Red Sox 3, Rays 7: Early errors erase opportunities for Sox

This offense is still killing me.

I wrote yesterday about the tropes of the 2011 season and how it ended and while this series in general was helpful, a win on Sunday night would have been. No dice on that one. Even with a Guardians loss to shrink the magic number to five, early and eager opportunities did this Red Sox team in against the Rays.

Bases loaded, top of the first, Joe Boyle looking like a deer in the headlights on the bump, the perfect opportunity to do damage early. Nathaniel Lowe strikes out. Boyle regains control and shuts down the Sox with nine total strikeouts. A late send by Kyle Hudson for Romy Gonzalez in the fourth inning, who ends up getting nailed at the dish. Instead of two on-none out, it’s one on-one out, and while a run was scored, it could have been more. Lowe again with the bases loaded, this time in the fifth inning, yet another strikeout.

Did the Sox offense wake up a little bit in the 7th? Yeah, but then cooled right back off when they were right within striking distance.

Don’t worry, the bullpen blew the game open enough to where it didn’t matter.

Onto Toronto, where wins are at even more of a premium in the last road trip of the season.

Studs

Alex Bregman (2-for-3, 2 BB, 1 RBI)

Trevor Story (1-for-5, 1 run)

Duds

Nathaniel Lowe (1-for-4, 3 Ks)

Striking out not once, but TWICE with the bases loaded tonight was absolutely head banging against the wall frustrating.

Wilyer Abreu (0-for-4, 4 Ks)

Not an awesome return for Abreu with the golden sombrero.

Connelly Early (4.0 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 Ks, loss)

He definitely settled down to finish off his outing but the first inning was an extremely rough watch.

Play of the Game

Is it bad the reason I picked this is the schadenfreude of knowing the Yankees have to deal with Anthony Volpe at short and we still have this?