Red Sox, O’s embarrass themselves, baseball, with position players on the mound

How bad are things for the Baltimore Orioles? The Boston Red Sox closed out a 19-5 win over the O’s in Game 1 of what was supposed to be a doubleheader on Friday with a first baseman on the mound.

Abraham Toro, in, from what I can tell, was his first appearance in MLB as a pitcher, gave up two runs on four hits and a walk, getting three outs on 15 pitches, 10 for strikes – his two fastballs coming in at 54 and 58, the rest going in the play-by-play as eephus pitches.

O’s interim manager Tony Mansolino, an inning earlier, had gone to another position player, infielder Emmanuel Rivera, after lefty reliever Cionel Perez had given up five runs in the bottom of the eighth to turn what had been a 6-3 game into an 11-3 laugher.

Rivera had pitched in four games with Miami a year ago, with a respectable (for an infielder) 9.00 ERA.

His career ERA is ruined now – the Sox touched him for eight runs on eight hits and two walks, punctuated by a Rafael Devers grand slam.

Credit to Rivera – he hit 85 on the gun twice, though he needed 45 pitches to get his three outs.

To say that this was embarrassing for all involved is probably an understatement.

Mansolino, who is 1-5 as the interim manager of the Orioles since taking over for Brandon Hyde a week ago, tried to get away with saying after the game that the move by his counterpart, Sox manager Alex Cora, to rub it in by going with a first baseman to close out the win “probably validated what we did.”

“The fact that you’re in a doubleheader, and pitching is limited, I think they used three or four guys out of the bullpen at that point, they’re trying to win the second game as well at that point. So, to see them bring in a position player, it’s a little bit of validation for our decision,” Mansolino said after the spectacle.

For context, both the Sox and Orioles have 13 pitchers on their 26-man active rosters.

The rules, as Mansolino stressed after the game, allow teams to use whoever they want on the mound to finish out games, as long as they’re on the roster.

Here’s an idea: why not adjust the rules, along the lines of what is done at the college level, to call a game by run rule, as opposed to having this kind of nonsense playing out?

“I think it’s part of the game now with the way things are,” Mansolino said. “I don’t think any of us take it personally. I think what we’re trying to do is be smart and understand that we’ve got two games to play today, and ideally we’d like to have as much pitching as we can in the second game.”

The joke’s on, well, everybody involved, because Game 2 was postponed, because of rain.

Hey, maybe we can look forward to seeing a backup catcher or DH to give us an inning or two tomorrow.