The Red Sox offense didn’t have much of an answer for Shane Bieber and the Cleveland Guardians pitching staff. The top half of the lineup effectively no-showed and when Boston did get traffic on base the big bats couldn’t bring them home.
At least they had Jarren Duran.
The third time has been the charm so far for the young Red Sox outfielder, who has looked like a completely different player after two failed big league stints the past two seasons. Duran made his mark again on Friday by going 3 for 4 with a trio of doubles but the Red Sox couldn’t capitalize in a 5-2 loss.
“He’s in the middle of the field staying with breaking balls and playing great defense,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He’s in a good spot right now, he’s playing with a lot of energy, a lot of confidence, we’re very happy with where he’s at.”
Since being called up Duran is batting .421 with a 1.126 OPS, and of his 16 total hits eight have gone for extra bases. Friday night he roped a pair line drives off the former Cy Young winner Bieber before getting a blooper to drop into no man’s land off All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, but he wound up being stranded on base in all three instances.
Overall, Boston’s top five hitters combined to go 2 for 18 and the lineup as a whole went 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position.
“We had traffic and we didn’t cash in,” Cora said. “We put pressure on them, that’s what we do, but obviously we didn’t cash in.”
It didn’t help that the Red Sox were playing catch-up from the start after Nick Pivetta allowed two runs in the top of the first and another in the second after failing to finish off a number of early at bats. A pivotal point came when Jose Ramirez won a 12-pitch at bat with a single, setting up Josh Naylor for a sacrifice fly to put Cleveland on the board.
A two-out RBI double by Josh Bell would follow, and by the time all was said and done Pivetta finished with four runs allowed over five innings, allowing five hits with two walks and five strikeouts.
The Red Sox got their runs courtesy of a Kiké Hernández RBI single in the second inning and an Alex Verdugo groundout with runners on second and third in the fifth. That would be all the damage allowed by Bieber, who allowed two runs on five hits over seven innings before handing the game over to the bullpen.
Boston had a couple shots late as well, getting runners on the corners in the eighth before Rafael Devers struck out and Triston Casas grounded out. Duran’s bloop double led off the ninth but Hernández, Reese McGuire and Enmanuel Valdez all grounded out against Clase to end the game.
“Some fall some don’t, that one fell for me,” Duran said of his ground rule double against Clase. “He’s throwing 99 mph cutters and I was lucky enough to get a piece of it and it stayed fair for me.”
Beyond Duran, Kutter Crawford was once again a bright spot. The second-year righty allowed one run over four strong innings, with the only damage coming courtesy of a cheap solo home run around Pesky’s Pole by Guardians outfielder Will Brennan.
With the loss the Red Sox fall to 13-14 while the Guardians (13-13) get back to .500. Brayan Bello (0-1, 9.82 ERA) will take the mound on Saturday in place of the injured Garrett Whitlock, and he’ll face off against Cleveland’s Zach Plesac (1-1, 6.50).