Donnelly: The good, the bad and the ugly from the Red Sox' weekend sweep at hands of the Cardinals

It was a frustrating weekend at Fenway for the Red Sox. 

After an eight-game winning streak and nine wins in 11 games, Boston's heater has come to an end, dropping four of their last five after a sweep at the hands of the well-below .500 St. Louis Cardinals at home. 

The Sox took back-to-back leads into the ninth inning before blowing said leads, falling behind in the series, 2-0. Sunday's 9-1 skunking put the nail in the coffin of a forgettable weekend on the scoreboard.

“We played two good games and lost in the ninth, and today they kicked our butt,” Alex Cora said Sunday. “I don’t think we played bad baseball. We got swept, but I think in two out of three of the games, we were right there. It just didn’t happen."

Here's the good, the bad and the ugly from the sweep by St. Louis:

THE GOOD

Chris Sale: It was vintage Sale on Saturday, even without the velocity, as he turned back the clock to go eight strong innings in his best start of the season to this point. He struck out nine, allowing just three hits and one run. Unfazed by a Nolan Arenado dinger in the top of the seventh, striking out the next three batters he faced before cruising through the eighth inning. His slider made noticeable improvements as the game went along. 

“Good velocity. Good command,” Cora said. “The slider played there halfway through it. Gave us a chance to win. His stuff, it wasn't 99 mph like the other day, but I think he benefitted from the rest. He was really good.”

Sale said of his composure after the Arenado homer, "I think obviously my last time I got to kind of let my emotions spill over and you know took my guys behind me to kind of get me back on track and kind of calm me down in that situation. You know, I honestly was thinking about that. You give up the home run, and this is where you can do this yourself, get back on track. Just need to throw strikes. The worst thing you can do after giving up a homer is start to nibble and walk a guy. So I really just wanted to tap that next hitter to get back on track to where I was. ... You know, we're still up at that point. Still have a job to do."

James Paxton: Speaking of turning back the clock, it felt like 2014 again when Paxton and Adam Wainwright had a solid duel on Friday. Big Maple went 5.0 innings, two earned runs and four hits allowed, settling into a groove after giving up a two-run shot to Arenado in the top of the first. He threw 58 of his 87 pitches for strikes (66.67 percent), and consistently hit the high-90s with his fastball, topping out at 98 mph. 

"You know what? I felt like myself out there again," Paxton said Friday. "It was really nice to be pitching in a big league stadium again with all that adrenaline. The fans were fantastic out there. Just had a lot of fun doing it. ... Honestly, it kind of felt like my debut all over again, you know, after it being so long. All those emotions. You're nervous, you're excited and all of that, and just focused on getting ready for the game and giving everything I had out there."

Cora said, "I mean, he looked like the guy that was pitching in Seattle a while ago. The fastball was playing. The breaking ball got better throughout the outing. The cutter, he dotted a few of those. He was in control. It just happens that it was his first one." The skipper later added that Paxton figures to factor into the rotation going forward as well. His next start will be Friday in San Diego.

Pablo Reyes: The utility man had a solid two-game showing after the Sox acquired him from Oakland for cash on Friday. Went 2-for-3 with a double and a run on Saturday before a 1-for-3 outing on Sunday with a walk and a stolen base. In only seven plate appearances this season, Reyes has an on-base percentage of .571. One can only imagine Chaim Bloom sitting in the office reenacting the 'He gets on base' scene from "Moneyball." Made a case to at least be a defensive band-aid solution at shortstop on Sunday, making a pair of impressive plays on hard grounders up the middle.

THE BAD

Corey Kluber: Kluber went at least five innings once again, but it didn't matter as the Sox still had to try to rely on the bullpen to stop the bleeding after a poor start. Struggled against the bottom of the order, giving up two home runs (one to Andrew Knizner in the ninth spot). Finished with seven hits allowed, four earned runs and three walks with five punchouts. 

"Not well, obviously," Kluber said of how he felt about his performance. "Put us in a hole early. I think it just boils down to poor fastball command, which made things a lot more difficult for myself than they needed to be because of that. ... Just making too many mistakes in the heart of the zone and guys took advantage of it like they're supposed to.

Sunday's offense: The Red Sox enjoyed timely hitting for the most part on Friday and Saturday, but the bats fell silent on Sunday. Boston stranded eight runners on the bases in the 9-1 rout, going 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position. They were also 2-for-10 on Friday and 5-for-23 during (.217) the series. Miles Mikolas didn't pick up a single strikeout in his six innings of work on Sunday, but after the Red Sox scored a run off a double and a single (which should have been a double) in the bottom of the first, he wasn't taxed heavily, generating plenty of groundouts. Justin Turner and Masataka Yoshida were notably subdued, both going 0-for-4.

Nolan Arenado's dominance: Arenado took over the series for St. Louis with home runs in each of the three games. He was 7-for-14 at the plate, including a 4-for-5 performance on Friday as he went on to finish with seven RBI in the series. Loves hitting at Fenway. In 13 career games, he's hitting .333 (18-for-54) with six home runs, 15 RBI and a 1.066 OPS. Paxton left a fastball right in the go-zone for him on Friday and he golfed fastballs on his Saturday and Sunday home runs. I caught his batting practice session on Friday while I was down on the field. Arenado was just launching baseballs into the Monster seats or onto Lansdowne Street. He practically owned that real estate all three days. As bad as it was for Boston, it was equally as impressive as an observer. 

"Arenado's a great hitter, what're you gonna do? 1-0 fastball, he jumps on it and crushes it," Sale said Saturday of the home run he gave up.

THE UGLY

Kiké Hernández: Kiké struggled at the plate on Friday and Saturday, going 1-for-7 to put a stop to a pretty torrid streak of late. Grounded into some double plays and left runners on with a weak popout in the eighth on Saturday. Any score there would have turned out to be crucial insurance ahead of the ninth-inning struggles. In the ninth, he had a chance to end the game and get Kenley Jansen out of a game with a double-play, but spiked the throw to first, allowing the Cardinals to take the lead. He leads all MLB shortstops in errors (nine).

“You don’t want to throw it away. It’s one of those things, where we took the chance," Cora said Saturday. "It's been like 10 days that he's been playing the lead shortstop. He just rushed that one trying to make a play. The routine ones are the ones that you wonder what’s going on [if he throws it away]. That one, he’s trying to pick up his buddy, his closer. It just didn’t happen.”

Kenley Jansen: After a pretty automatic season to this point and a historic week series in Atlanta earlier in the week, Jansen looked human on Friday and Saturday. Couldn't hit his spots as he got himself into trouble, and ran into plenty of confusion with the pitch clock on Saturday as he walked the bases loaded en route to squandering the lead in the top of the ninth for the second straight game. Easily his two worst outings of the season, barely throwing 50 percent of his pitches for strikes (20-of-39; 51.3 percent, including 8-of-17 on Saturday). 

“I mean, I’ve got to pay attention if both feet are in the batters’ box,” Jansen said Saturday. “The second time, he’d look at me. Then when I’d come to home, he’d drop his hat, and his feet were out. It’s just clearly telling me that, yeah, they messed with me and it paid off. … That’s my fault and my responsibility to pay attention to that. … It sucks because I learned the experience today of the rules, and it cost me a game.”

Cora said Friday, "It's going to happen, right? The last two days have been very heavy, emotionally [after he reached 400 saves]. 

Ryan Brasier: Brasier valiantly ate a few innings in Sunday's blowout, but the game went from bad to worse with him on the mound. Inherited a jam from Brennan Bernardino in the sixth, and after the Red Sox failed to make it interesting at the plate in the bottom of the seventh, Brasier had his blowup as the deficit ballooned to 9-1. Missed his spot on Nolan Arenado's home run in a microcosm of his poor execution on the bump. Kind of a microcosm of what his Red Sox tenure turned into, really. Have to feel for the person, no matter what you think of the ballplayer, as "D-F-A" chants rained down on him before he was actually DFA'd shortly after the game.