Red Sox Notes: Bullpen Stumbles After Kutter Crawford’s Start

The Boston Red Sox fell to the Seattle Mariners 6-3 in a matinee series finale on Wednesday afternoon in the Pacific Northwest.

Pitching made the difference in more ways than one for Boston to close out a six-game road trip.

Kutter Crawford got the start for the Red Sox and turned in one of his better performances of the season, shutting out the Mariners for five innings on just four hits with five strikeouts.

“Overall, I felt pretty good out there,” Crawford said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage.

After 81 pitches, Alex Cora turned to John Schreiber in relief of Crawford.

“I felt good physically,” Crawford said. “I wanted to go more. They thought it was the best decision to take me out there. We have all the confidence in our bullpen to shut things down.”

In the sixth inning, Seattle slugger Cal Raleigh got the Red Sox again on a two-run long ball to right field off of Schreiber to cut the Boston lead to 3-2. It was his fifth home run of the season against the Red Sox.

“We tried to go with John,” Cora said. “It was a good at-bat there. That guy just killed us the whole season. After that we have to think about matchups. It just didn’t work out.”

Schreiber noted that he felt confident in his pitches as the Mariners catcher just had a better swing.

“In that sixth inning, I thought I threw the ball well and Raleigh just had a really good (at-bat),” Schreiber said.

After getting out of the six , the bullpen was limited in depth with Josh Winckowski, Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen all unavailable after pitching in Tuesday’s win. As a result, Schreiber returned to the mound for the seventh, but didn’t get another out and finished with 35 pitches.

That inning, the Mariners rallied for four runs to take the lead and never looked back as the Seattle bullpen silenced the Boston bats the rest of the way.

“I still felt good,” Schreiber added. “Just can’t walk the leadoff guy and gave up a single. Never going to say no to going back out. I want to pitch and help the team.”

With all of the momentum after scoring six runs in two frames, the Mariners kept their footing in the wild card race and split the season series with the Red Sox at three games apiece.

“Just a bad day today,” Schreiber said. “Turn the page and get after it the next game. It’s baseball. Stuff like that happens and everyone goes through it.”

Boston heads back east with a 2-4 record and multiple late-inning losses on the trip.

The upcoming weekend series against the Toronto Blue Jays holds major wild card implications. The Blue Jays entered Wednesday just 1 1/2 games ahead of the Red Sox for the final American League Wild Card spots.

“Tough one,” Cora said. “We’re going home. We’ve got a good stretch coming up. We didn’t play horrible baseball. It didn’t happen. We’ll be ready for Friday.”

Here are more notes from Wednesday’s Red Sox-Mariners game:

— The Red Sox forced Seattle starter Logan Gilbert to walk three batters in an outing for just the second time this season.

— Crawford delivered his second scoreless outing in his last four starts.

— The Red Sox lost just their third game of the year when leading after six innings. Entering Wednesday, Boston was 43-2 when holding a lead after six innings.

— Jarren Duran extended his current hitting streak to five games by belting his seventh home run of the season.

— Boston drops to 37-14 when scoring first.

— The Red Sox are now 8-8-2 in road series in 2023.

— The Red Sox return to Fenway Park on Friday to begin a three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus 90 minutes of pregame coverage, on NESN.