Cubs Fall 4-3 as Red Sox Offense Wakes Up at Worst Possible Moment

So much for Boston's anemic bats. The Red Sox — who'd averaged barely a run per game over their last five — suddenly remembered how to score, plating four runs to edge the Cubs 4-3 at Fenway and hand DarkHorse a frustrating loss on Chicago's moneyline at -120.

The premise was sound: Clay Holmes brought his 2.39 ERA to town against a Red Sox lineup missing Contreras, Casas, Yoshida, and Mead, a unit that had been offensively DOA for weeks. Meanwhile, Alec Gamboa's microscopic 1.16 ERA looked shiny but lacked the résumé to trust fully. The Cubs had been scoring nearly five runs a night over their last 15 games. On paper, this was their game to take.

Except baseball doesn't care about your spreadsheet. Boston's patchwork lineup scraped together just enough against Holmes, who wasn't sharp enough when it mattered, and Gamboa delivered exactly the kind of performance his gaudy numbers suggested he might. The Cubs managed three runs — not terrible, but not nearly the offensive explosion we banked on — and that was that.

Credit where it's due: Gamboa backed up the hype, and Boston's offense picked the perfect night to show a pulse. Sometimes the right read still loses. That's the game.