Red Sox’ Sonny Gray explains colorful ‘bad combination’ that led to worst start in months
· Yahoo Sports
BOSTON — After making nine quality starts in a row — and not allowing more than three earned runs in an outing in more than three months, it’s fair to think Red Sox righty Sonny Gray was due for a stinker at some point. Not in his mind, though.
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“No, I’m pissed,” Gray said when asked if his five-run, 10-hit outing against the Blue Jays on Saturday made him appreciate his prior dominance. “I’m not happy about it.”
There were two reasons the Red Sox lost for just the fourth time in their last 25 games. One, Toronto starter Dylan Cease was utterly dominant in a one-hit shutout in which he struck out 12. Two, Gray simply lost it in a five-run third inning that put Boston in an early hole the club had little chance of digging itself out of.
“I didn’t have the adjustment today,” Gray said. “I didn’t have the answer until it was too late.”
Gray, after allowing one Rays run over six innings in a “rusty” post All-Star break outing Sunday, entered his start against Toronto on a nine-start heater in which he went 7-0 with a 1.87 ERA and the Red Sox lost just once. He had logged five straight outings in which he went six or more innings and allowed one run or fewer. Since May 6, he was 10-0 with a 1.94 ERA.
“I can’t recall since I’ve been here — and I got here in April — shaking his hand and not saying, ‘Job well done,’" mused interim manager Chad Tracy.
Gray pitched a 1-2-3 first, then was bailed out of the second after allowing back-to-back singles to start the inning when Ceddanne Rafaela made a fantastic diving catch and doubled George Springer off second base to end the frame. The third inning started with two quick outs at the bottom of the lineup. Then, things unraveled, leading to a 6-0 loss.
Leadoff man Nathan Lukes doubled to extend the inning, then Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — after getting behind 0-2 — opened the scoring with a hard-hit RBI single to left field. Gray then got two strikes on Kazuma Okamoto before he singled to bring Springer to the plate. On an 0-2 count, Gray clipped the bottom of the zone with a 79 mph curveball. Springer stayed on it and ripped it over the Green Monster for a three-run homer.
“It’s not (a good pitch),” Gray said. “You don’t want to throw the ball in the zone in an 0-2 count. You could say, ‘That was a quality pitch,’ but it wasn’t. Sure, in a 1-0 count or a 1-1 count, something like that, that’s a quality pitch. In an 0-2 count, it’s not a quality pitch and it’s not executed.”
With the bases empty, Gray again got two quick strikes before Daulton Varsho singled. Two pitches later, he left a cutter over the middle of the plate and Ernie Clement smoked it for an RBI double that made it 5-0.
Gray was tagged with six straight two-out hits in the inning and allowed 10 hits in his first four innings. He said execution was the problem, not feel.
“I felt great,” he said. “I think that’s a little bit of the frustrating part is that I got to two strikes very, very well. Once I got to two strikes, that was the issue.”
Gray also credited the Toronto lineup with a sound approach that was different than his last time facing them on June 18, when he allowed three runs in seven innings.
“The righties were diving, hooking, looking for spin and hooking down the line,” Gray said. “If that’s what they were doing, with the combination of me not executing my two-strike pitches and throwing them in the zone, it’s a bad combination.
“It was just a bad combination of me being bull-(expletive) and them having that approach. They’re a contact-oriented team and it happened like that,” Gray said, snapping his fingers.
A 5-0 lead would have been tough for any team to overcome. But Cease — who retired the first 14 batters he faced and allowed just four baserunners all day — represented a different type of challenge. His outing was the first time a Red Sox team recorded fewer than two hits in a game at Fenway since 2016.
“He’s too good to have a 5-0 lead in the third inning,” Gray said.
For Gray, who has been one of Boston’s steadiest performers throughout an up-and-down first half for the club, the hope is that Saturday represented an aberration. He’ll get a chance to right the ship Thursday night against the Athletics in Sacramento.
“I personally may lose a little bit of sleep over it but I hope the guys respond OK and respond tomorrow with a little extra boost and come out with a chance to win a series and go to California and have a good road trip,” he said.
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