In a slightly different world, the Red Sox could be on quite a winning streak, but they still haven’t figured out how to win tight ballgames on a regular basis.
For the eighth consecutive game, the Red Sox scored first – But for the fourth time in this eight game stretch, they did not deliver a win. It’s part of a concerning trend developing in in one run games where despite some positive signs in the late innings of this one, still resulted in yet another winnable loss.
Today, the problem was slightly different from what we’ve seen in other frustrating defeats, but it still came down to the bats not getting hits when they needed them most, which is a great way to lose close ballgames.
If it felt like the Sox bats were good enough to deliver a win in this one, that’s probably because they recorded 12 hits in the contest, and it resulted in base runners in eight of the nine innings. Unfortunately, they also went hitless in the five highest leverage plate appearances of the game, and yes, all five of those instances came when the Red Sox had the bats in their hands. In fact, Boston was at the plate for 10 of the 13 highest leverage plate appearances of the game and failed to deliver an extra base hit in any of them. Again, a great way to lose a close ballgame.
So unlike the first two outings of Hunter Dobbins’ career, where he was blessed with a combined 28 runs of support, he only got three today (and only one while he was actually on the mound).
The most frustrating of all the bats however came in the bottom of the eighth inning when the Sox had built enough momentum to get the tying run into scoring position after being down by three and having a wait out a 71 minute rain delay. Here, Connor Wong grounded into a back breaking double play.
Now perhaps this would be excusable if Connor Wong had been productive at literally anything else this year, but when it comes as an at bat that makes him 0-17 with eight strike outs and two double plays with runners in scoring position on the season, it makes my blood pressure go up. This proved to be a fatal blow in what was the team’s best chance to mount a much needed comeback type win, and now leaves them 4-8 in one run games on the season.
Even more frustrating is that the Sox have mostly squandered their opportunity to get several games over .500 against a lengthy list of pussy cat teams. Starting Friday, they play a stretch of 22 straight games against teams who won at least 85 games last year. So they need to figure out this high leverage at bat thing fast or it’s going to be a painful three weeks.
Three studs
Rafael Devers: Three hits and knocked in two of the three runs the Sox scored today. He does get knocked down a peg however for failing to generate a hit in the ninth with the tying run on second base when they really needed it. (I guess you wouldn’t be a member of the 2025 Red Sox though if you didn’t fail to get a hit in your highest leverage at bat of the game.)
Jarren Duran: 2-5 and the other run knocked in on this exciting triple in the seventh. For a brief moment, it felt like the Sox were going to come back and win this game.
Romy Gonzalez: Racked up three hits while playing first base in the first game after Triston Casas’ season ending injury. He’s probably going to have the first shot to prove himself there for a few games before a bigger decision is made, and while he’s unlikely the answer, he’s off to a good start after one day.
Three Duds
Connor Wong: That double play absolutely sucked, and he deserves to be here for his performance in general on the season to this point.
Wilyer Abreu: Went 0-5 with a dreadful -.324 WPA, and also made the final out of the game. Probably his worst game of the year and a big reason why the Sox’ hits were not strung together today.
NESN’s coverage:
There’s a hideous trend developing in the NESN broadcast where they cut to commercial on a ball in play with two outs BEFORE the final out is recorded. It happened again today and it made me want to throw a bottle of wine into the TV. This cannot under any circumstance become acceptable behavior from a team’s broadcast partner!
Play of the game
Unfortunately it’s the Kody Clemens home run, which proved to be the turning point in the ballgame for the Twins. This was actually a feel good story if you were a neutral fan, a Roger Clemens fan or a Twins fan, but for me, the Red Sox mounting inability to handle high leverage at bats overshadowed it.