All you need to know about the Red Sox' loss to the Rangers, complete with BSJ analysis and insight:
BOX SCORE
HEADLINES
Rodriguez not sharp: Coming off an impressive start at Fenway in which he went seven innings and allowed three runs, Eduardo Rodriguez was starting Saturday night with an extra day of rest. But after two quick innings, Rodriguez hit a wall in the third. The Rangers sent eight men to the plate, scored three times and made Rodriguez throw 33 pitches. It was a preview of what was to come, as Rodriguez was hit around by the Texas lineup, with a succession of hard-hit balls. He was done after five innings, despite having thrown just 67 pitches. The issue? A lack of command. "Most of my pitches were around the plate,'' said Rodriguez. "I was throwing a lot of strikes, but when you're throwing a lot of strikes, you've got to locate and today I was missing too much (on) the plate. That was the whole start today. They were swinging at everything. If I had good command, those should have been strikeouts and groundouts.''
Sox had chances offensively: Boston banged out 12 hits but, in a back and forth game that resembled a heavyweight bout, couldn't seem to come up with the knockout blow despite several opportunities. They twice left the bases loaded and stranded 10 runners for the game while going just 4-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Again, the bottom half of the lineup -- with one exception -- was a black hole for the offense. Together, the seventh and ninth spots in the order combined to go 0-for-9 with four strikeouts and four times, one spot or the other made the final out of an inning. For the second straight night, Franchy Cordero at least managed to make contact in his at-bats, but he's still lost, going 0-for-17 and 1-for-31.
TURNING POINT
In the fifth inning, the Red Sox snapped a 3-3 tie with two runs on run-scoring singles from J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. They were poised for more -- much more, potentially -- with the bases loaded and no outs. But Martinez was thrown out at the plate on a chopper for the first out and both Bobby Dalbec and Hunter Renfroe went down swinging. The Sox ended up leaving the bases loaded in the eighth, but that came with two outs. In the fifth, they had an opportunity to blow the same open and didn't. It didn't take long for that to come back to haunt them.
ONE UP
Hunter Renfroe: Showing some life at the plate finally, Renfroe crushed a two-run homer in the second to stake the Sox to a quick 2-0 lead and later added a sharp single to right-center.
THREE DOWN
Bobby Dalbec: The first baseman did knock in a run on a groundout, but had plenty of chances to do more damage in his four other at-bats. Instead, he struck out three times and stranded five baserunners.
Matt Andriese: Andriese took over for Eduardo Rodriguez in the sixth and in the span of five hitters, allowed a single, two-run homer, walk and triple.
Hirokazu Sawamura: The Rangers would seem to have his number. After they reached him for two homers on Thursday, he gave up two doubles and a run in his inning of work.
QUOTE OF NOTE
"We get a chance to put a team away and we didn't. We had traffic all over the place today. I know we scored some runs, but we had a chance to score more.'' - Alex Cora.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
- The game marked only the third time since 2017 that the Sox scored four or more runs in a start by Eduardo Rodriguez and lost.
- Matt Andriese gave up more runs (three) in the sixth inning than he had all season.
- The win by Texas was just their seventh in the last 23 head-to-head meetings against the Sox.
- The loss by the Sox dropped them to 3-4 against teams from the American League West.
- This was the first game this season in which the Sox scored at least four runs and still lost.