McAdam: Matt Barnes learns to live with the losses

It had gone so well for Matt Barnes over the first seven weeks of the season that it was easy for some to remember that failure is part of the job. A built-in part, actually.

Through his first nine save chances, he had barely allowed any baserunners, much less a run. Yes, he had given up a three-run homer in one appearance, but he had had the good sense to do that in a game in which the Sox led comfortably.

With the game on the line, however, Barnes had been close to perfect. He had followed the Red Sox' staff-wide dictum to attack the strike zone. He had worked quickly. He had gotten ahead of hitters three-quarters of the time. And without exception, when the Sox entrusted him with a late-inning lead, he had protected it with great care.

He was close to making it 10-for-10 Sunday, too. Until he wasn't. Because no one is perfect, even in a role in which the expectation is that you should be.

Having bailed out Adam Ottavino in the eighth, fanning Phil Gosselin with the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on first, Barnes made quick work of the first two Angels hitters in the ninth. And when he got Mike Trout to hit a harmless pop-up just beyond second base, he figured his work was done and another win was in the books.

"When it left his bat, I thought the game was over,'' said Barnes. "I'll be honest with you. I knew someone wasn't going to be camped under it. But I thought we'd have someone running right to it. But we didn't.''

Indeed, with the Sox infield shifted around on Trout, second baseman Michael Chavis was on the shortstop side of the bag with a long way to run. The same was true for center fielder Hunter Renfroe and right fielder Marwin Gonzalez, who were playing back. The ball had an expected batting average of .111, and yet, fate (and positioning) interceded and the ball dropped in.

"Kind of the nature of the business,'' shrugged Barnes. "Sometimes, you make a good pitch, a guy gets a piece of it and it falls into no man's land. It is what it is.''

That brought Shohei Ohtani to the plate, and that meant trouble. Barnes tried to throw a fastball up in the zone, but got it more in than he would have liked. Ohtani turned on it and drove it into the right-field seats. Manager Alex Cora labeled it a "Pesky Pole'' homer, but it was far more than that. Nothing cheap about a ball that was hit better than 370 feet.

Goodbye lead and goodbye to the stretch of converted saves Barnes had piled up. But not long after the Sox had dropped their 6-5 decision, he was unbowed and more than a little defiant.

The role demands that of him. 

"I don't consider my run over,'' he said. "I just gave up a couple of runs and we lost the game. I don't think the run's over. I've got to be honest -- I don't know that I expected to go 100 percent. Obviously, that would have been awesome. But a lot of things have to go right in this game for you to be 100 percent all the time. I'll go out there on Tuesday and if it's a close game, go out there and lock it down again.''

If that approach sounds cavalier, it's not. It's a sign that Barnes has come to grips with the closer's job and understood the attendant expectations. A closer is a team's last line of defense. When he stumbles, it almost always results in a loss for his team. Others don't have that same burden.

But as disappointing as the outcome was, Barnes remained resolute.

"I'm not going to change the way I've been attacking guys, the way I've been pitching guys,'' he said, "because I gave up a couple of runs today. It's not going to happen.''

Nor should he. It's that same, channeled aggression that has made Barnes successful nine out of 10 times. Even in the world of closers, that's a fine rate of success. If you extrapolate those numbers and Barnes ends the year 36-of-40 in save chances, that will mean good things for him and his team.

"I'm going to go back out there and do what I've been doing,'' he said. "It seemed to work out pretty good, so I don't plan on changing a thing.''

Barnes was done in by the perfect storm: an improbable bloop single followed by the first hit on a first-pitch fastball this season.

You could say he was due. You could say it was the law of averages.

But Matt Barnes isn't apologizing and he's not about to change.

As he modestly noted, until Sunday, it seemed to work out pretty good. And if takes another 10 save chances before he blows his next one, he'll take that, too.