For the Red Sox, it was yet another step backward
Thursday's loss to the White Sox felt like yet another step backward after what appeared to be progress.
CHICAGO — If they’re going to get to where they intended to be, before a messy April ruined the supposedly best-laid plans of Fort Myers, the Red Sox must beat up on the dregs and mediocrities of the American League.
Sure, the rivalry games with the Yankees will always be anticipated and tense, especially if the stakes are high. The Astros are loaded again, and no doubt vengeful for the way their season ended last October. And the Rays, the only 20-win team in the American League, don’t always get their due respect, but the hunch is that they’ll just keep proving worthy of it until they do.
But it’s the games like Thursday night’s opener here at Guaranteed Rate Field that matter for the Red Sox, during this recent encouraging stretch that they’re trying to build into something sustained.
And once again, it felt like one more long stride backward just when it appeared the Red Sox finally had some momentum forward.
Nicky Delmonico’s walk-off three-run homer off Ryan Brasier gave the White Sox a 6-4 victory Thursday night. The Red Sox are back to four games under .500, at 14-18. I hate to keep playing this comparison game, but it tells a story: The Red Sox didn’t lose their 18th game last year until May 31. They had 39 wins.
.@Nicky_Delmonico called game! pic.twitter.com/LMibCYrkA7
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 3, 2019
Because their post-championship bandwagon careened into a ditch with a 3-9 start and a 13-17 March/April, they must beat the teams like the White Sox, again and again, for those future games against marquee opponents to have the kind of stakes Red Sox fans both desire and expect.
Instead, here they are taking more lumps against right-where-they-should-be 14-15 Chicago, at Non-Descript Ballpark That Should Still Be Called Comiskey, in front of a crowd that looked not much larger than what you’d see in Portland, Maine, when Dustin Pedroia is rehabbing with the Sea Dogs.
But these are the ones they’ve got to have. All they got Thursday was more frustration.
So much for progress. The Red Sox entered the first game of a seven-game road trip that includes four against the White Sox and three at Camden Yards against the Orioles on a three-game winning streak. That may sound modest, but it was tied with a sweep of the Rays for their longest of the season.
The Sox entered 12-9 in their last 21 games, including 8-4 in their last 12 and 5-2 in their last seven. They seem to be getting this thing right, and if it’s true, all of those optimistic parallels to last year’s Dodgers (who were 12-17 on May 2 and ended up in the World Series) might have some merit.
The 2018 Red Sox throttled everything in their way en route to 119 wins and a parade, but they were especially cruel to the non-contenders. They went a combined 31-7 against the Orioles and Blue Jays last year. (Surprisingly, they won just 3 of 7 against the White Sox.)
One of the stinging early frustrations was, after the brutal season-opening road trip, their 3-3 record in the first homestand of the season against the Jays and Orioles. They’d have won those series last year.
There were few style points to be had in this one, but the victory was in reach. They took a 1-0 lead in the first when Rafael Devers’s sacrifice fly off White Sox starter Lucas Giolito scored Mookie Betts.
White Sox cleanup hitter James McCann took Price deep for a two-run homer in the bottom half, but the Red Sox tied it in the top of the third on Andrew Benintendi’s third homer of the season, then took the lead in the same inning on Devers’s RBI groundout.
South Side sluggin’. 💣 pic.twitter.com/fiaxvf8jBW
— Red Sox (@RedSox) May 3, 2019
Jose Rondon’s RBI single brought the White Sox even again at 3-3 in the sixth, but J.D. Martinez’s RBI groundout put the Red Sox back on top in the top of the seventh.
Matt Barnes did his relief ace thing in the eighth, striking out Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, and McCann. Brasier started the ninth well, striking out Yoan Moncada. But a Devers error (“It was a routine play,’’ manager Alex Cora said afterward) and a sharp opposite-field single by Yonder Alonso set the stage for Delmonico’s unlikely heroics — the homer was his first of the season.
Devers’s error was his ninth of the season, many coming on routine plays. “It’s a tough loss,’’ said Devers through a translator. “[I feel] like I was a significant part of the loss. But it’s also part of the game.’’
Just when it seemed safe to say they’re looking like the Red Sox we expected all along, that they’ve fully escaped that weird malaise that enveloped them for the first couple of weeks, they add another painful loss to the ledger.
Chris Sale gets the start Friday, still searching for his first win. With a better ending Thursday, he’d be coming in to continue a winning streak. Instead, the still-winless lefty is charged with trying to start a new one. The rock, once again, has rolled down the hill.
