After 16 straight days without a day off, the Red Sox are grateful to finally get a break.
Despite a huge game-tying three-run home run in the sixth by Mickey Gasper, his third in three games after entering the week with only two big league homers to his name, the Red Sox couldn’t get over the finish line and fell 7-6 to the Arizona Diamondbacks in 10 innings.
Boston finished 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position and squandered a bases-loaded opportunity in the seventh, and Nolan Arenado eventually gave the Diamondbacks the lead for good with his RBI single in the top of the 10th.
Following the loss, which dropped the club to 8-8 over the 16-game stretch without an off day, several Red Sox players acknowledged how badly they need the rest.
“It feels heavy, our bodies, this time of year,” Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras said. “We grind through it, we played our best games throughout 16 games in a row, we lost today, tough loss, it’s baseball. We have an off day tomorrow, reset, and come back and win.”
Payton Tolle, who fought through five innings Wednesday, perhaps put it the best.
“You’re in the thick of it, but we’re in the thick of it together, I think that’s been the biggest emphasis. Whenever guys are talking postgame we’re like, for lack of a better term, ‘be in the suck together,’” Tolle said, pausing for a moment to ask a Red Sox communications staffer if he was allowed to say that. “Being in the suck together, whenever it’s going rough or long days or whatever it is, being able to be together, that’s the most important.”
With hot summer temperatures and a steady breeze blowing out to right, the ball carried all afternoon. The Red Sox took advantage early, hitting a pair of home runs that initially looked like easy fly balls but kept flying into the bullpens.
The first was off the bat of Nick Sogard, who hit the first pitch thrown by Diamondbacks starter Brandon Pfaadt out for the first home run of his major league career. Then in the third, Jarren Duran followed suit with a similar sky-high shot that carried out to put the Red Sox ahead, 2-0.
Meanwhile, Tolle kept the Diamondbacks off the board through the first four innings but eventually ran into trouble when Arizona rallied for three runs in the top of the fifth.
Jose Fernandez, a rookie infielder who was just called up this weekend after two months in Triple-A, sparked the rally when he ripped his second double in as many at-bats. Ryan Waldschmidt brought him home with an RBI double that Duran just barely missed making an incredible diving catch on, and after Corbin Carroll walked, Gabriel Moreno put Arizona ahead with a two-run double to deep left-center.
Tolle needed 31 pitches to get through the inning and finished with three runs allowed over five innings with six hits, two walks and six strikeouts.
“I thought he was pretty good, obviously all the damage came in that last inning and he was closing on 30 so that drove the pitch count up and Moreno was able to get a good swing,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said. “It took him more pitches to get through the five but overall a good effort.”
With Garrett Whitlock and Justin Slaten both on the injured list, the Red Sox bullpen is far from full strength and the lack of depth ultimately proved decisive.
Greg Weissert first let the Diamondbacks stretch the lead to three in the sixth after allowing a sharply hit single off the Green Monster, a rocket to center that Ceddanne Rafaela had to make a great running grab on and then a two-run pinch-hit home run to Lars Nootbaar that measured at 420 feet and 110.5 mph off the bat.
With five unanswered runs, Arizona had all the momentum, until Wilyer Abreu and Contreras came up with back-to-back one-out singles against Pfaadt in the sixth. His pitch count approaching 90, the Diamondbacks starter drew a one-pitch flyout from Durbin but left a changeup down and over the middle to Gasper.
Mickey didn’t miss.
Gasper’s game-tying blast sailed 407 feet into the right field bleachers and according to Statcast would have been gone in all 30 MLB ballparks. That shot also chased the Diamondbacks starter, who finished with five runs allowed over 5 2/3 innings with seven hits, no walks and eight strikeouts.
“It’s special,” Gasper said. “You’re trying to put the team in a position to win the game, and at that point we had been clawing back all game, so to get back to even, that was a big moment.”
The Red Sox missed an opportunity to take the lead in the seventh, loading the bases with two outs but failing to score. Diamondbacks left-hander Brandyn Garcia, a Connecticut native who played collegiately at Quinnipiac, came on with two on and two outs, and though he started by walking Abreu he came back to strike out Contreras to keep it 5-5.
Yet with the score knotted up Tracy went to his high leverage arms, and Erik Miller, Tyron Guerrero and Aroldis Chapman combined for three scoreless innings of relief to help send the game to extra innings.
But once in the 10th Tracy was almost out of options, so he gave the ball to left-hander Jovani Moran, who surrendered the lead on Arenado’s bloop single to left and completely lost the plate afterward, allowing three straight walks, including one with the bases loaded to make it 7-5 Arizona.
The Red Sox got one run back in the bottom of the frame, scoring the ghost runner on a groundout by Contreras, but then Durbin flew out to end the game.
Some in the crowd booed Contreras after he didn’t hustle out of the box on his groundout, and for about a minute after the game the first baseman got into it with a fan behind the dugout. Contreras, who has been playing through a leg issue recently, downplayed the incident postgame.
“He was inviting me to dinner,” Contreras said. “And I’m like nah, I’m good with it.”
After resting up over the off day the Red Sox will welcome Rafael Devers and the San Francisco Giants to Fenway Park this weekend. Sonny Gray is slated to start Friday’s opener, with first pitch scheduled for 7:10 p.m.