BOSTON — The separation between the Red Sox and the playoff teams is growing wider by the day.
The Sox’ 9-3 loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park on Tuesday night simply wasn’t competitive, and it’s not the first time this has happened between the Sox and Jays this year.
It was ugly from start to finish.
Beat up by injuries in the starting rotation, the Sox called on a rookie starter for the 29th time this year.
Josh Winckowski, the key piece sent to the Red Sox in the trade for Andrew Benintendi last year, couldn’t get anything going against a difficult Blue Jays lineup that pounced for eight runs in the third inning.
It all started with old friend Jackie Bradley Jr., who was returning to Fenway for the first time since the Sox released him earlier this month.
The Red Sox welcomed him back with a tribute video before the second inning, when Bradley watched from the visitor’s dugout and then emerged to tip his cap and thank the crowd.
He started the third inning with a double off the Monster that was reachable for left fielder Tommy Pham, but Pham just missed the catch and hurt himself while leaping into the wall. He exited the game immediately. The team later announced that Pham had lower back spasms.
After Bradley’s double, Winckowski recorded two quick outs, then completely unraveled. The Jays went double, walk, single, single, double as they knocked Winckowski out of the game after just 2 2/3 innings.
Alex Cora replaced him with Austin Davis and the ballgame was over.
As poorly as Winckowski has pitched – he’s 5-6 with a 5.83 ERA – he hasn’t been as bad as Davis.
Davis entered and he, too, looked like he was throwing batting practice as Cavan Biggio singled to bring Bradley up a second time that inning. Bradley drew a walk, then George Springer hit a bases-clearing triple.
Davis has now allowed 11 earned runs in his last nine innings. If there was any air left in Fenway Park, Springer’s triple removed it.
The Sox offense has continued to look dead since the calendar flipped to July. They’re scoring just four runs a game since then.
Ross Stripling made it look easy as he filled the zone with strikes and the Sox did nothing with them.
They scored just once off Stripling when the red-hot Christian Arroyo roped a double and Kiké Hernandez drove him in with a single up the middle to take an early 1-0 lead in the second inning.
This game was made worse by the injuries.
After Pham departed the game, Arroyo tripped over first base on a groundout and received a visit from the trainer and Rafael Devers got plunked by a pitch and also received a visit, though both stayed in the game. Then Xander Bogaerts exited after the sixth inning with mid-back spasms.
The final scenes of this mess included catcher Reese McGuire on the mound and Franchy Cordero in center field.
