The Red Sox defense wasn't at its best Monday, to say the least, showcased by an 11-10 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park.
Alex Verdugo couldn't track a pair of fly balls, Hunter Renfroe battled the sun and a slew of other things that the Red Sox look sloppy over the course of 10 innings.
Chris Sale only gave up one earned run, but surrendered a whopping 10 hits and had six strikeouts. He was not charged with the four runs in the fourth, which is good for the left-hander's ERA, but not the team as a whole considering it once was up by six runs.
Regardless, Sale knows the Red Sox need to correct the fundamentals that led to Monday's loss.
"Those are obvious keys to success, doing the little things right," he said over Zoom after the game. "... Days like this hurt. There's no getting around it. It's a gut punch. On the flip side, we showed some fight."
The fight certainly was there, and the Red Sox didn't exactly feel out of the game once the Rays came back. At the end of the day, though, Sale just hopes everyone learns from their mistakes.
"There's no doubt this one stings," Sale said. "Losing games the way we just lost this one, it isn't fun. But like I said, this is sports. If the outcomes are supposed to be known, then we wouldn't even have to play the game. And that's why we play the game is because crazy stuff like this can happen. And hey, we've been on the flip side of these crazy games. And we've won games we shouldn’t have won. And we just obviously lost one that we should have won. So it doesn't make it feel any better.
"But going through this enough, you're going to realize that. Nothing that just happened is going to help us going forward other than the learning experience. We've got to learn from our mistakes, correct them and show up tomorrow ready to win."
The Red Sox can still win this crucial series, but they first must win Tuesday's game and bounce back from the ugly loss.
