Red Sox clobbered by Blue Jays, give up eight home runs in ugly 18-4 loss

The Red Sox were fortunate that their disastrous 2020 season was played behind closed doors. But this weekend, they’ve given their fans an in-person opportunity to see what it was like last year.

During an impressive turnaround to start 2021, there haven’t been many days like Sunday, but it represented an embarrassing low for the Red Sox as they turned back the clock to 2020 with another short outing from their starter and a poor return for Ryan Weber. There were plenty of boos to go around among the 22,595 at Fenway Park as the Red Sox gave up eight home runs — the most they’ve ever allowed at Fenway — and were crushed by the Blue Jays, 18-4.

The loss marked easily the worst of the season for the Red Sox, who weren’t even beaten this badly last year.

It was ugly all the way around.

By the time the eighth inning came, the Red Sox had thrown the white towel. For the first time this year, a position player came on to pitch as Marwin Gonzalez threw a shutout eighth and Christian Arroyo pitched the ninth, allowing another two-run blast to Rowdy Tellez.

The Red Sox came into the weekend as the only team in the majors that hadn’t given up three homers in a game this season. But that flipped emphatically.

A day after they allowed five homers in a 7-2 loss, Martin Perez and Weber combined to serve up seven of the eight homers to the Blue Jays, who seemed to hit it farther with every blast. It was the most they’ve given up since allowing seven homers to the Orioles on June 2, 2016.

It got out of hand quickly. Perez, fresh off a poor two-inning start last week, managed to be even worse on Sunday. He gave up two first-inning home runs — including a three-run blast to Teoscar Hernandez — to put the Red Sox in an early 4-0 hole. The lefty gave up another in the second as he lasted just 1 1/3 innings, the shortest outing by a Red Sox starter this season.

Perez’s ugly day continued a troubling trend for Red Sox starters, who have now posted a 9.23 ERA over their last nine games.

Weber — who entered the 2020 season as the Red Sox’ No. 3 starter — was recalled from Triple-A Worcester to provide innings behind Perez for a taxed bullpen. But it only got worse. He allowed four more homers — including a second from Hernandez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 21st of the season — as the Blue Jays ran him for 11 earned runs on 13 hits.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3gz2H8S