Power Rangers assemble
Sox surrender all runs on homers in series finale loss
After a pair of gems by their starting pitchers, the Red Sox turned it over to their bullpen with a series sweep on the line in Texas.
It was the Rangers who got relief.
Ryan Brasier served up a pair of homers in the sixth inning as the Sox’ bullpen couldn’t handle a full nine innings as the Rangers cruised to a 7-1 victory in the series finale at Globe Life Field.
After winning the first two games of the series, the Sox had captured a series win for the first time since early April. They have yet to sweep a team this season.
The Sox still finished the road trip with a 3-2 record and will return home to start a three-game set with the Astros on Monday.
The takeaways:
1. Brasier’s struggles continue
Alex Cora has been searching for arms he can trust out of the bullpen and Brasier had started to look like one.
Despite allowing the biggest hard-hit percentage in baseball this year, Brasier has kept batters off-balance well enough to find success. He took a 2.45 ERA into the second game in Atlanta on Wednesday and had emerged as one of Cora’s top guys for the middle innings.
But Brasier took the loss to the Braves on Wednesday when he entered in the ninth and allowed a walkoff home run to Orlando Arcia.
It was just as ugly on Sunday as Brasier again entered in a tie game, this time in the sixth, allowed Marcus Semien to snap an 0-for-27 skid with a double and then served up a pair of no-doubt long balls to Adolis Garcia and Kole Calhoun.
Brasier, who has struggled to stay on the field the last couple of years, took both losses on the road trip and now has a 6.57 ERA on the year.
Lefty reliever Austin Davis started this game and tossed two scoreless innings before Cora turned it over to Tanner Houck, who looked good over three innings of one-run ball but was removed after just 37 pitches.
The Sox have begun trying to use Houck in a similar way they were using Garrett Whitlock earlier in the year, bringing him in the middle innings of close games. It’s possible Cora was trying to keep Houck’s pitch count low enough where he could pitch again in the Astros series in the next few days, but it backfired on Sunday.
2. Rafael Devers is hotter than the Texas sun
He lifted a bloop double to right, poked a single through the left side of the infield and destroyed a double to right-center for a three-hit day that brought his average to .324.
With teams sometimes using four outfielders to shift against Devers, he’s begun finding other ways to get on base. He’s been slicing singles to left field a lot more often of late and it’s paid off: he’s 16-for-37 (.433) during a nine-game hitting streak.
The middle of the order bats continue to be impressive for the Sox, who have Devers hitting .324, J.D. Martinez hitting .314 and Xander Bogaerts hitting .344. But every other starter in the lineup on Sunday is hitting .212 or below.
3. Old friend Martin Perez shoved
The Sox declined an option to bring Perez back to Boston for another year and instead let him walk to Texas, where he signed a one-year, $4-million deal. It’s paying off for the Rangers.
The shifty left-hander dazzled over six innings, allowing just one run while striking out seven to lower his ERA to 2.01 over seven starts so far this year.