Sox sleepwalk through loss to Rays
At this point in the season, the Red Sox needed a scorching-hot stretch if they were going to chase down the Tampa Bay Rays.
Monday night, in the first of seven games remaining against the American League East-leading Rays, the Red Sox fell flat.
The offense looked dead while Brandon Lowe and the Rays flexed on their rivals in a convincing 6-1 win at Tropicana Field.
It pushed the Sox back to nine games behind the Rays in the East, and just two games up on the Oakland A’s for the second Wild Card.
After the game, manager Alex Cora said he was exhausted from dealing with the recent COVID-19 outbreak. The Sox learned before the game that Matt Barnes and Martin Perez tested positive, then learned mid-game that Josh Taylor was a close contact and had to leave the bullpen to quarantine. First-base coach Tom Goodwin was a close contact and coach Ramon Vazquez tested positive.
“We still have a good team,” Cora said. “We’re in position to make the playoffs. We know there will be guys coming back. I don’t know when but they will come back. The way I see it, keep grinding, keep going. It’s a lot tougher today than yesterday. Yesterday was tougher than the day before. Hopefully tomorrow we’re OK. Hopefully. That’s what I pray for. For this to be the end of it and then it’s all about baseball, making plays, putting the ball in play, pitching, all that stuff. This part is not comfortable, it’s not easy.”
The first pitch thrown by Sox starter Nick Pivetta was a fastball down the pipe that Lowe hammered over the center-field wall for his 31st homer of the year. A lateblooming star at 27 years old, Lowe was on base four times, driving in two runs and scoring twice.
It was a steady dose of incremental offense from the Rays all night as they proved why they’re the topscoring lineup in baseball this year. They scored one run in four of the six innings started by Pivetta, who lasted five-plus before he was removed after allowing four runs. He gave up six hits, walked five, struck out six and moved his season ERA to 4.67.
“I think I hold myself to a higher standard than that,” Pivetta said. “I need to limit my walks, limit baserunners.”
The Sox scored one in the second when the red-hot Bobby Dalbec got an 0-2 fastball in his kitchen and lined it over the left-field fence for his 18th home run of the season.
With just one run, the Sox hung in this game for a while thanks to a miracle performance by Hansel Robles out of the bullpen.
Pivetta let two reach base in the sixth before he was replaced by Robles, who walked Lowe to load the bases. Nelson Cruz dinked a grounder to third base where Rafael Devers booted the routine play and everybody was safe.
It looked like the game was over right there, but Robles buckled down and got Wander Franco to fly out, then struck out Austin Meadows and Yandy Diaz. It was an impressive performance from Robles, who hasn’t looked great since coming over in the trade from Minnesota. He’s thrown 12-1/3 innings and allowed 10 runs.
“We got the groundball, we don’t make an out and at the end of the inning and it’s a 4-1 game going into the eighth,” Cora said.
But the Sox offense never got going against 21-year-old righty Luis Pitino, who looked strong all night, striking out five and allowing just one run on five hits over 5-2/3 innings.
Their only chance to rally came in the fourth, when they had two on and one out but Dalbec and Christian Vazquez each grounded out to end the threat.
The Rays have won eight in a row. There are six left between these two teams.
“They’ve got a good team,” Cora said. “They do a lot of things right. They pitch, play good defense, run the bases well, do things that good teams do.”