Red Sox fall to Diamondbacks, 4-2
Day off Monday before homestand
It certainly wasn't a game for the history books, that's for sure.
Frankly, the same could be said about this west coast trip as a whole.
As has often been the case throughout the nine-game road swing, the Red Sox left their offense at the team hotel on Sunday, wrapping up the trip with an uninspiring 4-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Merrill Kelly, a late-bloomer who has become one of baseball's most productive pitchers in his mid-30s, kept the Red Sox guessing all night. The 34-year- old Arizona starter tallied 10 strikeouts, six of them looking, while allowing one run on four hits over 6.1 strong innings of work.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora offered high praise for Kelly afterwards.
"He can pitch, and in an era where people talk about overpowering stuff and all that, his command is perfect," Cora said. "Similar to back in the day like (Greg) Maddux, he could put it wherever he wanted to."
The only real opportunities the Red Sox got came once Kelly finally started running out of gas in the seventh. After Triston Casas singled and Kiké Hernández walked to chase Kelly from the game, Rob Refsnyder drew a walk off reliever Andrew Chafin to load the bases with one out.
Alex Verdugo delivered an RBI single after Connor Wong flew out to get the Red Sox on the board, but Rafael Devers struck out with the bases loaded to end the threat.
Justin Turner added a solo home run to lead off the eighth, but while the Red Sox were able to get two runners on afterwards to bring the go-ahead run to the plate again, Raimel Tapia wound up flying out to the warning track. The club got one more chance in
the ninth when Verdugo singled and advanced to second on a groundout, but Turner struck out to end the game.
All told Boston struck out 15 times, stranded 10 runners and went 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position.
The Red Sox once again found themselves playing from behind after Tanner Houck got roughed up in the first inning. Houck al
lowed three runs in the first on a two-run homer by Corbin Carroll and an RBI single by Jorge Rojas, and in the second Geraldo Perdomo tacked on a solo shot of his own to make it 4- 0.
Houck wound up settling down and retired the last nine batters he faced, and Joely Rodriguez and Nick Pivetta combined for four scoreless innings of relief, but by then the damage had already been done.
The Red Sox finish the road trip 4-5, winning their series against San Diego and Arizona but squander
ing that progress with the three- game sweep at the hands of the Angels.
Cora said afterwards they would have preferred things had gone better but there were plenty of positives to take away as well.
"We won two, the one in Anaheim the first two games we pitched great and we weren't able to win the games," Cora said. "That was the hiccup of the whole trip, but we came here and won two out of three and we went to San Diego and beat them two out of three. We've got to figure out Sun
days, that's the next step."
The good news now is the Red Sox will have a chance to catch their breath before picking back up at Fenway Park on Tuesday. They will have Memorial Day off after flying back from Arizona, and presumably a few — probably more than a few — will make their way over to the TD Garden for Game 7 of the Celtics-heat series.
The bad news is the schedule isn't doing the club any favors over the upcoming homestand.
First up is the Cincinnati
Reds, who are currently 2429 but coming off a sweep of the Chicago Cubs in which they scored 25 runs on 45 hits over three games. Cincinnati ranks among the bottom of the league in runs allowed per game, so they could be just what the doctor ordered for the slumping Red Sox offense, but if they keep hitting like they have recently then they could give Boston a hard time.
After that, the Red Sox welcome the first- place Tampa Bay Rays to Fenway Park for a cool four games
in three days, including a scheduled doubleheader on Saturday.
The Red Sox are fully aware of how difficult a series that will be.
At the season's one-third mark the Red Sox aren't where they want to be, but 28-25 isn't too bad considering how many injuries the club has already sustained. All of their goals are still there for the taking, but if they can't get the bats going soon they could look up a week from now and find themselves in a much tougher spot.