McAdam: Red Sox lacking eighth-inning solution

NEW YORK -- For now at least, mixing the Red Sox bullpen with the Yankee lineup is a dangerous cocktail, and should come with a warning label: Could cause combustion.

The Yankees, in the midst of a hellacious run (17-1), have made late-inning comebacks something of a specialty. Wednesday night's 9-6, eighth-inning rally marked the seventh time in the last 13 games the Yankees won a game in which they were trailing or tied in the seventh inning. More pointedly, they've gone ahead to stay in their final at-bat in five of the last eight games.

Correspondingly, the Red Sox have somehow managed to compile baseball's second-best record -- Wednesday's loss knocked them off their first-place perch -- without much of a bridge serving as safe passageway to closer Craig Kimbrel.

The closest thing they have to such a thing is Joe Kelly, and with 22 pitches thrown Tuesday, it seemed apparent that he'd be available for duty on Wednesday night, too. Instead, Alex Cora tabbed Matt Barnes with disastrous results.

Charged with protecting a one-run lead in the eighth, Barnes proceeded to fall behind each of the three hitters he faced -- 2-and-0 to two, and 3-0 to a third. Is it any wonder that two of them reached?

"It obviously wasn't ideal in that situation,'' an understated Barnes said of his predicament.

Mind you, this wasn't the meat of the vaunted New York batting order; it was the bottom third, featuring a slumping veteran (Neil Walker) stuck below the Mendoza line (.198) to begin the night, and two rookies (Michael Andujar and Gleyber Torres). In a perfect world, Barnes would have retired them in order and given Kimbrel a clean slate for the far more imposing hitters at the top of the lineup in the bottom of the ninth.

"That's not what you want to do,'' confessed Barnes. "My job when I go out there is to keep him out of the game until the ninth. In doing so, it means you've done your job. That's not what we're looking for.''

Kimbrel, summoned in the eighth for the second time in the last 10 days, fared no better. For the second time in as many multi-inning save opportunities this season, Kimbrel gave up an extra-base hit to the first hitter he faced. On Wednesday night, that was Brett Gardner, who smoked a booming triple over the head of Mookie Betts in center, wiping out the one-run Red Sox lead and giving the Yankees the edge.

Kimbrel, who last pitched Saturday night in Arlington when he posted his 300th career save, was plenty rested and had been told by Cora before the game that an eighth-inning assignment may be in the offing.

He was rested and ready, but didn't execute.

It's known Kimbrel was initially uneasy about coming into games before the ninth. But to his credit, Kimbrel didn't hide behind any excuses for failing to do the job. Asked if he was still making the adjustment from clean innings in the ninth to entering with inherited runners in the eighth, Kimbrel couldn't respond quicker or more emphatically.

"Not at all,'' he said. "I mean, I've got to come in and get outs. It doesn't matter if it's the eighth or ninth inning, especially in situations like that. Like I said, I just didn't do it.''

There's this sobering stat: despite a career that has seen him become the quickest (in terms of age and save opportunities) and most dependable (in terms of successfully converting saves), Kimbrel has yet to have a five-out save, despite pitching in five such opportunities.

Perhaps that's an impossibly small sample size on which to make a judgment. Or maybe that sample is trying to tell us something. Closers are notoriously creatures of habit and any circumstance that upsets their routine can be problematic.

While Kimbrel's willingness to accept both his assignment and responsibility when he fails, is equally admirable, clearly something is lacking in the Red Sox' bullpen: a trustworthy and experienced set-up man.

Kelly might grow into the role, but Tuesday night, he had difficulty staying in the strike zone as the Yankee Stadium crowd roasted him for his involvement in the bench-clearing brawl at Fenway last month. Carson Smith has, tantalizingly, shown more in recent appearances (seven strikeouts over his last four innings, covering five appearances), but needs to keep proving that he's fully returned to 2016-levels.

Barnes appears miscast for such a spot too — often susceptible to hanging curveballs in big spots — and is perhaps better utilized in the seventh. Tyler Thornburg, full of promise but still in recovery from thoracic outlet surgery, remains at Pawtucket where he still must enter a game with runners on and demonstrate he can pitch on consecutive days.

For now, it would seem there's a sizeable hole in the Boston bullpen. In time, it could be filled internally, or addressed via the trade market mid-season.

But right now, it's responsible for the one-game gap that exists between the Sox and Yankees in the A.L. East standings.