Dreadful Sox defense blows six-run lead
Squander chance to move ahead of Yanks
Since he returned as manager, Alex Cora has known his Red Sox needed to improve defensively. A season watching from home made it a priority going into spring training.
“We have to be better defensively,” Cora said in February. “That’s the bottom line.”
Yet with the season almost over, the Red Sox remain a bad defensive club. And now it’s costing them critical games in September.
In perhaps their worst defensive showing of the season, a series of poorly timed mistakes led to one of the most deflating defeats of the year. Once leading comfortably on Monday afternoon, the Red Sox’ sloppiness reared its ugly head once again in a wild 11-10 loss in 10 innings to the first-place Rays, as the Sox missed an opportunity to pull ahead of the Yankees for the first wildcard spot.
“Days like this hurt,” Chris Sale said. “There’s no getting around it. You know, it’s a gutpunch. We lost a game we should have won easily, honestly. I mean, we had a 7-1 lead. We’ve got to have that one.”
The Red Sox committed four more errors on the day as they allowed the relentless Rays to storm back as they tied it in the ninth on Austin Meadows’ stunning insidethe-park homer before taking it in extras. Even a depleted Red Sox roster ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak couldn’t excuse this one.
“It’s hard but this is who we are,” Cora said. “It’s going to get to the point where we get everybody back and that’s important. They grinded. They did a good job. … But in the end, we have no excuses. We had the lead, 7-1, and we weren’t able to win the game. We can talk about people playing out of position or needing people here. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You have to win those games.”
The Red Sox held the sixrun lead with their ace on the mound when it all went wrong starting in the fourth. Sale was one strike away from escaping a second bases-loaded jam when Nelson Cruz lifted a deep fly ball to center. But Alex Verdugo never looked sure of it and ultimately lost his battle against the sun. The ball dropped, and all four runners scored as second baseman Taylor Motter’s relay throw to third — where he should have cut down Cruz easily — sailed over Rafael Devers and out of play.
In an instant, the Red Sox’ 7-1 lead became 7-5.
“I’ve told y’all before, the big ball of fire in the sky is undefeated,” right fielder Hunter Renfroe said. “You can’t fight it and win. It happened to Dugie there.”
Despite a productive day at the plate, Motter made another costly miscue in the seventh as the Rays mounted their comeback. Mike Zunino hit a leadoff single to left and tried advancing to second. J.D. Martinez’s throw was there in time, but Motter dropped the ball.
Zunino ultimately scored to make it a one-run game. Jonathan Arauz restored a tworun lead for the Sox with a homer, but Nelson Cruz responded with a solo shot off Adam Ottavino to make it 9-8. Then, the Red Sox finally gave away their lead with a maddening sequence in the ninth.
With one out, Austin Meadows took Garrett Whitlock to deep center, where Verdugo attempted to make a play at the wall. But he missed the ball on his leap, it bounced off the wall and rolled toward second base. No one was there to back him up, and instead of Renfroe or J.D. Martinez, it was shortstop Jose Iglesias retrieving the ball in center.
By the time he got to the ball and relayed it in, it was too late. Meadows scored on a gutting, game-tying insidethe-park homer.
“The corner outfielders, they have got to go there,” Cora said. “Iggy went out there because of his instincts, but balls to center field, everybody has to crash there and they didn’t.”
Renfroe said he ran over to the right of Verdugo in case the ball bounced there, but wasn’t sure if there’s anything else he could have done.
“I don’t know too much we could’ve done more except for me busting my tail as fast as I possibly can behind him,” Renfroe said. “But I usually go to the right side of him just in case the ball skirts to the right. That’s all we could’ve done, I guess.”
The Red Sox did not recover, despite their chances. They had runners on first and second with no outs in the bottom of the ninth, but came up empty. And after the Rays scored twice in the 10th off of Whitlock, the Red Sox couldn’t come back. Iglesias drove in Arauz to make it 1110, but after loading the bases with two outs on Devers’ walk, Kevin Plawecki grounded out to cap a devastating defeat.
Once again, their defense was to blame.
“I think we have been inconsistent the whole season,” Cora said. “We know that. When we’re catching the ball we win games. When we’re inconsistent, it’s tough. It’s for the reason I just told you. It doesn’t matter who you are. The Rays, or whoever is in last place. At the big league level, 27 outs are 27 outs. We have to value those. But if you give the opposition more than that, they are going to make you pay. The whole day today, they made us pay.”