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Red Sox 5, A’s 4: They don’t need to be pretty, folks

Trevor Story got caught stealing tonight, which is a thing we haven’t said all year. Story wasn’t going to just keep on running unhindered forever, of course; every streak comes to an end. But the fact that it happened tonight is telling, because a lot of our expectations as Red Sox fans were upended tonight:

Lucas Giolito was bad. He wasn’t, like, Jordan Hicks bad, mind you. But he was bad nonetheless. He didn’t make it out of the fifth and the A’s had traffic on the base paths all night. Giolito’s resurgence had been nearly as important to the Red Sox’s post-Devers performance as Roman Anthony’s bat, so this was a bad night for him to lose it (though Avery warned you that he might).
Aroldis Chapman was also shaky. It didn’t end up hurting the Sox, but it was worrying to see nonetheless. (And Avery warned you about that, too; Avery is smart.)
Alex Bregman was bad. Unfortunately, though, this is actually something we’ve gotten used to in recent weeks.
Masataka Yoshida was good! He even beat out an infield single. That’s cool.
And Nick Sogard came through with a walk-off “hit” in a crucial September game, just as we all expected he would back in Fort Myers, right?

Look, the Red Sox needed to win tonight, and they did. It wasn’t pretty — and it probably didn’t give you the warm and fuzzies when you look ahead to the postseason — but they found a way to win on a night when every one of their Wild Card competitors also hung up Ws on the board.

Jarren Duran

He reached base four times tonight. He somehow didn’t score, but that’s not necessarily his fault.

Alex Cora’s Bunt Call

When the Manfred Man was introduced a few years ago, there were a lot of skeptics who assumed that extra innings would just turn into bunt fest as a result. That hasn’t actually happened, and I’m not entirely sure why. But Alex Cora gave the bunt sign to the struggling Carlos Narvaez in the tenth tonight and it did exactly what it was supposed to do: bring a run home.

Chris Murphy

Masa probably deserves this spot more than Murphy, who faced just one batter. But I’ve become a Chris Murphy guy over the past few weeks, and he ended up striking out the only batter he faced at the most crucial moment of the game. Let’s give some low-leverage relievers their flowers.

Lucas Giolito

Gioilito is a major reason why the Sox are even here. He’s also a cool guy and I like having him on the team. But he didn’t have it tonight. It happens.

Kristian Campbell and/or front office decision-making

Ok, sure: Kristian Campbell didn’t play for the Red Sox tonight. But… that’s kind of the problem? With no one else to turn to, the Sox started Romy Gonzalez at second base tonight against a right-handed pitcher. You don’t have to be the bastard love child of Bill James and Henry Chadwick to think that wouldn’t go well, and it didn’t. Romy went 0-5 with 3 strikeouts. A few short months ago, Craig Breslow gave Kristian Campbell a long-term contract to be the Red Sox second baseman for the foreseeable future, and here we are in a must-win game in September and Campbell’s sitting in Worm Town while Romy Gonzalez flails at the plate. What the hell, man?

Romy Gonzalez

It I’m going to criticize the decision tree that led to Romy being in the lineup in a key game against a righty, I guess I should also criticize Romy himself.

I genuinely do want to give it to Chris Murphy, but that would be a little too baseball hipstery, even for me. Here’s the walk-off instead: