Tuesday was an excellent day for the Boston Red Sox. So was Wednesday.
Thursday had the opportunity to be a significant day for the team and the organization, as the Red Sox needed only to win in Toronto to clinch a spot in postseason.
But Thursday was not a great day, nor was it even a good day or a mediocre day. In terms of on-field results, it was simply a bad day of work for the Boston Red Sox, who lost 6-1 in Toronto. The defeat officially eliminated the Red Sox from having a shot to win the division, though that wasn’t a realistic goal for this team to reach.
The achievable goal was simple: Win on Thursday, punch a playoff ticket, shower in champagne and light lager, head home for a stress-free weekend vs. Detroit and prepare for a postseason series next week.
Instead, the mission remains unfinished.
With the freefalling Blue Jays going with a bullpen game, the Red Sox couldn’t manage to get a runner on base until the seventh inning.
At that point, though, the game was gone, after Justin Wilson entered a scoreless game to relieve Brayan Bello in the bottom of the sixth, only to immediately serve up a grand slam to Daulton Varsho. Wilson left a 94 mph fastball over the heart of the plate, and Varsho made him pay.
Wilson later surrendered a double and was replaced by Zack Kelly, who served up a two-out, two-run homer to George Springer to allow Toronto to open up a 6-0 lead.
Springer, who let his frustrations boil over after a foul ball call and then a called strike three in the season opener on Tuesday, erupted after the ball cleared the fence.
Bello allowed seven base runners on three hits, three walks and a hit by pitch, but he battled to keep the Red Sox in a scoreless tie before Alex Cora handed the ball to Wilson in the sixth. While Wilson has had issues preventing inherited runners from scoring all year long, Bello loading the bases on a Trevor Story error, a walk and a hit batsman in the sixth caught up to him.
Story’s error — his sixth in his last seven games — tied him with Anthony Volpe for most errors in the American League with 19.
The issue with the Red Sox on Thursday, though, had as much to do with offense as it did with anything else.
Reliever Louis Varland threw two perfect innings as the spot starter, before Eric Lauer pitched 3.1 perfect innings of his own. Yariel Rodriguez was called upon to record the final two outs of the sixth inning, which he did, striking out Rob Refsnyder and inducing a Connor Wong grounder to third.
Boston got its first base runner in the seventh, when Jarren Duran doubled into the right-center field gap. He came around to score on a Story RBI single, but Alex Bregman’s double-play ball killed that potential rally before it could gain any steam.
The Red Sox did load the bases in the top of the ninth, making things suddenly interesting. But Romy Gonzalez popped out behind the mound to end the threat and the game.
And so, the magic number remains at one, where it was when the day began. The Astros fended off the A’s to salvage a win in Sacramento on Thursday afternoon, and they’ll head to Anaheim, hunting a three-game series sweep over the last-place Angels.
The Red Sox, meanwhile, will head home to Fenway Park, where they’ll host the Detroit Tigers, needing one single win to clinch a postseason berth.
One Astros loss or one Red Sox win, and Boston will be playing postseason baseball. It seems like a sure thing (the Red Sox’ playoff odds dropped from 99.4 percent to 98.7 percent on Fangraphs on Thursday), but stranger things have happened than coinciding four-game winning and losing streaks for teams on opposite edges of the playoff pictures.
Not long ago, the Tigers were expected to be treating this series as an opportunity to either rest or set up their pitching for the postseason. Yet after an eight-game losing streak (which Detroit snapped by beating the surging Guardians on Thursday night), the Tigers will need wins of their own this weekend to either win the AL Central or secure a wild-card berth. (Detroit’s magic number was two after Thursday’s win.)
Many balls remain in the air, and the Red Sox don’t technically need to win again in order to clinch a playoff spot.
Yet depending on others — especially the Angels, who entered Thursday with a 7-15 record in September — to get the job done at this time of year is not typically the safest proposition. So the mission for Cora and Co. remains simple: head home, win a baseball game, make the playoffs.
It’s an easy enough goal in theory, but the longer it takes to get accomplished, it’s one that will become increasingly more difficult and stressful for everybody involved.
Fenway has been host to some memorable Friday nights this season. The last one will be the biggest.
