The darndest thing, in retrospect, was how easy Nate Eovaldi made it look in the first inning against the Houston Astros Tuesday night.
Facing an imposing trio -- Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley and Alex Bregman -- Eovaldi retired the side in order. And here's the thing: he did it on just five pitches.
Five.
You can only tell so much from one inning, but certainly there was nothing to suggest what was in store for Eovaldi and the Red Sox the very next inning. That's when the Astros repeatedly teed off on Eovaldi, one after another.
In the span of a few minutes, Eovaldi went from pitching like an ace to someone who had been dropped into throw batting practice for a home run derby. One inning, Eovaldi had the Astros eating out of his hand, and the next, they were eating him alive.
The whole thing turned quick enough to give you whiplash, which, to be honest, Eovaldi could have incurred as he watched balls rocket out of the ballpark. Eovaldi recalled making a pitch to Jose Siri, and losing track of the ball as it was hit. Did it go foul? Did he pop it up? When he finally located it, it was headed deep to right, where Jackie Bradley Jr. snared it, a step in front of the bullpen wall.
Crisis averted on that one. But in Eovaldi's case, that seemed about the only one that didn't get out. Of the 11 hitters the Astros sent to the plate, nine hitters reached base and nine eventually scored. Five of them homered, tying a major league record -- and setting a franchise record -- for most homers allowed in an inning.
No matter what he threw -- fastball, curveball or cutters -- the Astros were pasting them.
"It's frustrating...I don't know how to describe it,'' said a predictably downcast Eovaldi after the Sox' 13-4 loss. "It's the first time I've hard to deal with it. It's extremely frustrating. I felt like I threw a good pitch to (Yordan) Alvarez (the first to take him deep) and he hit out and it kind of just kept going from there. Every ball they hit, they were hitting it hard and they were flying out.
"It's a little bit of disbelief. You come in with a game plan, you come in with a plan of attack and how you're going to come after them and you kind of have a backup plan in case. And neither one of them worked. They were attacking everything. It's kind of a helpless feeling out there.''
Oddly, Eovaldi recalled, what worked in the first didn't work in the second. He knew the Astros would be aggressive and factored that in as he went after the lineup. In the first, that resulted in a comebacker, a flyout to center, and a foul popup to first.
In the second? It was time to take cover in the bleachers or if you happened to be walking down Lansdown St. behind the Monster Seats.
It would be one thing if Eovaldi had a particular pitch hit hard over and over again. But as he broke down the home runs, he cited almost everything from his arsenal. The fact that the Astros hit three different pitches for homers would also seem to rule out tipping pitches. When that happens, hitters have decoded one particular pitch from a pitcher's repertoire and wait to belt it.
The Astros didn't need any guesswork. Fastball or off-speed, they were crushing whatever Eovaldi tried to throw.
He said there were no physical issues, either. He also determined it wasn't a mechanical glitch that resulted in the poor location.
Sometimes, there are no easy explanations.
"Baseball happened,'' shrugged batterymate Kevin Plawecki. "Stuff like that happens. He's not perfect; none of us are. (What makes him so good) is he's able to locate his pitches well and today, there were some pitches that were left in the zone and they put good swings on them and they didn't miss them.''
Eovaldi is the guy the Red Sox are not supposed to worry about. In his first seven starts this season, he hadn't allowed more than three runs in any of them. He's the human metronome -- predictable, consistent, dependable. Plus, he doesn't walk many, with just seven walks in seven starts. That way, when he does give up homers -- before Tuesday, anyway -- frequently, there's no one on base.
He may be the best-conditioned athlete on the team, and few -- if any -- work harder in preparation.
Though there will be day-after video sessions and examination of what went wrong, it's likely that this one can be chalked up to an off-night.
It happens.
It's just that it usually doesn't happen to Eovaldi, and certainly not after how dominant and locked in he looked in the first inning.