Dallas Keuchel looked good for the Chicago White Sox on Sunday afternoon, but Alex Cora was quick to just blame the Red Sox for not doing enough.
His assessment? “Not great.”
Boston fell 3-2 to the White Sox in Game 1 of a twin bill at Fenway Park. Tim Anderson led off the game with a home run, but things slowed down after that. It took a while for the Red Sox to get the bats going, and the offensive rallies they had either were killed by mistakes or came too little, too late.
So while Cora was willing to acknowledge that Keuchel gave the Sox a tough time, he took far more issue with his own team’s shortcomings.
“It wasn’t a good all-around game for us,” Cora admitted. “We made some mistakes as a group. As a group, we made a few mistakes and we paid the price. We had the tying run at the plate at the end, which is good, but it wasn’t a great game for us.”
As Cora alluded to, the Red Sox managed to hang around until the end.
An Enrique Hernández homer in the sixth inning kept the Red Sox within one, and a Christian Arroyo two-out single in the seventh gave Bobby Dalbec the chance to win the game with one swing. He, instead, struck out.
Here are some other notes from Game 1 of Red Sox-White Sox:
— One of Boston’s ill-fated gaffes was Hunter Renfroe getting picked off.
Down 2-0 in the fourth inning, Renfroe had just cut the deficit in half with a chop single that Yoan Moncada couldn’t handle. But with two down, runners on the corner and J.D. Martinez at the dish, Renfroe got picked off by Keuchel.
When the pitcher lifted his leg, Renfroe took off and got caught in a rundown before getting called out for running out of the basepath.
Cora indicated that Renfroe just made a mistake, and there wasn’t a steal or anything he was running on.
— It resulted in a loss, but Tanner Houck did a decent job in a spot start.
The rookie right-hander was called up from the alternate site to be the 27th man for the twin bill. He lasted 4 1/3 innings, giving up all three runs on six hits with two strikeouts and no walks.
Cora was pleased with what he saw.
“He was good today,” Cora said. “Overall, it was a good outing. He gave us a chance to win the game, so we’re very pleased with the way he threw the ball.”
— The White Sox waited to announce a starter for Game 2, but manager Tony La Russa revealed after the matinee that it would be Michael Kopech. The hard-throwing 24-year-old, of course, went to Chicago with Moncada in the trade that brought Chris Sale to Boston.
First pitch is set for 5:10 p.m. ET from Fenway Park, with pregame and postgame coverage on NESN.
