This season hasn’t gotten off to a good start, and the Red Sox bats in particular have struggled to find their groove.
Needless to say, the last person this ice cold lineup needed to see was Hunter Brown.
The Houston Astros ace, who finished third in the American League Cy Young Award vote last year behind Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Boston’s Garrett Crochet, carved the Red Sox up over six dominant innings. Brown allowed one run on one hit and two walks with eight strikeouts to hand the Red Sox a 9-2 loss.
Brayan Bello also delivered a poor performance in his season debut for the Red Sox, who have now lost four straight since winning on Opening Day last Thursday. Bello was particularly undone by a pair of two-out walks that extended the third and fifth innings and led to two runs in each.
“Obviously when you do that you create opportunities for the opposition,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters. “He got (Carlos) Correa 1-2 count, ended up walking, and after that they just kept scoring runs. We just have to be better.”
The Astros got to Bello early, pulling ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the first thanks to an RBI double to deep center field by Yordan Alvarez. Houston extended its lead to 3-0 in the third after Bello got two quick outs but he issued a walk to Jose Altuve to keep the inning going. The Astros capitalized with a Correa double and then a two-run single by Christian Walker.
Boston finally got some traction against Brown in the fifth when Marcelo Mayer walked to break up a stretch of 12 straight batters retired by the right-hander. Connor Wong stepped up after and drove Mayer in with an RBI double to the left-field gap, giving him his first RBI of the season on March 31 after it took him until June 23 to drive in his first run last season.
But needing a clean inning, Bello came unglued in the bottom of the fifth. Once again Bello threw a bad pitch to Alvarez that the slugger crushed for a solo shot, and once again Bello failed to escape the inning with minimal damage after allowing a two-out walk to Correa.
After that the wheels came off. Bello gave up a double to Walker, an RBI single to Joey Loperfido and contributed to a disastrous defensive sequence in which he attempted to cut off a throw home during an already broken play and wound up knocking the ball away, allowing another run to score.
Two errors were charged on the play, the first on Wong for his poor throw to second on a stolen base attempt and the second to Mayer on his throw home.
Bello finally walked Cam Smith to end his day, failing to get out of the fifth inning and leaving with the Red Sox trailing, 6-1. He was charged with six runs (five earned) over 4 2/3 innings with eight hits, three walks and two strikeouts.
The Astros later tacked on two more runs against Ryan Watson in the sixth on a two-run single by Correa, and Smith hit a solo home run off Jovani Moran in the seventh. Meanwhile, the Red Sox got nothing against Brown for the rest of his outing and only managed a solo home run by Ceddanne Rafaela in the eighth against the Astros bullpen.
Boston collectively tallied four hits as a team — the second straight game it only managed four hits — struck out 13 times and went 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox have now struck out 25 times over their first two games in Houston and scored three runs in their last 23 innings dating back to Sunday in Cincinnati.
Poor challenge
Saturday afternoon the Red Sox wasted all of their ABS challenges early and found themselves exposed to a terrible umpiring performance with no recourse for the rest of the game. Tuesday the Red Sox made another questionable challenge decision, with Rafaela challenging an 0-0 strike call with nobody on base in the top of the third. The pitch was comfortably in the strike zone and Rafaela wound up striking out.
The Red Sox didn’t lose the ability to challenge, and the game wound up getting out of hand anyway, but from that point on the club had no margin for error.
Missed strike three?
A strange oversight went completely unnoticed in real time during the final at-bat of Bello’s outing. Facing Smith, Bello went ahead 0-2 in the count with two swinging strikes before the stolen base that led to two errors and a run scoring. Following that play, Bello drew another swinging strike — which should have been strike three — but home plate umpire Mark Wegner signaled a 1-2 count and nobody seemed to realize the mistake.
Smith would go on to draw a walk, ending Bello’s outing after 4 2/3 innings instead of an even five. Asked after the game, Cora didn’t offer any sort of explanation.
“To be honest with you I don’t really know what to say about that,” Cora said.
According to the Boston Globe’s Tim Healey, a pool reporter spoke to Wegner following the game and the umpire acknowledged he messed up the count.
“I just watched the video. I didn’t know what happened until I came in here and apparently I somehow didn’t count the second swinging one because I said the count was 1 and 2. It was actually strike three,” Wegner said. “Had anybody caught it, we can always go and call replay and check the count. I’ve never done that before. I’m not happy about it. Just made a mistake.”
Anthony’s struggles continue
Roman Anthony has had a tough time at the plate since going 3 for 4 on Opening Day. Tuesday was no exception, as the 21-year-old outfielder went 0 for 4 with four strikeouts. Anthony is now 1 for 17 with 10 strikeouts over his last four games, with multiple strikeouts in each.
Durbin sits
New Red Sox third baseman Caleb Durbin was given the day off to reset after starting the year 0 for 14 through his first four games. Andruw Monasterio got the start at third instead and went 0 for 4.
Crochet up next
The Red Sox will hand the ball to their ace in Wednesday’s series finale looking to snap their skid ahead of Friday’s home opener. Crochet (1-0, 0.00) is scheduled to face off against Astros right-hander Mike Burrows (0-1, 7.94) and first pitch is scheduled for 2:10 p.m. ET.