Wacha scratched, goes on IL before Red Sox drop their 5th straight
BOSTON — As bad as things have gone for the Red Sox this week, they had a glimmer of hope with their best pitcher this season to date on the mound scheduled to start Sunday to try to end a bad homestand on a positive note.
But when it rains, it pours for these Red Sox.
Shortly before Sunday morning’s first pitch, Michael Wacha was scratched and placed on the injured list. Tanner Houck took the ball instead, and the losing continued.
Houck gave up three runs in the third inning, and despite six-plus shutout innings from the bullpen, that was enough to sink the Red Sox again. In a continuing theme, the
offense couldn’t sustain anything again in a 3-2 loss at Fenway Park as the Red Sox were swept by the White Sox and fell to their fifth consecutive defeat.
“Just another day, right?” manager Alex Cora said.
The Red Sox are 10-19 after exactly one month of baseball, leading the American League in losses.
The ending of this one came in familiar fashion.
Down one, J.D. Martinez opened the ninth with a double off the left field wall, a ball with an exit velocity of 105.7 mph that could have been a tying homer in hotter weather. But the brisker weather and wind kept it in the park.
“I don’t want to be Mr. Negative, but I knew he was going to hit the wall with the way the conditions are,” Cora said.
Still, the Red Sox had the tying run in scoring position with no outs. But the rally never got going, as usual.
Franchy Cordero pinch ran for Martinez but never even got off second. Christian Vazquez flied out before Alex Verdugo struck out. With Jackie Bradley Jr. on deck, the White Sox put lefty Bennett Sousa in the game, but the Red Sox countered with Kevin Plawecki as the pinch hitter. But the backup catcher flied out to end the game.
The Red Sox went 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position Sunday and finished the six-game homestand 6 for 52 in that situation.
“I’m very surprised,” Rafael Devers said of the offense’s sustained struggles. “I know the quality of the team that we have, so I know in the end everything is going to turn around and to our full potential. Right now, it’s not going our way, but we’re working hard every day to get where we need to get.”
The trio of Devers, Martinez and Xander Bogaerts — which combined to record six of the Red Sox’ nine hits Sunday — seem to be the only ones who are consistently hitting. They started a rare rally in the sixth, when Devers and Bogaerts hit one-out singles. Martinez drove in Devers with a groundout before Vazquez hit an RBI single to make it a one-run game.
But that’s where the rally — and ultimately the scoring for the day — stopped as Verdugo flied out on the first pitch.
The rest of the lineup continued to be a black hole. Trevor Story, who batted second in the order, struck out three more times — and heard increasingly louder boos from the Fenway crowd with each — as his batting average dropped to .194 this season.
In 14 of their 29 games this season, the Red Sox have scored two runs or fewer.