Red Sox pay for costly defensive mistakes in 4-1 loss to Rangers

Martin Perez rebounded from a couple of lousy outings and pitched well on Thursday night in Texas.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox left-hander, he didn’t get much help.

A night after their finest win of the season as Nick Pivetta outdueled Jacob deGrom, the Red Sox suffered from some sloppy defending and continued to struggle at the plate as they lost 4-1 to the Rangers in the first of a four-game series at Globe Life Park.

Here’s how it happened as the Red Sox fell to 16-10, snapping a three-game winning streak:

Uncharacteristic errors: The Red Sox had just tied the game with another clutch knock from Rafael Devers when they gave it right back in the sixth.

After Perez opened the bottom half with a strikeout of Joey Gallo, Adolis Garcia reached on a grounder that was booted by Xander Bogaerts, already the usually reliable shortstop’s fifth error of the season.

The Rangers took full advantage. Perez got Nate Lowe to line out, but was taken out after 5 2/3 strong innings for Hirokazu Sawamura, who has been solid this season. But the first batter the Japanese pitcher faced, Jose Trevino, made the Red Sox pay. Just moments before the Patriots selected quarterback Mac Jones in the NFL Draft, Trevino put a charge into Sawamura’s 0-1 slider and crushed it to left-center for a two-run homer that gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead, which was all they ultimately needed.

It wasn’t the first error that cost the Red Sox in the loss. In a scoreless game in the fourth, Gallo hit a one-out double down the left field line. But Alex Verdugo was slow in getting the ball back to the infield, and he seemed to miss the cutoff man as the ball got past Rafael Devers, and then rolled away past Bogaerts and Perez to allow Gallo to advance to third. The error was charged to Devers, and the Rangers scored the game’s first run with Garcia’s deep sacrifice fly to center.

Devers comes through: The third baseman was one of the lone offensive sparks of the night. He made up for his error in the sixth, when Verdugo led off with a double. Three batters later, Devers came up with two outs and worked the count full against Rangers starter Kyle Gibson before golfing an impressive game-tying double to right.

But that was all the Red Sox’ offense could produce. They failed to put a runner in scoring position for the rest of the game, and it certainly didn’t help that J.D. Martinez was pinch-hit for with Christian Arroyo in the eighth inning. Martinez left the game due to migraine-like symptoms, the Red Sox said.

The Red Sox have only scored 11 runs in their last five games, and averaged just three runs per game since their 11-run outburst against the White Sox on Patriots’ Day.

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