“It’s embarrassing,” said Crochet, who gave up five runs (four earned) in five innings. “And typically, in the past, I’ve played that stopper role, and today I just let the guys down.”

The finale marked a new low in a super-messy season-opening road trip for the Sox. Since a well-rounded Opening Day win over the Reds last week, they have dropped five in a row.

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The Red Sox are 1-5 — for the first time since 2019 — heading into their home opener at Fenway Park on Friday afternoon against the Padres.

“Not good. Unacceptable, really,” said Trevor Story, who committed his second error in a week and went 0 for 5 with three strikeouts to drop his average to .138. “On both sides of the ball.”

The Red Sox made it interesting via home runs from Wilyer Abreu in the eighth and pinch hitter Roman Anthony in the ninth. They drew no closer.

“The tying run was on deck, but that wasn’t enough,” manager Alex Cora said.

Abreu’s long ball was his third of the year, as many as the rest of the Red Sox combined. He has six RBIs to everybody else’s 10 combined.

Crochet’s outing was a dud of an encore to his six scoreless frames in Cincinnati. He pinned it on two bad pitches: a hanging sweeper in the first inning to Yordan Alvarez, which was the front end of back-to-back doubles with Isaac Paredes to yield a run. And then the Correa breaking ball that didn’t break enough.

Houston (5-2) tacked on another run in that opening inning after Story let a routine grounder slip under his glove.

“I just hesitated,” Story said. “And there’s no room for that. It was similar to a play last night, where I was aggressive when I played through it, and I got rewarded for that. But can’t be defensive out there.”

Crochet seemed to settle down after that — including striking out the side in the fourth — until encountering trouble again in the fifth.

The pre-Correa sequence featured Alvarez, who crushed the Sox all series, getting hit by a pitch (after getting a way-inside fastball in his previous at-bat). Alvarez angrily tossed his bat aside and slowly walked to first base.

In 34 starts with the Red Sox, Crochet has allowed five or more runs just five times. Two of those have come against the Astros at Daikin Park.

After winning his Opening Day assigment against the Reds, Red Sox lefthanded ace Garrett Crochet scuffled in a 6-4 loss to the Astros Wednesday in Houston.Michael Wyke/Associated Press

“They’re a good team. They’re a smart team,” Crochet said. “When we scratch one [run] early in the first and then for me to give it right back, and then ultimately give them the lead at the bottom of the first — it’s unacceptable. . . . Ultimately, it was me that kind of screwed the game up for us.”

The Red Sox scored two runs in five innings against righthander Mike Burrows, a Waterford, Conn., native. Jarren Duran scored the first, following his leadoff single in the first inning, and drove in the second, after Connor Wong’s double in the second.

For hot-starting Wong, drawing his third start in six games, it was the third double of the season. Last year, he didn’t pick up his third double until Aug. 8.

Caleb Durbin finished 0 for 4 with two strikeouts. He is 0 for 18 on the season.

Handling the eighth, Garrett Whitlock induced a pair of first-pitch outs and got ahead of Cam Smith, 0 and 2. Then he needed 33 more pitches to get out of the inning. Smith wound up working a 14-pitch walk, the first of three in a row for Houston. Whitlock stranded the bases loaded.

After the game, Whitlock headed home to Alabama to be with his wife, Jordan, who is about to give birth to their second child. He will be away for at least the Thursday offday, which the Boston-bound Sox hope will be restful.

“We’re about to go home and and I expect us to have a better response once we get there, especially with an offday to really sit on this, sit on these tough times,” Crochet said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s early or not. At some point, we got to make our own breaks.”

Story said: “It’s just about us, the players, to make the adjustments that we need to make. And we have time on our side, but there’s urgency for sure that this is unacceptable.”

Tim Healey can be reached at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him @timbhealey.