Good as it felt, one win in three won’t cut it for Red Sox
Boston showed what it can do against the powerful Astros, but they still lost another series.
COMMENTARY
On Friday, the Red Sox lost by a run in a game where Sandy Leon dove for the runner, as opposed to the base the runner needed to tag. On Saturday, the Red Sox lost by a run when their starter lasted 15 pitches and their closer imploded in a tie game. On Sunday, the Astros lost 4-1 when Justin Verlander threw two wild pitches, a reliever committed a balk, and the Red Sox swiped three bases.
The Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros have played nine playoff games over the last two years and the cumulative score is 47-45, Red Sox. They played a pair of three-game series the last 10 days, the Red Sox needing to win the finale in each to avoid a sweep, but the only truly lopsided game of the six was started by Hector Velazquez. It’s not quite Red Sox-Yankees, where the two teams are essentially even — 148-144, Yankees — since the start of 2004, but I’m already on record as saying Houston-Boston is a better rivalry at the moment.
They’re about at the point where it takes mistakes to separate them.
“We allowed ourselves to play a little mentally tired, a little physically tired,” manager A.J. Hinch told reporters. “We’re beat up a little bit. It wasn’t our day.”
It was the Red Sox’ day. And yet somehow, despite dropping two of three again, the whole series felt far better than another near sweep. They cracked both Ryan Pressly’s streak of 40 consecutive scoreless appearances and Roberto Osuna’s 28 straight save conversions. Rafael Devers is emerging as a full-bore superstar, consistently hitting the ball as hard as anyone in the majors. Christian Vazquez delivered the big hit in the big spot on back-to-back nights.
Matt Barnes, however, blinked after the latter: double on a hanging breaking ball on the completely wrong side of the plate, walk, walk, Carlos Correa single, loss. He’s the linchpin of this whole thing, this successful yet worrisome bullpen, and Alex Cora spelled it out as such in the aftermath.
“He needs to face some guys that they’re not the three, four, five all the time,” Cora said. “It’s a grind for him. We’ve got to make sure that the other guys do the same thing. … Facing three, four, five every day, it’s not going to help him out.”
Through that lens, Barnes’ usage — as much in the ninth inning as the eighth this year — comes into clarity.
Cora said after the game to have to make sure they don’t burn out Barnes. His deployment this year has been brutally tough! pic.twitter.com/NyfMAIi26D
— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) May 26, 2019
On Sunday, with Houston’s 9, 1, and 2 hitters coming up in the eighth, Barnes got the call, leaving the ninth for Marcus Walden. On Wednesday in Toronto, it was the 2-3-4 hitters in the eighth. Two Wednesdays ago against Colorado, 2-3-4 came up with the bases loaded in the seventh. Barnes relieved Eduardo Rodriguez.
“It’s easy now, because I’ve developed a routine in how I do it, what I’m looking for, and I’ve accumulated a lot of ABs against a lot of these guys now, so I know what works and what doesn’t work,” Barnes told NBC Sports Boston last week. “Once you get into it, it’s not terrible.”
Full credit to Cora, and to Barnes, for the flexibility and willingness to try it. But it also seems to further validate some feelings about the relief corps: Namely, it lacks for trustworthy names for the big spots, and that it could really use some support.
Next up for them and the rest of the Red Sox is Cleveland, which comes to Boston off a 4-7 homestand and double-digit games behind the MLB-leading Minnesota Twins. (No, really!) The Indians can’t hit, and one of the better starting staffs in the American League won’t much show itself at Fenway Park. After injury replacement Jefry Rodriguez goes Monday, the Sox get the debuting Zach Plesac on Tuesday before staff ace Shane Bieber — who needed and was allowed to throw 111 pitches in five innings against Tampa last week — lines up potentially against David Price.
It’s an opportunity. And during this stretch, it passes for a break. Not that a team, at 28-25, behind the pace of the franchise’s last 14 playoff teams — the 1988 Sox were 26-27 — and in a dead heat with Bobby Valentine’s 2012 debacle bunch can really say they’ve earned one.
