Dodgers 4, Red Sox 1: Eighth Inning Meltdown Erases Nick Pivetta’s Dominance

For seven innings tonight, the Red Sox outplayed the Dodgers. In fact, not only did they outplay them, but they seemed in line for a shutout victory.

Looking back, Nick Pivetta had six shutout frames in the books before passing the torch to Zack Kelly, who tossed a scoreless seventh. Looking forward, the Sox also had a rested Kenley Jansen ready to go in the pen and shut things down in the ninth. That left the eighth as the only sticky wicket remaining.

But right from the get go, it promised to be problematic. A pitiful 0-11 performance by the offense with runners in scoring position limited the lead to 1-0, and made the margin for error minimal. Complicating things further is the fact that…