Red Sox fall behind early and never recover in 8-4 loss to Pirates

The Red Sox spent most of Friday night trying to dig themselves out of another early hole.

Every time they made some progress, the Pirates pushed them right back into it.

Boston fell behind by four runs through four innings and never fully recovered in an 8-4 loss at PNC Park, continuing a difficult road trip and an offensive funk that has followed the Red Sox since their nine-game winning streak came to an end.

The Red Sox have now lost six of their last seven games and are 1-4 through the first five games of the trip. For the sixth time in their last seven, they failed to score more than four runs.

“Obviously we’re not playing the way we want to,” interim manager Chad Tracy said. “We’re not winning enough games, not winning enough games the way we want to.

“They’re still fighting. I think most guys in that room know, like you know, teams go through this. The key is you know we have to find a way to get ourselves going again, get on another stretch, go in the other direction, and if you do that, this all becomes a forgotten thing. But we’re still looking for that, so you know there’s been signs of life here the last couple days with the at-bats, which is good, but no, you know, nobody’s happy about it.”

“It’s not it’s not fun going through it,” Tracy concluded, “but we have to find a way to get out of it.”

Jake Bennett allowed just one hit through his first three innings, but that hit was a solo homer by Ronny Simon in the second. Things unraveled for Bennett an inning later when the Pirates began consistently squaring him up.

Pittsburgh collected four hits and scored three times in the fourth, stretching its lead to 4-0 and putting the Red Sox in catch-up mode.

The southpaw’s night ended there, marking it the first time in 14 major league starts that Bennett failed to complete five innings. 

“Just wasn’t able to execute,” Bennett told reporters following the game. “It’s definitely disappointing. I want to try and go as deep into games as I can, and just try and give my team the best chance to win.”

From June 17 through July 17, Bennett went 4-1 with a 1.17 ERA across six starts, holding opponents to a .152 average while walking just four and striking out 30 over 38 1/3 innings.

Since July 22, Bennett is 2-3 with a 5.67 ERA over five starts. Opponents have collected 31 hits in 27 innings, and Friday marked his fifth consecutive outing allowing at least three runs.

“I’m not overly concerned,” Tracy told reporters postgame. “I think we left some soft pitches in very hittable spots, is all it was. They were obviously able to string some stuff together against JB.”

Boston finally showed some life in the fifth.

After being held scoreless through four, the Red Sox pushed across two runs to cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 4-2 and give themselves a chance to climb back into the game.

The Pirates answered immediately when Jovani Morán hit Nick Gonzales with a pitch near the head to begin the bottom of the fifth and eventually found himself with runners at second and third. Morán was two strikes away from escaping the inning when he left a changeup over the middle of the plate to Brandon Lowe.

The longtime Red Sox nemesis launched a three-run homer into the right-field seats, turning a two-run game into a 7-2 deficit.

The Red Sox tried to chip away again in the seventh, scoring once to make it 7-3.

Again, Pittsburgh answered in the bottom half.