As they fully fade away from the playoff image, nicely on their approach to a last-place end, the Red Sox are working with the longer term in thoughts.
Saturday was one more reminder of why they’re in that place with greater than two weeks left within the common season.
Bullpen issues. Sloppy protection. A constant lack of ability to drive in runs with premium alternatives. The record goes on, however all had been on show within the Red Sox’ newest defeat, one more uninspiring effort in an 9-0 loss to the lowly Royals that begged this dismal season to quick ahead to its finish already.
The Red Sox could also be wanting in direction of 2023, giving auditions to a number of gamers over the ultimate couple weeks, however the Royals – who began 5 rookies on Saturday – are in a much more severe rebuilding mode. That didn’t cease the guests from handing the Red Sox one other lopsided residence loss.
With the loss, the Red Sox had been one Yankees win away from being formally eradicated from profitable the division. That is, should you didn’t consider the division was out of grasp months in the past.
Rich Hill delivered an unsatisfactory efficiency – giving up 4 runs on eight hits over 4 2/3 innings – however he wasn’t near the Red Sox’ largest downside.
Trailing 2-0 within the third inning, the Red Sox’ obsession with discovering methods to not rating when given probabilities on a silver platter continued. Kiké Hernández hit a leadoff single, Yu Chang – making his Red Sox debut – walked, and Connor Wong singled to load the bases with no outs. An evening after they lastly got here via with the bases loaded and fewer than two outs with an eighth-inning breakthrough, maybe they turned a nook in these conditions.
Spoiler alert: They didn’t. Tommy Pham swung on the first pitch and popped out to the catcher. Then, Rafael Devers fouled off a pair of pitches earlier than being caught strike three on the within nook. J.D. Martinez, Friday’s hero, was then put within the unenviable activity of making an attempt to maintain the rally alive with two outs, however his destiny was all too predictable. He popped out softly to first to finish the inning, which was adopted by some boos from the stressed Fenway crowd.
The Red Sox collected simply two extra hits the remainder of the day and by no means really threatened once more as they light away.
Source: www.bostonherald.com