Arizona Diamondbacks at Boston Red Sox

Merrill Kelly and Ranger Suarez took the ball for the rematch at Fenway Park, first pitch at 7:10 PM ET, barely a day removed from Boston hanging an 11-1 rout on this same Arizona club. Suarez arrived off a start where he'd limited Toronto to a single earned run over 5 innings; Kelly was trying to shake off a line that saw Colorado tag him for 6 earned runs in his last time out.

Arizona showed up shorthanded even by its own recent standard. Ketel Marte never made it into the lineup — the second baseman was scratched and placed on the restricted list for what the club called a personal matter, with a knee MRI now on the schedule — and Nolan Arenado (intercostal) sat out again. Add a rotation already stripped down to Blake Walston, Zac Gallen, Corbin Burnes and Ryne Nelson, all working back from injury on 60-day stints, and Torey Lovullo's roster looked thin before Kelly threw a pitch.

Boston's dealing with its own attrition — Masataka Yoshida's hamstring injury is now described as significant enough to threaten most of what's left of his season, and the bullpen is without Garrett Whitlock and Justin Slaten. But interim manager Chad Tracy has reinforcements on the way, with Trevor Story, Roman Anthony and Isiah Kiner-Falefa all working through rehab assignments this month.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
ARI	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	7	1
BOS	3	0	2	0	1	2	1	0	—	9	13	1

The blowout carried the same shape as the night before. Kelly couldn't escape the first without Boston building an early cushion, and the Red Sox kept adding onto it — runs in five different innings before the night was over. Arizona's only sustained push came in one four-run third, its lone answer of the night, before the offense went scoreless the rest of the way.

It's the same story that's dogged Arizona all month — a lineup and rotation both running on fumes, with no length behind Kelly to make a competitive start hold up. Boston, even shorthanded itself, has enough waiting in the wings to keep absorbing nights like this one.

Sources