![\"Brayan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2228564239-e1769871200363.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Brayan Bello #66 of the Boston Red Sox <\/p>\n
The Boston Red Sox<\/a> lost to the Houston Astros<\/a> 9-2 on Tuesday night. The result was bad enough. What happened in the fifth inning made it stranger.<\/p>\n Home plate umpire Mark Wegner lost track of the strike count<\/a> during an at-bat between Brayan Bello<\/a> and Astros outfielder Cam Smith<\/a>, allowing the at-bat to continue after Smith had already struck out. Postgame, Wegner took full responsibility.<\/p>\n It was the kind of moment that almost never happens in professional baseball.<\/p>\n What the Umpire Said<\/p>\n Wegner was asked about the sequence after the game and did not deflect.<\/p>\n \u201cI just watched the video,\u201d Wegner said<\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what happened until I came in here and apparently I somehow didn\u2019t count the second swinging one because I said the count was 1-and-2. It was actually strike three.\u201d<\/p>\n He went further, acknowledging that the situation could have been corrected in the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cHad anybody caught it, we can always go and call replay and check the count,\u201d Wegner said<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve never done that before. I\u2019m not happy about it. Just made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Wegner owned the mistake cleanly. The acknowledgment, however, does little to help Bello, whose ERA took a hit from the sequence.<\/p>\n HP Ump Mark Wegner lost track of the count and it seems like everyone else did too.<\/p>\n This should\u2019ve been a strikeout for Brayan Bello. Instead Cam Smith walked. <\/p>\n What Actually Happened GettyBrayan Bello #66 of the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n Bello struck out Smith on three consecutive swings. Nobody noticed. Not Bello, not Smith, not catcher Connor Wong<\/a>, not Wegner.<\/p>\n The at-bat continued. Bello eventually walked Smith, which brought his night to an end and forced Alex Cora<\/a> to go to the bullpen earlier than he wanted. By the time the dust settled, the Astros had scored six runs in the fifth inning and the game was effectively over.<\/p>\n Cora was asked postgame whether anyone on the Red Sox side noticed what was happening.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, not really to be honest with you,\u201d Cora said<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t even know what to say about that.\u201d<\/p>\n It was that kind of inning. That kind of night.<\/p>\n The Bigger Picture for the Red Sox<\/p>\n Boston dropped their fourth straight game on Tuesday. Hunter Brown<\/a> was dominant for Houston, going six innings and allowing just one run while striking out eight. His ERA sits at 0.88 through two starts<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Red Sox managed just two runs on the night, with a Connor Wong<\/a> RBI double in the fifth their only real moment of offense. Yordan Alvarez<\/a> hit his second home run in as many nights to put the game out of reach.<\/p>\n The series wraps up Wednesday with Garrett Crochet<\/a> taking the mound for his second start of the season. After a dominant Opening Day performance against the Cincinnati Reds<\/a>, Boston will be counting on him to stop the bleeding.<\/p>\n Final Word for the Red Sox<\/p>\n Wegner made a mistake and said so. The Red Sox lost and moved on.<\/p>\n Four straight losses. An offense that has gone quiet at the wrong time. And a fifth inning on Tuesday that nobody wants to see again.<\/p>\n Crochet gets the ball on Wednesday. Boston needs a different kind of night.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tKeith Watkins<\/a> Keith Watkins is a sports journalist covering the NBA for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics, and Los Angeles Lakers. He previously wrote for FanSided, NBA Analysis Network, and Last Word On Sports. Keith is based in Bangkok, Thailand. More about Keith Watkins<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Red Sox\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Brayan Bello #66 of the Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox lost to the Houston Astros…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,139,54,3211,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-656370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-houstonastros","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116329003069912915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Boston](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Brayan-Bello-Dugout-e1766956438162.jpg\")
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