Pen no relief for ace
Scott, Kelly falter in 8th as Sox lose another Sale start
MINNEAPOLIS — A tie game in the eighth inning is when Alex Cora saw fit to bring on Robby Scott, a left-handed reliever who hadn’t made a major league appearance since last October.
Scott, called up from Triple-A Pawtucket earlier in the day, was brought on last night to face former Red Sox outfielder Ryan LaMarre and then the dangerous top of the Minnesota Twins’ lineup.
The bullpen was well-rested after a day off on Monday, and Cora usually favors his right-handers who are tough on lefties, like Joe Kelly and Heath Hembree, over left-on-left matchups. Instead he went with Scott, who put the first two men on base, paving the way for Kelly to come on and give up the decisive hit in a 6-2 loss.
The Sox are now a game behind the first-place Yankees in the AL East.
Scott was great for the PawSox this season, and he’s been effective against lefties in the past, holding them to a .121 average and .527 OPS a year ago. But he was jittery in his first big league appearance of 2018, walking the light-hitting LaMarre and plunking Joe Mauer.
With one out, Kelly relieved Scott and served up a line drive to Eddie Rosario that was bound to score at least one, but Jackie Bradley Jr. mishandled the ball in leftcenter and it rolled to the wall as both runners scored and Rosario sprinted to third base.
Two batters later, Robbie Grossman hit a hanging curve from Kelly for a triple and the Red Sox were buried.
It’ll go down as another loss with their ace on the mound, and the Red Sox are now just 8-8 when Chris Sale starts.
He certainly deserved better last night.
Sale retired the first 14 batters before Ehire Adrianza singled on a dribbler down the third base line in the fifth.
That opened things up for the Twins in the sixth, when LaMarre hit a leadoff single and Sale plunked Mauer to put the first two batters of the inning on base. Two hitters later, Eduardo Escobar hit a two-run double to erase the Red Sox 1-0 lead.
Rafael Devers got them started with a solo shot in the sixth, when he took an outside changeup and roped it to right-center for a long homer, his 12th of the year. He’s 17for-42 (.327) with three homers in his last 13 games.
The Sox added one more in the eighth when Devers singled and moved to second on a groundout. Cora let the light-hitting catcher Sandy Leon hit for himself and Leon delivered with an RBI single to right field to tie the game at 2-2 until the bullpen blew it.
Bradley redeemed himself with a strike to home plate from deep left-center to throw out Grossman to finally end the eighth inning.
With Sale on the mound, the Red Sox have provided an average of just 3.88 runs per start, putting him in the bottom 25 of major league starters in run support.
Sale now has a 2.74 ERA and just six wins.