BOSTON — The Red Sox made three errors in their 4-3 loss to the Angels in 10 innings here at Fenway Park on Tuesday.
Boston leads the majors with 53 errors after leading the league in errors each of the past two seasons.
Boston’s poor defense over a three-year stretch has led to two infield coaches/instructors — Carlos Febles in 2023 and Andy Fox in 2024 — being fired. And yet the issues continue to persist.
“Routine groundballs for double plays we don’t turn,” manager Alex Cora said. “We throw to the wrong bases. We (miss) cutoff guys. PFPs were horrible. So there’s a lot of bad right now.”
Cora ripped his team but also took blame as the Red Sox dropped to five games under .500 (29-34) and 6-17 in one-run games.
“We keep making the same mistakes,” Cora said. “We’re not getting better. At one point it has to be on me I guess, right? I’m the manager. I’ve gotta keep pushing them to get better. They’re not getting better. They’re not. We keep making the same mistakes.”
Ceddanne Rafaela’s throwing error in the third inning led to the Angels taking a 3-0 lead.
Zach Neto hit an RBI single up the middle. Rafaela fielded and decided to throw home but his throw sailed all the way to the backstop. That allowed Chris Taylor to advance from second to third base and Neto to move up to second.
Both Taylor and Neto scored on Nolan Schanuel’s two-run single to left field.
“I think it was the right decision,” Rafaela said about throwing home. “If I execute that throw, I think it was an out.”
Kristian Campbell botched a ground ball in the fifth inning that could have been a double play. It instead resulted in no outs and two men on base.
Reliever Zack Kelly also made an error trying to field a sac bunt hit to him in the 10th inning.
“Right now obviously we know we’re in a tough stretch,” Rafaela said. “I think everybody here doesn’t want to make mistakes. I feel we can’t get frustrated. We’ve gotta keep going. It’s a long season. We have till September. I think we’re still in the battle and I trust this team.”
Starter Brayan Bello was better than in his previous five starts. But some concerning trends continued. He hit No. 8 hitter Jo Adell and walked Taylor, the No. 9 hitter, to begin the three-run third inning.
“We missed a cutoff guy, they scored two,” Cora said. “We hit the eighth hitter. We walked the ninth hitter. We didn’t execute a bunt play. We didn’t advance when we needed to. So you can talk about chances, I can tell you the chances that we gave the opposition. We were lucky to be in that game at the end to be honest with you.”
