NEW YORK — What was shaping up to be a somewhat easy feel-good win for the Red Sox quickly turned into a nightmare at Yankee Stadium — and represented yet another setback on the team’s mission to remain, nominally in contention for an American League wild card spot.
Behind five shutout innings from rookie Richard Fitts in a spot start and a pair of two-run homers by Masataka Yoshida and Trevor Story, the Red Sox had a 4-0 lead with nine outs to get. But Zack Kelly and Cam Booser each walked batters before Aaron Judge came to the plate, and in somewhat predictable fashion, launched a grand slam that put New York up, 5-4. The Sox went quietly and lost by that score.
Considering Boston entered the game trailing the Twins by 4½ games in the playoff race, it’s unlikely Friday’s game will be the difference at season’s end. But it was a gut punch nonetheless. After keeping their head above water with a 4-2 record on their most recent homestand, the Sox have lost two games in crushing fashion so far in the Bronx. Even Alex Cora, who usually downplays the importance of tough losses, recognized the gravity of Friday’s … while noting that the Red Sox are still alive.
“It’s up there with some of them (crushing losses) but you look up and you’re like, ‘How?’ I hate to say it but it’s still there for us,” he said. “We’ve just got to win a few games and make it interesting next week. Are other teams playing better than us? Yeah. Are there other teams playing just like us? Yeah, it’s true.”
Minnesota lost, 8-4, to the Reds, but two other teams in the vicinity of the Red Sox, Detroit and Seattle, both won Friday. With 14 games to play, the .500 Red Sox (74-74) remain 4½ games back of Minnesota but now have three teams ahead of them. The Twins are two games up on the Tigers, who are now two games up on Boston. The Mariners are a game ahead of the Red Sox and 3½ games back. FanGraphs has the Sox as having just a 3.2% chance to dance.
Those odds likely wouldn’t have been much higher if they won Friday. But in front of a packed crowd of more than 45,000, the loss hurt — especially because of how it happened.
The recently erratic Kelly — who was optioned to Triple-A after the game — opened the seventh with back-to-back walks to No. 8 hitter Anthony Volpe and No. 9 hitter Alex Verdugo before Gleyber Torres made it a 4-1 game with an RBI single. That was it for Kelly as Cora turned things over to Cam Booser for a left-on-left matchup with Juan Soto. Cora employed a “live today to get to tomorrow” by going with the lefty against Soto. It didn’t work as Judge took a 2-0 pitch over the plate and sent it into the seats, resulting in pandemonium in the Bronx.
“They’re so good at what they do,” Cora said. “We’ve got Soto, we know we’ve got Judge. Hopefully we get Soto out and we didn’t do it. But at the end, we’ve got to throw strikes. It doesn’t matter who was pitching or not.”
“When we fell behind, he’s going to be hunting something close to him and hit it in the air. And he did.”
It was just the fifth homer Booser has allowed in the majors this year.
“I think the team did everything they needed to. This is solely on me,” he said. “Didn’t do my job, didn’t get ahead, didn’t throw strikes and put Judge in a position to look for one pitch. Tonight’s on me. It’s not on the team.
“I was just trying to do a little too much. It’s on me.”
Cora took issue with the fact his pitchers issued three walks in the frame.
“We’ve got to throw strikes,” the manager said. “It’s a 4-0 lead with the eighth and ninth hitter up and we didn’t throw strikes. We were ran into the corner with the best hitter in the league. He did what he has been doing the whole season.
“If you throw strikes and you get hits, it’s good, but we didn’t do it.”
Next up for the Red Sox? Ace Gerrit Cole and a quick turnaround with Saturday’s first pitch set for 1:05 p.m. ET.
“We’ve just got to show up tomorrow and win a game,” Cora said.
WILD CARD STANDINGS:
1. Baltimore Orioles — 83-65 (.561) +4.5 games
2. Kansas City Royals — 81-67 (.547) +2.5 games
3. Minnesota Twins — 78-69 (.531)
OTHERS IN THE RACE:
4. Detroit Tigers — 76-72 (.514) — 2.5 games back
5. Seattle Mariners — 75-73 (.507) — 3.5 games back
6. Boston Red Sox — 74-74 (.500) — 4.5 games back
