MLB Playoffs: A night of ALCS gift-giving at Fenway Park

The Houston Astros beat Boston 7-2 in a sloppy ALCS opener to MLB playoffs action

The Boston Red Sox’ post-season motto is “Do Damage.” Saturday night at Fenway Park, the Red Sox did a lot of damage …to their own MLB playoffs hopes.

Starter Chris Sale and five relievers allowed the Houston Astros just five hits, yet managed to lose 7-2 because three of those hits drove in five runners who had been put on base by the Sox pitchers. Boston’s staff walked 10 Astros in all and hit three others.

Astros starter Justin Verlander went six innings, giving Boston just two singles. Verlander’s composure took only one inning off, the fifth, when he issued walks to three consecutive Red Sox hitters, producing Boston’s only two runs.

In sum, this was a classic case of good pitching stopping good hitting … except when the good pitching dispensed unearned gifts.

Sale initiated the gift-giving with two out in the top of the second. Staring at the Astros 7-8-9 hitters, he walked Carlos Correa, nailed Martin Maldonado with a pitch, then walked Josh Reddick. That brought up George Springer with the bases loaded, and he drove Houston’s first hit under the glove of Red Sox third baseman Eduardo Nunez, allowing Correa and Maldonado to come across.

Verlander returned the favors in the fifth. Having held Boston to a lone hit through four dominant innings, he gave up a single to Steve Pearce, struck out Brock Holt, then walked Nunez, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mitch Moreland on a total of 15 pitches. The walk to Moreland scored Pearce. Following a force out at home Bradley scored the tying run on a wild pitch.

The decisive run came home in Houston’s half of the sixth and it followed the evening’s theme. Joe Kelly, who had relieved Sale in the fifth, drilled Alex Bregman in the arm with a 100 mph fastball, then Nunez dropped what should have been a double-play grounder off the bat of Yuli Gurriel. Two outs and no runner movement later, Correa cashed Bregman as the go-ahead run with a line single to left.

Josh Reddick produced the evening’s most legitimate run when he homered over the bullpen in deep right-center off Brandon Workman to open the ninth. But that did not end the charity. Workman followed by walking Jose Altuve and Bregman, then Gurriel slapped a fly ball around the Pesky Pole in right for a three-run home run.

Boston’s gaffes were not all confined to the pitchers and fielders. With two out in the bottom of the eighth, first base umpire Vic Carapazza rang up J.D. Martinez on a check swing third strike. The ball bounced some distance away from Astros catcher Maldonado, but instead of running Martinez stood at home plate protesting the check swing call and was easily thrown out at first.

The teams will play Game 2 of their MLB playoffs series Sunday night, again at Fenway Park.