Joe Kelly got to face two National League teams after being traded to the Red Sox, but yesterday was his first time pitching in a Sox uniform at Fenway Park and against an AL team. Kelly didn’t shine in his debut and had one of the worst pitching performances of his career. This time David Ortiz wasn’t able to hit homeruns to bring the Sox back from this and the Sox tied the 4 game series with the Astros
Joe Kelly didn’t have the first Fenway outing that anyone would have hoped for, but it wasn’t helped by a botched play that didn’t go the Red Sox way. Kelly pitched a scoreless 1st, but then everything fell apart in the 2nd inning. Kelly gave up 2 runs before controversy would keep the inning alive for the Astros to take advantage. It looked like the inning ended with a double play, however Bogaerts let go of the ball before his foot hit 2nd base, so the Astros asked for it to be reviewed. With the new review rules, it was stated that the “neighborhood play” would not be reviewable. The umpires called NY to find out if this was the neighborhood play and if it could be reviewed. I believe it was ruled that since Xander was not trying to avoid a collision, it was not a neighborhood play and therefore was under review. Bogaerts did in fact throw the ball before tagging the bag and the inning continued. Kelly walked a batter to load the bases and then gave up a grand slam to Altuve. The inning went from under control to a blow out in the span of a controversial call. John Farrell basically lost it and was ejected. Sox 0-6. In the 3rd inning Kelly gave up a solo HR to Fowler and the Sox were down 0-7. It definitely wasn’t his best outing. The Sox got their one and only run in the bottom of the 3rd when Nava hit an RBI double to score Holt. Sox 1-7.
Kelly was done after 4 innings and ended up with one his worst performances of his career. Breslow pitched a scoreless 5th before handing the ball over to Steven Wright who was just called up from Pawtucket. Wright pitched 3 scoreless innings before giving up a solo homerun to Singleton in the top of the 9th. Sox 1-8. Wright gave the Sox the innings they needed and at least got to pitch this time when he was called up. The Sox would never recover from the grand slam and the Astros were able to coast to victory.
Red Sox 1 Astros 8 BOXSCORE
WP: McHugh (6-9) LP: Kelly (0-1)
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