A few inches here and a few inches there, and Monday night might be remembered differently for the Boston Red Sox.
Instead, the Red Sox suffered their third straight loss, falling 6-5 to the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field.
Down 5-4 in the ninth, Boston put together a nice comeback. Mookie Betts worked a one-out walk, then came home two batters later on a double from Xander Bogaerts. The ball Bogaerts hit nearly left the yard but caught the top of the wall. So though the Red Sox tied the game, they were close to taking a one-run instead.
In the bottom half of the frame, Marcus Walden got Carlos Santana into a 2-2 count, but on the fifth pitch, he left a slider over the plate and Santana launched it over the fence. The ball simply kept carrying and just snuck over the wall, but not by much.
It was yet another gut-wrenching loss for Boston, and after the game, Walden gave his take on that fateful ninth inning.
“It’s tough to swallow,” the 30-year-old said, via MLB.com.
“I was kind of hoping it would hit the top of the wall the same way (Bogaerts’) did,” Walden also noted, via The Boston Globe. “That’s a tough one. It was a big game for us to win.”
Up until Monday, Walden had been in the midst of a pretty nice run, having tossed six straight scoreless outings (6 2/3 innings pitched).
