The Boston Red Sox certainly had their chances offensively, especially in the late innings, in Friday’s 4-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Fenway Park.
The Red Sox just couldn’t capitalize on any of them.
Sure, it was a tall task facing Milwaukee’s vaunted bullpen, but Boston put itself in a good position to mount a comeback, only to waste the opportunities by stranding five base runners — two in scoring position — over the final three stanzas.
“Just frustrating because we put (together) good at-bats and we had runners out there,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “We haven’t done a good job with men in scoring position for like a month and a half.
With the Brewers holding onto a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh, the Red Sox applied pressure by putting runners at first and second with one out. But Brad Boxberger came out of the Brewers bullpen to extinguish the first threat by striking out Jackie Bradley Jr. and then getting Yolmer Sánchez to weakly lineout to shortstop.
The Red Sox had the exact same scenario in the eighth against lights out reliever Devin Williams. It was Williams’ turn to work out of the jam as he got Xander Bogaerts to miss on a change-up before getting J.D. Martinez to ground out to end the frame.
All-Star closer Josh Hader came in with even more room to work with, but he tried to ignite a Red Sox rally with his control issues and by allowing a single to Bobby Dalbec. Boston couldn’t take advantage, though, with Hader striking out the side — Milwaukee’s pitchers combined to record 14 strikeouts — to close things out and send the Red Sox tumbling back below the .500 mark.
“We got a three-one count with both of them with one out and they swung and missed them both and then we ended up striking out,” Cora said. “Their stuff is really good, but we just got to find a way in those situations.”
Here are more notes from Friday’s Red Sox-Brewers game:
— The Red Sox went with a different strategy to start the game, electing to use Austin Davis as an opener and have usual starting pitcher Brayan Bello piggyback off of him out of the bullpen. Davis and Bello both performed well as the duo allowed only two runs in 6 2/3 innings.
Davis only let up one hit and struck out four over 2 1/3 scoreless frames while Bello bounced back from some rough outings by tossing 4 1/3 innings, letting up two runs, four hits and three walks while striking out four.
“I felt like tonight was my best outing with my pitches and things were working in my favor,” Bello said through a translator, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “I still want to improve on certain things and just going to continue working on that.”
— Christian Vázquez and Alex Verdugo were the only members of the Red Sox to record two hits. Verdugo drove in Vázquez with a double for the Red Sox’s lone run in the bottom of the sixth.
— J.D. Martinez continues to struggle since returning to the lineup after dealing with back spasms. Martinez is now 0-for-14 in his last four games.
“His timing is off,” Cora said. “You can see it. He’s grinding through it as far as his swing and all that. It’s not easy to miss so many days and just get back to this. It’s not a lack of work, we all know that.”
— The Red Sox are limping toward the Major League Baseball trade deadline as they are 5-16 over their last 21 games.
— The Red Sox and Brewers will continue their series from Fenway Park on Saturday. First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.
