Am I the only one that feels robbed of four hours?: Red Sox 11, Phillies 5

Vince Velasquez started tonight. One picture can sum up this whole outing by Velasquez.

In a comically bad game by the pitching staff, they were summarily destroyed by the Boston offense. As you would have assumed when it was announced that Velasquez would face this lineup, they did serious damage to him early and often.

The game started off well when Jean Segura tripled off of the Green Monster, then scored on a J.T. Realmuto double, but when Realmuto was left stranded, that left a sense of foreboding for how the rest of the game would go.

Velasquez made it quick by giving up a leadoff home run to Enrique Hernandez, then walked the next two hitters. He struck out Xander Bogaerts, but walked Rafael Devers. He induced a groundout next to allow only one more run, wiggling out of more trouble in the inning, but in the second, a double and a walk brought J.D. Martinez up. Martinez is an excellent hitter and gave Velasquez a battle in the at bat, but when a ball is thrown quite literally down the middle of the plate, no one is going to miss it.

The game wasn’t totally out of reach, but when Joe Girardi decided to give Velasquez one more inning, Vince made sure to put the final nail in the coffin. He served up a leadoff home run to Devers in the bottom of the third, then a double before recording an out. When Christian Vazquez singled in Hunter Renfroe, the man who doubled, Girardi mercifully gave him the hook. Enyel de los Santos came in and made things worse, allowing three hits in the inning including this double by Martinez that truly was the end.

The rest of the game was pretty much every game the Phillies have let get out of hand the past two seasons. Any pitcher that came in for the Phillies in relief gave up runs. The offense perked up here and there, but not enough to mount any kind of threat. The lone offensive highlight after those first two innings came in the seventh when Bryce Harper singled in a run to give him his 700th RBI of his career.

This was a hugely disappointing game that brought about three truths.

1. Vince Velasquez needs to be moved from the rotation.
2. Enyel de los Santos is not a major league pitcher and should be DFA’d whenever possible.
3. Any buying this team does at the deadline has to be pitching.

The offense looks like they’ll be just fine now that they’re all healthy. So if they’re going to make any kind of run, the focus must be on adding arms. Starting pitching, relief pitching, it doesn’t really matter. Their top three starters are fine, but the #4 and 5 starters are just performing extremely poorly right now. They must be upgraded. The bullpen is using their “best” relievers in order to get garbage time outs. Connor Brogdon pitched tonight. Jose Alvarado pitched tonight. They should have been nowhere near this game, but there isn’t anyone that can reliably get out outside of Ranger Suarez.

Luckily for the Phillies, this is just one game. They’ll get two more cracks at Boston to end this road trip on a high note.