Pittsburgh beat Boston 8-4 on Friday night, and this Pirates Red Sox recap starts where the game turned: Brandin the middle of the order. Brandon Lowe put a three-run home run into the night, rookie Rafael Flores Jr. went deep for the third time in two days, and a Red Sox club that has been scuffling walked off the field looking exactly like a club that has been scuffling.
Start with the kid, because that is the fun part. Three home runs in two days is not a hot week, it is a rookie kicking the door in. Every organization sits through years of "he profiles as a bat" reports and waits for the two-day stretch where the projection turns into a person. Pittsburgh just got two days of it. Whether the league adjusts next week is a separate question, and it always does adjust. But you cannot fake three swings like that.
Lowe's three-run shot was the structural piece. That is the swing that takes a close game and turns it into a night where the bullpen gets to work in peace, and it is exactly the reason a veteran bat gets penciled into the middle of a young lineup in the first place. Kid provides the noise. Vet provides the cushion.
For Boston, four runs is not nothing, and 8-4 is not a humiliation. But the slump framing is fair, and a slump in mid-August is a different animal than a slump in May. There is no runway left to tell yourself it will even out over the next sixty games. There are not sixty games.
from the almanac: the first World Series ever played, 1903, was Pittsburgh against Boston, and Boston took it five games to three. these two do not cross paths often. when they do, the ghosts show up early.
What comes next is immediate. The two clubs go again Saturday evening in Pittsburgh, and the thing I am watching is whether Boston's approach changes at all against a Pirates staff that got to spend a night ahead. Slumping teams press. Pressing teams chase. I want to see if the Red Sox take a walk when it is offered.