Kiké Hernández in center field? Raimel Tapia in left? Yu Chang at second base? Bobby Dalbec at shortstop!?
This, obviously, is not what anyone had in mind heading into the season.
As injuries keep piling up it’s getting harder for the Red Sox to patch together a functional roster. Wednesday night things took a turn for the ridiculous when Masataka Yoshida was scratched due to right hamstring tightness, forcing the club to trot out its most unorthodox lineup yet.
Even without several of their best hitters, the Red Sox still managed to put together one of their best offensive performances of the season, but at the end of the day they didn’t have the firepower to keep up with the high-powered Tampa Bay Rays, who won 9-7 to stay unbeaten at 12-0.
Much of the pregame attention fell on Dalbec, who played 33 innings at shortstop during spring training but who had hardly any prior experience at the position entering the year. Naturally the first two balls put in play found their way to his glove.
The first he handled with ease, throwing out Yandy Diaz for the routine putout, but the second was a slow roller to his left that bounced off his glove for an error. Triston Casas had a rough day defensively as well, at one point failing to cover first on a safety squeeze play, and as they have all season the Rays capitalized on every miscue and never let up.
“Obviously we played with the personnel that we played today, but still, you know, routine plays we didn’t make,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “That’s the part that frustrates me, I guess I’ve got to do a better job coaching them and being on top of it because at this level you can’t do that.”
Two batters after Dalbec’s first-inning error, Randy Arozarena took Chris Sale deep for a three-run home run to make it 3-0. Then in the fourth they loaded the bases with no outs and got all three runners home on a Diaz sacrifice fly and a two-run double by Wander Franco.
Sale allowed six runs (five earned) over four innings, with seven hits, two walks and six strikeouts. Coming off last week’s encouraging second start, it was a notable step backwards for the big lefty.
Meanwhile, Rays rookie Taj Bradley showed why he’s widely regarded as one of baseball’s top pitching prospects. The 22-year-old allowed three runs over five innings while striking out eight in his MLB debut.
Things took a turn for the worse in the fifth when Zack Kelly went down with an apparent elbow injury. The rookie right-hander immediately crouched down and grabbed his elbow after hitting Diaz with a pitch and was visibly emotional as he left the game with the trainer.
The team said afterwards Kelly is dealing with “right elbow pain” and he will travel with the team home on Thursday and get imaging done in Boston. Cora indicated they will have time to fly another pitcher down to St. Petersburg for the series finale in the meantime.
To their credit, the Red Sox didn’t roll over and give up despite everything that was going wrong.
Trailing 8-3 entering the sixth the Red Sox got a run back on an RBI groundout by Tapia. Then in the seventh Reese McGuire singled and Hernández doubled after Rays outfielders Manuel Margot and Harold Ramirez nearly collided in right-center, allowing the liner to fall in. That set up Rafael Devers, who went opposite field for a three-run home run to cut the deficit to one.
That’s as close as they would get. The Red Sox went down 1-2-3 in the top of the eighth, and then Franco helped stretch the lead to 9-7 by hitting his third double of the game and coming in to score on an Arozarena sacrifice fly.
Pete Fairbanks got the save in the ninth, allowing a leadoff single to McGuire (3 for 4, two runs) before sending down Yu Chang on a bunt attempt, Hernández on a flyout and Alex Verdugo on a grounder to second.
The Red Sox (5-7) have now lost three straight and 12 in a row at Tropicana Field dating back to last year, their longest road losing streak to a single opponent since losing 17 straight in Minnesota from 1964-66. Boston will look to avoid the four-game sweep Thursday when Corey Kluber (0-2, 6.48 ERA) faces Jeffrey Springs (2-0, 0.00) for a 1:10 p.m. first pitch.