Given a chance to pad their record against an unfortunate team, the Red Sox instead dropped the series finale in Oakland, falling 6-5 to the A’s on Wednesday afternoon.
The game yielded several career milestones for Red Sox players, but little else. Yu Chang’s 221st career Major League game set a new record for games by a player born in Taiwan, and Kiké Hernández became the 50th Puerto Rico-born player to reach 1,000 career MLB games. In the eighth inning, Kenley Jansen made his 800th career appearance, the 54th pitcher all-time and only active arm to do so.
It began in promising fashion. After his team got shut out on Tuesday night, Justin Turner roared back with a vengeance in the first inning, walloping a 2-run homer for an immediately lead. Doing so extended his hitting streak to 15 games, moving him into sole possession of the longest streak ever by a Red Sox player aged 38 or older.
Unfortunately, the usually-dominant Brayan Bello looked out of sorts in his 16th start of the season, and that 2-0 lead was short-lived. After not allowing a home run in six starts (37 2/3 innings) between May 30 and June 29, he’s struggled to keep the ball in the yard in July.
That issue not only continued, but escalated on Wednesday. The 24-year-old began the bottom of the first by allowing a single to Tony Kemp and game-tying homer to JJ Bleday. In the following frame, Bello issued a 1-out walk to Jace Peterson, and Cody Thomas’ first career Major League home run gave the A-‘s a 4-2 lead.
In the fourth inning, Bello did something he’d never done before in his Major League career: he gave up a third home run.
He didn’t return for the fifth inning, snapping a streak of seven consecutive starts of at least six innings.
“He’s not going to be perfect. Usually they don’t hit the ball out of the ballpark, they did,” Alex Cora said frankly. “Control wasn’t great. The changeup wasn’t good early on. And obviously, they did a good job offensively.”
Even the best pitchers have the occasional bad outing, but the troubling pattern emerging this season is that Bello consistently struggles in day games. He owns a 7.25 ERA over five such contests (22 1/3 innings), compared to a 2.39 ERA in 11 night starts (67 2/3 IP). Opposing lineups are hitting .319 and averaging 4.5 runs against him during the day, up from a meager 1.8 runs and .223 average at night.
As in the previous night’s game, the A’s did the entirety of their scoring against the starting pitcher, then went scoreless for the remainder of the game. Joely Rodríguez, Josh Winckowski, and Jansen combined for four scoreless innings, giving their teammates time to bridge the gap.
But as has been the case too often this season, the Boston bats squandered opportunities. They added a pair of runs in the top of the fifth and another in the top of the sixth, but not without some inadvertent help; A’s pitchers Ken Waldichuk and and Lucas Erceg each made a throwing error in those innings. By game’s end, the visitors had gone 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position, leaving five men on base.
Opening the second half of the season with a road trip against two teams with abysmal records, the Red Sox went 3-for-3.
“Not great, to be honest with you,” Cora said.
It’s unfortunately reminiscent of their late-June travels, when they spent a week visiting the Twins and White Sox. Then, too, the Red Sox failed to capitalize on series against less-than-stellar teams, going 2-2 in Minnesota and 1-2 in Chicago.
Instead of returning home flush with momentum, the Red Sox will arrive in Boston with their tails between their legs. They have a day off on Thursday to lick their wounds before hosting the New York Mets over the weekend.
If this team wants their front office to buy at the deadline, rather than taking a wrecking ball to the roster, they’re sending the wrong message.