The Red Sox win streak is over at three.
Boston dropped its series opener against the Kansas City Royals 5-3 on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium.
Nick Pivetta’s only mistake was a three-run home run in the third, though he did have traffic in each of the five innings he pitched. The right-hander amassed six strikeouts, including five in his final two innings of work.
Boston’s offense couldn’t do much despite having 11 hits. It certainly didn’t help that eight of those were singles as the Red Sox left eight on base.
With the loss, the Red Sox fell to 42-28 while the Royals moved to 31-37.
Here’s how it all went down:
GAME IN A WORD
Frustrating.
The Red Sox had their chances, but couldn’t capitalize with men on base.
ON THE BUMP
— Pivetta worked around a leadoff double followed by a walk in the first, tossed a relatively smooth second before running into trouble in the third after allowing a one-out walk and single. But the Royals wouldn’t let him get out of the jam this time around and quickly erased Boston’s lead.
Adalberto Mondesi hit an absolute no-doubter to put Kansas City up 3-1.
Pivetta tossed a scoreless fourth and fifth, but not without traffic on the basepaths and Kansas City threatening to up its lead.
— Matt Andriese came in for the sixth and got into a jam with two outs. Nicky Lopez singled and scored during the next at-bat when Whitt Merrifield hit a double that was just barely fair to put the Royals up 4-2.
Andriese returned for the seventh and gave up another one, this time a home run to to Salvador Perez to put KC ahead 5-2.
— The eighth belonged to Yacksel Rios, who pitched around two walks and ended the inning with a strikeout.
— The Red Sox did not have a 1-2-3 inning in the loss.
IN THE BATTER’S BOX
— The Red Sox took a 1-0 lead in the third thanks to three consecutive singles from Danny Santana, Christian Arroyo and Alex Verdugo. Had it not been for some sloppy baserunning by Arroyo, the inning could have continued rather than him getting thrown out at home.
— Marwin Gonzalez began the fifth with a single and Santana followed that with a walk to put two runners on before Kris Bubic got the next two outs. J.D. Martinez sent a sharp single to center to bring the Red Sox within a run.
Xander Bogaerts was the first batter Ervin Santana faced after Bubic was pulled and he drew a walk to load the bases for Rafael Devers, but he struck out to end the threat to keep it a 3-2 game.
— Devers brought the Red Sox closer to Kansas City’s lead and made it 5-3 with a solo home run in the eighth with one out.
— A frustrated Arroyo was ejected in the ninth after arguing a third-strike call after he got caught looking for the second out.
— Christian Vázquez led the way with three hits while Verdugo had two.
TWEET OF THE GAME
Devers is having himself a season.
UP NEXT
The Red Sox continue their series with the Royals on Saturday afternoon. First pitch from Kauffman Stadium is set for 4:10 p.m. ET.
