Red Sox Notes: Lopsided Loss To Rangers ‘Embarrassing,’ ‘Unacceptable’

The Texas Rangers entered Saturday’s outing against the Boston Red Sox with a 1-16 record in road games dating back to the All-Star break. In that span, they averaged 1.7 runs per game. In 10 games leading into Saturday, they totaled 10 runs.

On Saturday, they just about made up for all of that lost time. The Rangers scattered 17 hits and scored 10 runs while limiting Boston to one run on five hits.

Clearly, there was nothing cooking for the Red Sox offensively or on the hill. But to put to proverbial icing on the cake, Boston made five errors — the most for the franchise since Aug. 25, 2017, according to the team.

It wasn’t lost on manager Alex Cora, who didn’t hold back after the loss and put some of the onus for the play on the coaching staff.

“Embarrassing is the word, and that starts from me,” Cora said. “Five errors. We didn’t run the bases well. We didn’t put good at-bats, we didn’t pitch. In this thing, it’s a team effort, and it starts with us, with the coaches … We’ve been playing sloppy ball for a while and they keep doing it, so we’ve got to be accountable.

“That was embarrassing today. It’s not acceptable. For a team that is fighting for the playoffs to show up like that and play like that, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose the game, it’s how you win or lose the game. That’s not acceptable.”

Red Sox Wrap: Boston Can’t Keep Up As Rangers Scatter 17 Hits

Aug 21, 2021

Eduardo Rodriguez lasted just 3 2/3 innings as the Rangers scored five runs on eight hits. His ERA is now 5.19. And where Cora wasn’t at all pleased with the way his team performed — and didn’t have too much to say about his starter — Rodriguez didn’t seem too concerned about the bigger picture after his outing and chalked his performance up to “a bad game.”

“It’s just one of those games,” he said. “You can’t let the result that happened today get in your mind and go to the next game with the same way. It just happened already, we lost the game. Turn the page and go to the next game.”

Rodriguez didn’t have the bullpen behind him to limit the damage, as six other Red Sox pitchers combined to finish the game and allowed a total of five runs on nine more knocks — though the defense struggled, too.

But wherever the issues were on Saturday, Cora believes some things need to change for the Red Sox moving forward.

“We’re not in the business of trying to make plays,” Cora said. “We have to make plays, and we haven’t been making plays for a while. We have a job to do. We’ve got to play better and today we didn’t play good. We didn’t play good and we deserve what happened today on the field.”

Here are some other notes from Saturday’s Red Sox-Rangers game:

— Happy birthday to both J.D. Martinez (34) and Christian Vázquez (31).

— The Red Sox are 5-5 in their last 10 games and 15-19 since the All-Star break.

— With his start, Rodriguez ended a run of three starts with two runs or fewer allowed over at least five innings pitched. The eight hits he allowed were the most since a July 7 outing on the road against the Los Angeles Angels, when he scattered nine hits over five innings.

— On the minor league circuit, Marcelo Mayer recorded his first professional home run as the Florida Complex League Red Sox bested the FCL Twins 11-5. On the other side of the ball, Connor Seabold pitched through a cold and took a no-hitter into the seventh inning for Triple-A Worcester.

— The series is currently scheduled to conclude Sunday at 1:10 p.m. ET. But as Hurricane Henri approaches New England, that may not be a final decision.