In an ugly display of baseball -- three wild pitches, one costly error, a passed ball and assorted mental mistakes -- the Red Sox were thoroughly thumped by the Seattle Mariners, 8-2 at Fenway.
The Sox trailed 4-0 in the second and things only got worse from there. Nathan Eovaldi, who had a terrific start five days earlier, was not sharp, allowing seven hits and five runs in just five innings.
The Sox could do very little with Seattle starter Chris Flaxen, who limited to a run on four hits over seven innings.
WHO: Red Sox (13-8) vs. Seattle Mariners (12-8)
WHEN: 1:10 p.m.
WHERE: Fenway Park
SERIES TO DATE: 1-1
STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Nathan Eovaldi (3-1, 3.04) vs. RHP Chris Flexen (1-1, 3.38)
TV/RADIO: NESN; WEEI-FM
LINEUPS
MARINERS
Haniger RF
France 2B
Seager 3B
Marmolejos DH
White !b
Trammell CF
Torrens C
Haggerty LF
Crawford SS
RED SOX
Arroyo 2B
Verdugo CF
Martinez DH
Bogaerts SS
Devers
Gonzalez RF
Dalbec 1B
Cordero LF
Plawecki C
IN-GAME OBSERVATIONS:
T9: Even Phillips Valdez, who's been outstanding, has caught the bug today. Ugly inning with two walks, a wild pitch, a run-scoring single and a hit batsman as the Mariners keep adding to their lead.
B7: Red Sox finally break through against Flexen with a two-out Wall double by Rafael Devers and a run-scoring single to center from Marwin Gonzalez. The double by Devers represented just the third time this afternoon that the Sox had a baserunner in scoring position.
B6: Sox go down in order....again, against Flexen, who has retired eight in a row and 14 of the last 16. The Sox have squared up three balls hard all afternoon -- a lineout by J.D. Martinez in the first, Bogaerts' wall-banger in the second and Alex Verdugo's opposite-field low line drive single in the second.
T6: That's it -- five innings -- for Eovaldi, who was, in some ways, his own worst enemy today with a walk, a hit batsman and two wild pitches. Both wild pitches led directly to two of the five runs against him while the walk extended another inning. Certainly a step backward from last start on Monday vs. White Sox.
T4: After a couple of shaky first two innings, Eovaldi had settled in some and retired the last seven in a row.
B3: Through three innings, the Red Sox have exactly one hit --a bullet hit so far off The Wall by Xander Bogaerts that he had to settle for a single -- and have had difficulty making solid contact off Seattle starter Chris Flexen, who's fanned four of the last five hitters he's faced.
T2: Eovaldi being hit much harder today in the first two innings. Looked like that triple to the triangle by Kyle Seager took off a bit on Alex Verdugo in CF. Then again, the ball was smoked more than 415 feet.
T1: Lots of early traffic against Nathan Eovaldi (three hits and a hit batsman), but Eovaaldi successfully limits the damage by getting Luis Torrens to hit into a force play with the bases loaded.
PRE-GAME STATS: The Red Sox are one of four teams in MLB with 13 wins...The team's +24 run differential is tops in the AL and second in the majors...In games in which they've led at any point, the Sox are 13-1....After the first 22 games last year, the Red Sox had already used 11 different starting pitchers; this year, that number is six....Sox starters have thrown 103.2 innings, just behind Detroit and Oakland (104 innings each)...Lately, however the Sox are not getting the length they'd like from their starters -- in the first 13 games, Sox starters went at least five innings on 12 occasions. In the last eight games, they've done so just three times....Over his last eight starts, dating back to Aug. 20, 2020, Nathan Eovaldi is 6-1 with a 2.01 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, and .230 opponent AVG...In that time, his strikeout to walk ratio is 49-6....He hasn’t walked any of his last 51 batters faced, and hasn’t surrendered a HR to any of his last 147. He hasn't allowed a homer n his last 36.2 IP, spanning seven starts....The Red Sox bullpen has allowed seven runs in the last two games after allowing only six runs in the previous 10 games combined....The Sox are sixth in the AL in bullpen ERA at 3.20...Rookie Garrett Whitlock hasn't allowed a run in his first five major league outings, covering 11.1 innings, the longest scoreless streak by a Red Sox pitcher to start his career since Austin Maddux in 2017, who had a scoreless run of 16.1 innings....Rafael Devers leads the league in balls barreled (13)...Over his last 14 games, he's hit .321 with six homers and 16 RBI and a 1.092 OPS...Since going hitless in his first three games, Alex Verdugo is batting .369 with a 1.034 OPS and 13 RBI and 16 runs scored in 17 games.....Bobby Dalbec is hitting .387 (12-for-31) over his last 11 games....Xander Bogaerts is 11 games away from 1,000 in his Red Sox career. He would be the 30th player to do so....J.D. Martinez leads the majors in RBI (21), extra-base hits (15), total bases (57) and is tied for lead in homers (seven), doubles (eight) and hits (28)....He's also third in MLB in slugging (.750), OPS (1.179) and runs sAcored (18)....The Sox have three hitters in the AL Top 13 in batting average -- Bogaerts (fourth at .378), Martinez (5th at .368) and Verdugo (13th at .316)...The Sox are 10-0 when scoring five or more runs. Their 10 games with five or more runs is tops in the American League....Kyle Seager is 2-for-7 lifetime against Eovaldi....Martinez is 1-for-3 against Flexen.
NOTES:
- Alex Cora has seen Hirokazu Sawamura exhibit some growth over his last handful of appearances. "His split is a lot better,'' said Cora, 'especially his last two or three outings. That's the pitch we envisioned was going to be a plus pitch at this level. His fastball is getting better. You can see him elevating him a little more. If he can keep the fastball up in the zone and he can maintain that split, there's that difference. We like what we see. I think he feels more comfortable in the environment -- in the clubhouse, in the bullpen. He's been around.'' Cora said Sawamura could soon earn the trust of appearing in some high-leverage, late-inning spots. "He's getting better and we need people to get outs,'' said Cora. "It can't be Barnesy and Adam (Ottavino), (Matt) Andriese and (Garrett Whitlock) all the time. It's not that we're uncomfortable with our bullpen. We like what we have. But obviously, we would love some of these guys to pitch better. The way (Sawamura) has been throwing the ball, he's making progress.''
- The Red Sox are unsure whether they might face ace Jacob deGrom in their upcoming two-game series at Citi Field. There's the possibility deGrom could go Wednesday on regular rest. The Mets, like the Red Sox, have Monday off.
- Cora said Xander Bogaerts remains underrated outside of Boston. "I do believe because he's not as flashy as the other guys (at the position), people don't recognize him as maybe the best offensive shortstop in the game,'' said Cora.
- The Red Sox pitching staff leads the majors in walks, despite Cora's push for the pitchers to attack the strike zone. "We're going to keep preaching,'' Cora said. "Hopefully, they start doing it.''