Things started promisingly enough.
Coming off a couple of walk-off losses in San Francisco, the Red Sox took the lead almost immediately in Monday’s series opener against the Seattle Mariners. Jarren Duran led off the game with a walk, stole second and came all the way around to score after forcing a pair of bad throws from the Mariners defense.
As it turned out, that was nearly all the offense the Red Sox could muster all night.
Boston’s bats fell silent again on Monday, and though the score was close throughout the wheels ultimately came off late as the Mariners raced past the Red Sox 6-2. The club wasted a brilliant performance by Nick Pivetta and was ultimately undone by a pair of Cal Raleigh solo home runs and by a four-run Mariners rally in the eighth that put the game out of reach.
The result was one of the most deflating losses of the season, which came less than a day before Tuesday’s trade deadline.
The obvious bright spot of the evening was Pivetta. With the bullpen depleted following Sunday’s 11-inning loss, the Red Sox shelved their usual opener strategy and gave the ball to the right-hander right out of the gate. Pivetta responded by striking out 10 over 7.1 excellent innings, allowing four hits with no walks.
“That was huge for us,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He was amazing for us, that was really good, outstanding.”
The problem, of course, was Raleigh.
The clutch Mariners catcher, who hit a walk-off home run to officially break Seattle’s 21-year postseason drought last fall, took Pivetta deep with a pair of moonshots to right field. He’s becoming a certifiable Red Sox killer, and in nine career games against Boston he’s now batting .357 with four home runs, seven RBI and two doubles.
Raleigh’s second home run came in the bottom of the seventh and put the Mariners ahead 2-1, and immediately afterwards the Red Sox squandered a golden opportunity to retake the lead. After Rafael Devers singled and Rob Refsnyder walked, Alex Verdugo worked a full-count against hard-throwing Mariners reliever Andres Munoz before striking out to end the top of the eighth.
Then in the bottom of the frame things quickly got out of hand.
Pivetta went back out to start the eighth but was pulled with one out at 104 pitches after allowing a double to Cade Marlowe. Cora then gave the ball to left-hander Joe Jacques, who was just recalled after Joely Rodriguez was placed back on the injured list with right hip inflammation, and he subsequently allowed six straight batters to reach base. Julio Rodriguez’s two-run single with the bases loaded effectively ended things, and Eugenio Suarez and Teoscar Hernandez added RBI singles to extend the Seattle lead.
The Red Sox finally scored another run on a Justin Turner RBI single in the ninth, but by that point it was too little too late. Turner also hurt his toe after awkwardly stepping on the first base bag, but Cora said they don’t think he’s dealing with anything too serious.
“They’re going to check with him but he should be fine,” Cora said.
Boston finished 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position and has now managed only 10 runs through the first four games of the road trip. The west coast hasn’t been kind to the Red Sox in general, and overall Boston is averaging just 2.8 runs in 16 games played out west.
This has also been the Red Sox worst collective slump since they scored 15 runs in eight games between June 22-29. The club went 1-7 during that stretch, and the Red Sox will be crossing their fingers things won’t take that long to turn around again.
First order of business, get back in the win column on Tuesday. Brayan Bello (7-6, 3.66 ERA) is scheduled to get the start for Boston, first pitch is scheduled for 9:40 p.m.