TLDR: Boston needed extra offense to survive a Seattle club with nothing left to lose, and Monday night at Fenway turned into exactly that kind of game.
+74-63, in playoff mix under interim manager Tracy
+Tolle posting a 3.23 ERA with real strikeout stuff
−Just lost Contreras, team's leading power bat, to IL
−Lost 4 of last 5 including a lopsided Yankees series
George Kirby got the ball for Seattle and Payton Tolle started for Boston in the series opener, a matchup that looked like a pitching edge for the home side on paper but didn't play that way once the lineups got going.
George Kirby
(9-11)·4.25 ERA
Aug 25 vs Phillies
W
7.2IP
1ER
9K
1BB
92P
08/31 Lineup
Payton Tolle
(9-6)·3.02 ERA
Aug 25 @ Marlins
ND
5.1IP
2ER
7K
2BB
97P
08/31 Lineup
Both clubs walked in banged up. Boston had just lost Willson Contreras, its team-leading power bat, to a hamstring issue that had been building for weeks, while interim manager Chad Tracy leaned on a rotation already without Garrett Crochet and Tanner Houck. Seattle's card was longer and uglier — Colt Emerson moved to the 60-day IL and reliever Nick Davila went down with a shoulder issue the same day, on top of a pitching staff already missing Matt Brash and Logan Evans.
Neither team arrived hot. Boston had dropped 2 straight and 4 of its last 5, getting run out of the building by the Yankees in the days before this one. Seattle was worse off — 4 straight losses and outscored badly during a sweep in Toronto that dropped the Mariners 9 games under .500 with limited runway left in the season.
The injury sheets tell the story of two teams patching lineups together in real time, Boston especially — Contreras joins Curtis Mead, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Masataka Yoshida on the shelf, while Seattle's is stacked with names further from returning, including Luke Raley and Brendan Donovan.
It ended up a track meet instead of a pitchers' duel. Both offenses got to the other side's bullpen, both starters were long gone by the late innings, and Boston needed a 9th-inning answer just to hold on after Seattle scored 4 in a single frame to get back in it.
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