TORONTO -- The box score will tell you the Red Sox lost to the Toronto Blue Jays when closer Craig Kimbrel allowed a walk-off homer to Curtis Granderson in the bottom of the 10th inning Tuesday night.
But if that's not downright inaccurate, it's at least misleading.
Actually, the Red Sox may well have lost the game an inning earlier.
In the top of the ninth inning, the Red Sox had the bases loaded, two outs and Jays closer Roberto Osuna on the ropes. Brock Holt, who already had produced two hits, contributed a third with a line single to left. Rafael Devers, leading off third, trotted home with the tying run.
The Red Sox had rebounded from an early 3-0 deficit with a run in the sixth and now two in the ninth, and had Mookie Betts waiting on deck.
But Betts never got to the plate because, well, neither did Eduardo Nunez. And that was a problem since, in failing to do so, Nunez made the final out of the inning.
For that, you can blame Carlos Febles, who in a lapse of judgment, decided to wave Nunez home. That calculus was off by, oh, 20 or so feet -- the distance between Nunez and Toronto catcher Russell Martin when he received the throw from Granderson.
Holt's game-tying knock (00:24)
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"Aggressive, two outs ... the guy has to make the play,'' said manager Alex Cora. "It's an aggressive (call), but you have to challenge Granderson. We've been challenging Granderson (and his arm) for more than five years. He made a perfect throw and threw him out. We didn't score for eight innings, so ... I'm OK with it.''
Febles, too, doubled down on his decision.
"To me at that time, I made up my mind out of the gate," Febles told reporters. "I think if we get a hit here, we need to try to get a lead. That's exactly what I did."
But there are three problems with this line of thinking:
First, Nunez is not running well, still hampered by a knee injury from last fall. It's clear that he's not himself on the bases. Healthy, it may have been a close play at the plate, though I'm not convinced the outcome would have been any different. But the fact that Nunez isn't nearly as speedy as he was before the knee injury has to be taken into consideration.
Secondly, while it's true the Red Sox have been scuffling to score runs the last few days, they clearly had some momentum going in the ninth and were about to chase Roberto Osuna, the Jays' closer. What's more, the Sox had Betts waiting on deck, and while he was hitless Tuesday night (0-for-4), he's been the hottest and most dependable hitter in the Red Sox lineup for much of the season.
Finally, there was the actual situation to consider. Even if it's agreed Granderson has a below-average arm, he charged the ball quickly and had it in his glove well before Nunez had even hit third base. If Nunez was about to hit the bag, sending him would be more understandable. As it was, Granderson had plenty of time to field the ball, transfer it from his glove and fire a throw home.
Martin, waiting at the plate, nearly had time to check his email while waiting for Nunez to arrive.
That's where the "I made up my mind out of the gate'' line of thinking falls apart. Coaches can have hunches and anticipate, but to decide to send a runner before seeing where the ball is hit, how hard it's hit and the position of the fielder relative to the baserunner are all key variables.
Febles seemed to dismiss all of those factors in an effort to be aggressive.
From the start of spring training, Cora has tried to instill a philosophy of controlled aggression on the basepaths, acutely aware of how many outs the Red Sox ran into on the bases last season. He's advocated putting pressure on the opposition but stressed the importance of doing so with some common sense.
On Tuesday night, his third base coach seemed to forget the second part of the equation. And if it the call didn't explicitly cost the Red Sox the game, then it came damn close.
A lot closer than Eduardo Nunez was to the plate as Russell Martin patiently awaited his arrival.