The Red Sox were unable to complete the comeback dropping the 5-4 decision against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday night at American Family Field.
Despite taking the loss, Red Sox manager Alex Cora thought starting pitcher Garrett Whitlock didn’t have a bad outing. Whitlock pitched four innings, giving up five runs on eight hits.
“I thought it was okay,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “You know, if you see the contact on some of them, I mean, the first run, it’s a line drive the other way and blooped single double whatever, you know, like the ball that got hit hard was hard.”
In the bottom of the third, Rowdy Tellez gave Milwaukee the 3-0 lead after a long eight-pitch at-bat resulted in his seventh home run of the season.
“That was a three-two change up, and it was a little bit up in the zone,” Cora said. “He had one, two (call), and he kept fouling off, fouling off. … But he left it up, and he put a good swing on it.”
Whitlock was coming off the best outing of his season, pitching seven innings in the 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels last Sunday, surrendering the lone run on three hits. Regardless, Whitlock was not pleased with his performance in this game.
“I mean, it’s frustrating anytime you do that,” Whitlock told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “You know, much less what you did last time. So, this one started this time and I didn’t do good.”
Here are some more notes from Red Sox-Brewers on Saturday:
— Catcher Reese McGuire pinch hit for Connor Wong in the top of the seventh inning. Behind the plate in the bottom of the seventh, McGuire took a ball off the top of his hand and was sent for X-rays.
— The Red Sox scored all four of their runs via the long ball. Yu Chang launched his bomb to left with Christian Arroyo on base, and Rafael Devers launched his two-run shot scoring Justin Turner from first.
— Alex Verdugo, who has been clutch for the Red Sox over the past seven days, was held hitless in his four plate appearances. Although he connected on each of the pitches, the Brewers’ defense made the play on each hit.
— The Red Sox, who won their last two series against the Angels and Minnesota Twins, will look to complete their third straight series win in the final game against the Brewers on Sunday afternoon. First pitch from American Family Field is slated for 2:10 p.m. ET. You can catch pregame coverage on NESN, with the game airing on NESN+ with the Bruins-Panthers Game 4 coverage airing on NESN starting at 2 p.m. ET.
