Tara Sullivan
Sports
THE BOSTON GLOBE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/SPORTSC
TV HIGHLIGHTS
World Cup basketball: US-France, 7 a.m., ESPNews
Baseball: Red Sox-Blue Jays, 7:07 p.m., NESN
Baseball: Cubs-Padres, 10:10 p.m., ESPN
Listings,C7
Anews
dump?
Dombrowski
firing could
have been
timed much
better.Finn, C3‘See how
it goes’
Belichick com-
pares Brown
signing to
when Moss was
acquired.C6Hands-on
approach
BC running
back Dillon is
getting involved
in the passing
game.C6INSIDE
WLPct.GB
Tampa Bay 87 59 .596 —
Oakland 85 60 .586 —
*Cleveland 84 61 .579 1
Boston 76 69 .524 9
* — Not including late gameALwild-cardstandings
Red Sox go quietly against Blue Jays
By Peter Abraham
GLOBE STAFF
Blue Jays 4
Red Sox 3TORONTO — The Red
Sox are still in conten-
tion for a playoff spot,
hard as that may be to believe consid-
ering president of baseball operations
Dave Dombrowski was fired during
the game on Sunday and the roster has
only three healthy starting pitchers.
But that’s just a technicality at this
point, a false hope.
A 4-3 loss against the Toronto Blue
Jays on Tuesday night offered a more
realistic assessment of where the Sox
are now, and it’s grim.
Playing in front of crowd of only
17,819 at the Rogers Centre, the Sox
fell to a rebuilding Blue Jays team that
had lost seven in a row. Worse, they
managed only one hit over the finalfour innings, an infield single.
Mookie Betts, who belted the first
pitch of the game for his 28th home
run, drew a walk off Toronto closer
Ken Giles with two outs in the ninth
inning. But Rafael Devers popped up
to center field to leave two runners
stranded.
The Sox have lost four straight and
seven of 10. They are now nine gamesbehind in the wild-card race with 17
left to play.
At 76-69, the Sox should be able to
finish over .500. But that’s not a lock
given the last week and the emotional
letdown in its wake.
The Sox have scored only nine runs
in the last four games, and on Tuesday
Toronto’s bullpen retired 13 of the fi-
nal 15 Sox hitters.
Nathan Eovaldi pitched well in his
two previous starts, giving up two runs
on four hits over nine innings and
striking out 11. But he was erratic
against the Blue Jays, quickly running
up his pitch count against one of the
least productive lineups in the Ameri-
can League.
Eovaldi needed 82 pitches to get
through four innings but allowed solo
RED SOX, Page C2Thomas sent
to the Jets for
sixth-rounder
By Nora Princiotti
GLOBE STAFF
In a rare trade within the AFC
East, the Patriots are dealing receiver
Demaryius Thomas to the Jets in ex-
change for a 2021 sixth-round draft
pick, ESPN reported on Tuesday.
In many ways, the move makes
sense. Thomas, 31, is a solid veteran
who had his best years in Denver un-
der now-Jets head coach Adam Gase,
who was the receivers coach and then
offensive coordinator for the Broncos
during much of Thomas’s time there.
Thomas also was caught in a log-
jam at receiver with the Patriots, who
cleared a pathway for first-round pick
N’Keal Harry to get playing time
when he comes off injured reserve.
In one way, though, it’s surprising.
Bill Belichick has never traded with
the Jets as head coach of the Patriots.
In-division trades are rare in the
NFL, but Belichick has made two of
them in the past two weeks. He trad-
ed with the Bills to acquire center
Russell Bodine, who was released last
Friday a week after he was acquired.
Before the Thomas trade, the Jets
were the only NFL team the Belichick
Patriots had not traded with.
New York will be Thomas’s fourth
team in less than a year. He began
last season in Denver but was traded
midseason to the Texans. He finished
PATRIOTS, Page C4Heavy baggage to claim
Brown allegations grim reminder of his turmoil
Credit Al Mich-
aels with the line
of the night
about Antonio
Brown, when the
NBC “Sunday
Night Football”
announcer said
upon seeing
Brown’s jet touch down in New Eng-
land: “It’s a good thing he didn’t have
to go through baggage claim, because
he’s got a lot of baggage to claim.”
Michaels’s quip was inspired by the
cross-country weight Brown was lug-
ging from Oakland, where an abbrev-
iated tenure with the Raiders was sad-
dled with constant turmoil. But it car-
ries even more resonance now, just
days after Brown officially became a
Patriot. Brown was accused in a law-
suit Tuesday of raping his former
training partner.
We don’t know yet if Bill Belichick
and the Patriots knew about the accu-
sation when they plucked Brown off
the open market a mere 15 minutes
after he was available, but there’s no
way the New England brain trust was
unaware of Brown’s long and compli-
cated history of questionable behavior.
For all the attention paid to the most
recent headlines Brown made in Oak-
land, feuding with his general manag-
er and demanding his release only
hoursafterpubliclyapologizingforbe-
ing a distraction, Brown has beenmaking news for all the wrong reasons
foryearsnow.
Even if Belichick and Co. are able to
look past the me-first antics Brown
pulled in Oakland, forgiving them as a
deliberate Raider escape or a simple
mismatch of player and team, they
would be wise to remember Brown’s
history with the Steelers as a guide to
how (or if) they can integrate him into
their Patriot Way. While a rape charge
is certainly more serious than any-
thing that has happened on the foot-
ball field or in the locker room, it is the
pattern of behavior that should alarm
the Pats.
Remember, Brown forced his way
out of Pittsburgh, too, his March trade
to the Raiders inevitable after the
SULLIVAN, Page C4Browns
biggest of
Week 1 duds
The excitement of Week 1 in the
NFL is palpable. New coaches, new
players, new beginnings. Hope is ev-
erywhere. The road to the Super Bowl
is wide open.
But for several teams with big ex-
pectations, Week 1 was kind of a dud.
Those media-darling, Super Bowl-
bound Cleveland Browns? Lost by 30
points at home to the Titans.
The new-look Jets? Blew a 16-0
lead at home and lost to the Bills.
The Falcons, Steelers, and Giants
looked listless and ill-prepared. The
eight new head coaches combined to
go 1-6-1, with the one win going to the
Packers’ Matt LaFleur, whose exciting
new offense scored a whopping 10
points against the Bears.
Several games were simply non-
competitive, as three teams won by at
least 30 points, the most in a Week 1
since 1997.
And we haven’t even mentioned
the Dolphins losing by seven touch-
downs at home in Brian Flores’s de-
but.
The opening slate of games turned
out to be the Week of the Dud, which
is where we begin our Week 1 Review:
REveryone knew the Dolphins
ON FOOTBALL, Page C4
RICK SCUTERI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
ACCUSED OF RAPE— New Patriots wide receiver Antonio Brown
allegedly sexually assaulted his former trainer, who filed a federal civil
lawsuit Tuesday. Brown, who was signed Saturday, denied all
allegations in a statement released by his lawyer.Story, A1JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
After being traded by the Patriots Tuesday, Demaryius Thomas will join his fourth team in less than a year.FRED THORNHILL/ASSOCIATED PRESSRed Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi was tagged for six
hits — including a pair of solo home runs — in his
4‚ innings against the Blue Jays on Tuesday.
Ben Volin
ON FOOTBALLCONGRATULATIONS with the BABY
and WIN! Onto MIAMI!