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‘After bad times come the good ones’: 4 takeaways as Red Sox drop another loss to Orioles
The Red Sox remain alive despite recent struggles.
Here are the takeaways, as the Red Sox fell in dispiriting 6-2 fashion to the Orioles on Thursday – their fifth loss in six games.
The big picture
The Red Sox started hot, as Kiké Hernández’s lead-off homer got them on the board early.
But the offense cooled down immediately. Ryan Mountcastle’s three-run homer in the third inning was a tough blow, and the Orioles tacked on three more in the sixth – two on a single by Tyler Nevin and a third when Pat Valaika hit a sacrifice fly. A seventh-inning rally by the Red Sox produced a run, which was too little, too late.
Star of the game
Ryan Mountcastle – 1-for-3, one run, three RBIs, homer, walk
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The Orioles’ pitching staff pieced together a solid game, but Mountcastle’s homer was the big blow – a difficult pitch from Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta that brushed the inside corner. Somehow, Mountcastle shortened his swing and still drove the ball over the wall.
Pivetta noted in his icy post-game comments that Mountcastle is a candidate for Rookie of the Year.
“It was the right pitch, right location, he was just able to get his hands in and put a good swing on the ball,” Pivetta said.
What it means
As outlined earlier today, the Red Sox have a wild weekend ahead, but even after losing five of their last six games, they are still well within striking distance – tied for the second wild-card spot – with three games remaining against the lowly Washington Nationals.
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If the Red Sox hope to make a playoff appearance, they need to take care of business this time.
“After good times come bad times, and after bad times come the good ones,” Xander Bogaerts said. “That’s the way I see it, that’s the way I’ve always seen stuff baseball-wise. There’s three more games.”
Takeaways
1. Bogaerts seems surprised by his own struggles recently – 2-for-23 in the last games as the Red Sox began to skid – and he acknowledged how badly he timed his slump.
“Just not getting it done,” he said. “Quality of my at-bats has been bad. When you hit it good also, there’s someone right there, but I don’t feel like there’s been many of that the last two days. There’s been very unproductive at-bats.
“It sucks, I have [three] more games to get going and try to help this team finish. I take responsibility for going on a stretch like this. It’s not a good time to be playing bad baseball. Sometimes it happens, it happens to the best of them, but you can’t keep a good guy down for too long.”
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Thursday might have been a new low, however – Bogaerts grounded into two double plays, robbing the Red Sox of two of the few baserunners they managed on Thursday.
“I have [Rafael] Devers behind me, I have J.D. [Martinez] behind me,” Bogaerts said. “A strike out would probably be better.”
2. Alex Cora hammered the need for the Red Sox to be patient and control the pace of the game.
“That’s the beauty of this game, right?” Cora said. “There’s no clock — you can slow it down as much as you want to and work counts, and grind at-bats, and put pressure on the opposition. And for a while there, we didn’t do that.”
Bogaerts didn’t seem quite as convinced.
“It’s just been the way it’s going right now,” he said. “I don’t feel like we’ve been chasing balls the first pitch, and it’s like, ‘Oh, fly ball, ground ball to the pitcher.’ For the most part, it’s decent pitches that we’re swinging at early in the count.”
3. The Yankees were a perfect mirror image of the Red Sox — instead of losing to one of the worst teams in baseball for the second time in three nights 6-2, the Yankees beat a contender for the other wildcard slot 6-2.
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Cora said he isn’t surprised the Red Sox are still alive, despite this stretch.
“I think at the end of 162 [games], with the amount of wins we have, regardless of what happened this week, it makes sense,” Cora said. “The wildcard around 90-92 wins. Obviously we lost five out of six and it doesn’t look great but at the same time, like I keep telling them, we’re still a good team, we won a lot of games this year, and we still have a chance to make it.”
4. While Bogaerts seemed dispirited by his sudden struggles, Pivetta simply looked angry after the game. Still, he noted how the Red Sox have bounced back at times this year.
“We are a really resilient club,” Pivetta said. “It’s just you have to forget what happened in the past and move forward to the next game. I think that’s what’s most important, really show our resilience and really go out there and compete, and that starts Game 1 against Washington.”
Pivetta’s stance is admirable, but given recent results, it’s hard not to wonder whether the team’s resilience will be enough.
First pitch between the Nationals and Red Sox in the final series of the season is at 7:10 p.m. on Friday.
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