With a chance to come out of a four-game series with AL East joint-leaders Tampa Bay with a split, the Red Sox lineup could only muster a single run en route to a 6-1 loss on Sunday afternoon. (For a complete recap, click here.)
A depleted lineup struggled to get much going, getting outhit 14-8 by the Rays, and even when runners found their way into scoring position they would ultimately find themselves stranded there.
With J.D. Martinez, Mitch Moreland and Steve Pearce out injured and Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers taking the day off, an already-struggling lineup was even further shorthanded.
Facing reigning AL Cy Young winner Blake Snell — who looked like, well, the reigning AL Cy Young winner — the Boston bats could never find an answer for the lefty's fastball-curveball mix, routinely digging in the dirt when Snell dropped the hammer and struggling to catch up when he dialed the four-seamer up to 97 mph.
The best opportunity of the game came in the bottom of the first, with Mookie Betts and Christian Vazquez on second and third with no outs. But Snell went to his hook, with Xander Bogaerts fishing for a curveball in the dirt, Michael Chavis going down in similar fashion and Eduardo Nunez swinging through a breaking ball that stayed up but got the job done anyways. Three up, three curveballs, three down.
"Today we put pressure on Snell the whole day, just didn't score enough runs," said manager Alex Cora. "We have second and third with no outs right away, we didn't score — we have to take advantage of the situations. That's something we've been talking about for a while, and we need to execute."
The second inning threatened more of the same, with a first and third, no out opportunity looking squandered when Sandy Leon went digging in the dirt and came up empty before Jackie Bradley Jr. got picked off. The weekend's feel-good story, Marco Hernandez (2-for-4), made sure Snell took at least a bit of damage, singling through the left side to score Sam Travis.
That was pretty much it, as the Red Sox managed just four hits over the final seven innings, with Snell exiting after six innings having given up just one earned run on five hits while striking out seven. Bradley Jr.'s fourth-inning double was the only extra-base hit of the afternoon, with no one ever making much solid contact off of Snell or the Rays' bullpen.
The final numbers for Boston on the weekend are grim — a 1-3 record while getting outhit 43-24 and outscored 21-9. Those 24 total hits in 127 total at-bats are good for a .188 team batting average for the series.
It gets even worse with men on: the Red Sox were 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position on Sunday, bringing the weekend total to 5-for-36, an abysmal .139 in the most crucial moments. Nine men were left on base, the last of which, Leon, made for the 25th of the weekend.
After the game Bogaerts fairly pointed out that the Rays are one of the league's best-pitching teams — Tampa Bay sits atop the team ERA leaderboard with a bullet, baseball's best pitching staff by a good margin so far this season.
"We ran into some tough pitching, man," Bogaerts said. "These guys have a track record of being good pitching-wise, and they came in here and did what they normally do. I felt like we had a lot of opportunities, especially a lot of guys on third with less than two outs. I messed up on a lot of occasions, we really have to do a better job with that, start with that, try to get some runs in. But these guys pitch really well."
Still, with several big names out of the lineup, the onus fell on the remaining stars — mainly Betts and Bogaerts — to step up, and the two went a combined 1-for-8 with three strikeouts on Sunday. Betts has especially struggled lately, slashing a paltry .167/.324/.333 for the month of June.
"As long as [Betts] stays in the zone, that's the most important thing," said Cora. "He expanded a little bit, I think, today, I have to look back at the video, but the most important thing is dominating the strike zone, that's what you've got to do. Some days you're going to feel great at the plate, others not so great. But if he keeps dominating the strike zone, good things are going to happen."
Betts will likely turn it around, and the returns of Moreland and Martinez — the latter will go through a workout Monday afternoon to see if he's ready to play that evening — and the inevitable re-insertions of Devers and Benintendi will help, but it was a rough weekend at the plate.
The result is a seven-game deficit in the AL East, behind both the Rays and the Yankees — the last two weekends were opportunities to close the game on either team, and both opportunities went by untaken.
The Red Sox will host the Texas Rangers for a four-game series starting on Monday night. First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m.
