to," Gray told reporters. "The ball was coming out of my hand OK. Just wasn’t able to put us in a position to win, which I feel like is the job of a starting pitcher, and they just beat me. They beat us. I don’t like that."
Other than two hits supplied by Roman Anthony and Masa Yoshida, there wasn't much for the bats to hang their hats on. The strikeouts also returned with the Sox fanning 12 times, with Carlos Narvaez continuing his struggles with four K's in as many at-bats.
And then there were the individual moments that just piled on more discomfort.
Andruw Monasterio, for instance, burned a challenge on what was an obviously correct strike call. It wasn't a game-changer, but for a team that is clearly trying to pick its spots when it comes to the strategy - having executed the second-fewest challenges of any team - it was a bad look.
Willson Contreras, perhaps the team's most valuable player to date, was forced to leave after his back tightened up while fielding a ground ball in the third inning, necessitating his exit.
Or Jarren Duran offering up the middle finger to a fan who was heckling him.
"Yeah, somebody just told me to kill myself," Duran told reporters after the game. "I'm used to it at this point. [Things] happen. I’m gonna flip somebody off if they say something to me, but it is what it is. I shouldn't react like that. That kind of stuff is still kind of triggering. It happens."
The Midwest good vibes siphoned from St. Louis have officially been lost. That's what happens when you get outscored 19-6 in two games while fending off doubts and dismay that were thought to be a thing of the past.
