The first six innings of the Red Sox’s Friday night game at Cincinnati featured a strong pitching battle, although each starter gave up his share of solo home runs to drive scoring.
However, during the seventh inning, Boston’s mental errors undid it and allowed the Reds to establish a 5-2 lead that they never relinquished.
The Red Sox made three errors on Friday, compared to none for Cincinnati, and that proved to be the difference in the loss.
Kutter Crawford started the hitting for Boston and went 6.1 innings before Alex Cora finally sat the workhorse down. He turned to Cam Booser, whose night got off to the least ideal start possible.
The Reds bunted right in front of Booser on their first pitch to try to score a run from third. Booser’s glove throw to the plate went well over Connor Wong’s head, allowing not one but two runs to score on the error.
Two more errors in the same inning allowed more Cincinnati runners to reach base. Both Enmanuel Valdez and Rafael Devers missed throws to Bobby Dalbec at first base that could have been outs.
“We were holding on, we had one bad defensive inning and that was it,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of the loss.
Crawford allowed five hits and three earned runs and struck out seven in his outing. On the opposite side, Reds starter Andrew Abbott worked 5.2 innings with four hits, two earned runs and 10 strikeouts.
Pitching wasn’t the only point where the Reds and Red Sox were almost even. Both teams recorded six hits and the earned runs were 3-2 in favor of Cincinnati. But defensive hiccups made a very close game too lopsided to overcome.
Cora said the Red Sox will go as far as their defense takes them. Friday night was not a positive sign for that notion.
Charging…
