Phillies 6, Red Sox 5: Rafael Devers’ two homers not enough in walk-off Game 1 loss

It was a strange kind of poetry, as the Red Sox’ former closer Brandon Workman, now with the Phillies, looked on while warming up from his new bullpen, watching the Red Sox’ new closer Matt Barnes, his old friend and longtime teammate, pitch in a one-run game, trying to close it out.

It’s a situation Workman found himself in as little as a month ago for the Red Sox. The result, unfortunately for the Red Sox, was all too unfamiliar.

The Red Sox led by a run going into the bottom of the seventh — the final inning of doubleheader games this season — when Barnes came on to close. He left disappointed, after Alec Bohm’s two-run walk-off single lifted the Phillies to a 6-5 walk-off victory in the first game Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park.

Barnes walked the first batter he saw, J.T. Realmuto on four pitches and ultimately had runners on second and third with two outs, but one strike away from escaping, Bohm found a hole through the left side, and Alex Verdugo’s throw home wasn’t in time.

Some takeaways as the Red Sox dropped to 14-29:

A rough third

Though Barnes blew it in the seventh, the Red Sox can point to the third inning Tuesday as a reason for the loss.

Martin Perez issued three of his career-high six walks in the inning, added a wild pitch for good measure; a pair of defensive mistakes also cost him. The first came after Bryce Harper’s leadoff walk, when Realmuto hit a ground ball to second, and Christian Arroyo made a blunder. With Harper right in front of him on the base path, he elected not to tag him and instead threw to first for the force-out, putting Harper in scoring position with one out.

Harper advanced to third on a fielder’s choice before Christian Vazquez tried to inexplicably pick him off, but instead the catcher sailed the throw over Rafael Devers’ head at third, allowing Harper to score.

That created a domino effect of a bad inning, in which Perez gave up a two-run single to Bohm that put the Phillies in front, 4-1.

“When we make mistakes, it hurts us almost every time,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “We know we’ve got to clean that up.”

Perez produced the best performance this season by any Red Sox pitcher last week, but the lefty was not nearly as good on Tuesday.

After bidding for a no-hitter, taking one into the seventh inning last Thursday against the Blue Jays, Perez’s command was nowhere to be found against the Phillies. He issued five walks in his first three innings on his way to six, and though he pitched scoreless fourth and fifth innings, he wasn’t sharp.

“I think I didn’t have my best stuff today but I was able to compete,” Perez said. “They scored three runs in the third, I came back in the fourth and fifth with double zeroes and gave a chance to the hitters to score some runs and I wasn’t perfect today.”

Rafael Devers continues his tear

Rafael Devers had struggled to start this shortened 2020 campaign but the third baseman is rolling now. He gave the Red Sox a chance to win in Tuesday’s first game, going 3-for-4 with a pair of homers and three RBIs, as he sparked the Sox to come back from 1-0 and 4-1 deficits.

Both of Devers’ homers were no-doubters. The first was the hardest-hit ball of his career, a solo shot to right field that came off his bat at 116.5 mph and went 416 feet to tie the game at 1 in the third. His next at-bat, he completed back-to-back homers with Verdugo with an opposite-field homer to left that traveled 417 feet.

Devers made a strong bid for his third homer in as many at-bats in the sixth. After Bobby Dalbec’s game-tying homer, Devers came up with Verdugo and lifted a ball high up the right-field wall that was out of Bryce Harper’s reach. It didn’t go out, but was good enough for the go-ahead run-scoring double.

Devers entered Tuesday’s second game batting .380 (16-for-42) with five homers and 13 RBIs over his last 11 games.

“I think he’s hot right now and he’s hitting the ball good,” Perez said. “He’s got amazing power and he can hit, he just needs to trust in his stuff and believe in himself. He’s been doing a lot of things over the years and he’s a great player. It’s fun when he goes to home plate and hits the ball 400 feet away. Happy for him.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3ic6Krn