Red Sox 7, Royals 1: Boston receives a mountain of gifts in the flat countryside of Kansas City

Every once in a while, you get a night where you have to tip your cap to the opponent. It might stem from a stellar pitching performance, a buttoned down operation in all phases of the game, or a bunch of clutch hits piled together. When you play 162 of these things, it’s going to happen a handful of times.

But tonight, we got the exact opposite of a “tip you cap” game, or whatever else you want to call this monstrosity. Forget Christmas, the Red Sox were almost handed enough gifts in one evening to light all the Hanukkah candles.

In fact, the theme of the evening started before the first pitch was even thrown. Kansas City had to scratch their originally scheduled starter Kris Bubic with elbow soreness and replace him with Bailey Falter, who entered tonight with a 10.13 ERA. He’s been so bad that despite only lasting two innings and allowing seven of the twelve batters he faced to reach base in this one, he actually lowered his ERA to 9.82.

But the pitching matchup was only the beginning; the Red Sox were also the beneficiaries of this befuddling call in the first inning.

If you hate replay, this is one to file away because even with an extended look, they did not get this call right.

And it was a sneaky enormous play in the game too because Ranger Suarez was struggling to grab his bearings in the opening frame. If he’s not handed this free out and the inning gets out of control, we go down an entirely different rabbit hole than the one where he didn’t allow another hit until the fifth inning — Particularly with the inspiring efforts this Red Sox offense has put together all season when they fall behind.

Speaking of the Red Sox offense, they were able to take the lead in the top of the next next inning with more help. This time, from the Kansas City defense:

(Granted, that run was probably going to score anyway, but the miscue insured the play wouldn’t be competitive.)

But then came what I consider to be the biggest boneheaded play of the night.

This is some of the worst baseball situational awareness I’ve ever seen from Maikel Garcia! You have the best player in baseball not named Shohei Ohtani coming to the plate in Bobby Witt Jr. with runners on the corners and nobody out in a one run game, and you get nailed trying to advance to second base? Dumb!

Chad Tracy pulled Suarez immediately after this as he didn’t want him to face Witt a third time, and while Zack Kelly did a nice job wiggling out of it, I’m not sure he would have posted the same result if there were a few more brain cells working in the Kansas City dugout.

Gifts also came from old friends. Here’s a real quality pitch from former Red Sox reliever John Schreiber to give Masataka Yoshida a free 90 feet. (Unsurprisingly, the Red Sox failed to cash this one in.)

Then in the bottom of the sixth, the Royals pissed away another golden opportunity against the Sox middle relief with more world class baserunning:

Eventually, the game settled into an advantageous position for Boston. Justin Slaten and Garrett Whitlock posted uneventful zeros in the seventh and eighth, and the Red Sox offense finally got the dam to burst in the ninth with a three run homer from Jarren Duran.

Perhaps this is the thing that ultimately gets them going, and if it does, great! But tonight, the story is a lot more about gifts than guts.

Jarren Duran: On base four times including that three run homer in the ninth, and he also made this play in the second inning that helped Ranger Suarez to settle in for a few frames.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa: On base four times while playing shortstop, something Trevor Story has only been able to do once all year.

The Bullpen: Zack Kelly, Tyler Samaniego, Justin Slaten, Garrett Whitlock, and Jovani Moran combined to get the last 14 outs without allowing a run to score, and that’s pretty impressive considering their task started with a runner on third and less than two out with Bobby Witt Jr. at the plate.

Baserunning: The gift giving ran in both directions this game as the Red Sox were thrown out on the base paths three times.

Let’s make those our three dud plays of the game, starting with Isiah Kiner-Falefa getting nailed at second base:

Then, despite his overall excellent night, Jarren Duran made the first out of the fifth inning in a one-run game at third base:

And finally, Nick Sogard got thrown out at home before the Sox truly broke it open in the ninth:

Here’s the play that’s going to get most people excited about his game …

… But if you’re like me, the real story is everything that led up to it.