Red Sox Notes: Kyle Barraclough Eats Innings With Tired Bullpen

The Boston Red Sox could not stop a surging offense as the Houston Astros took the opening game of the three-game set, 13-5, on Monday night at Fenway Park.

Boston had support from the offense as Triston Casas and Adam Duvall each drove in a pair of runs to give the ballclub the lead in the first and fifth innings, respectively.

Chris Sale went 4 2/3 innings before turning the game over to the bullpen. It’s no secret that Boston’s relievers have thrown an incredibly high amount of innings as of late. That notion explained Chris Murphy eating four innings and 90 pitches for the Red Sox in an eventual loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday.

After most of the bullpen rested on Sunday, Boston still had a short group on Monday. After Murphy’s long outing Sunday, Boston recalled veteran Kyle Barraclough and optioned Murphy to Triple-A.

Barraclough got out of a fifth-inning jam that set up Duvall’s homer before returning to the mound in the sixth. The righty struggled with control before a two-run triple from Jose Altuve and a three-run homer from Yordan Álvarez vaulted Houston in front. Even as the right-hander struggled, he stayed on the mound without another reliever warming up.

Barraclough went the rest of the way as Houston kept scoring. In the loss, the Red Sox reliever posted 4 1/3 innings of work, allowing 10 earned runs on 11 hits while walking five batters and hitting three more while throwing 94 pitches.

“He’s been throwing the ball well down there and throwing strikes,” Alex Cora said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “(He) just didn’t have it today.”

"We're still resetting today. He's been throwing the ball well down there, throwing strikes, just didn't happen today… We had a lot of guys down."

Alex Cora on Kyle Barraclaugh's performance and the bullpen inactivity | #RedSox pic.twitter.com/ASsv9LE5WT

— NESN (@NESN) August 29, 2023

As Cora alluded to, the right-hander had success in Triple-A this season, pitching to a 2.43 ERA in 55 2/3 innings with the WooSox before Monday’s outing.

“It’s about as bad as I’ve pitched,” Barraclough said.

Barraclough stayed out for the remainder of the game as several relievers were unavailable, according to Cora.

“We had a lot of guys down,” Cora explained. “We had Chris (Martin) and we had Kenley (Jansen). We struggled throwing strikes. With that team, that’s what they do.”

Cora cited the stretch of 16 straight games and frequent usage for the extreme rest days for the Red Sox bullpen in the last two games.

“For us, it’s tough but this is where we’re at,” Cora said. “It’s 16 games in a row. A lot of teams go through this. Right now, we just have to get over this hurdle. We’ll be in a much better place with the bullpen tomorrow. Much better.”

In an outing that can impact a pitcher’s mindset, Barraclough expressed why he remained in the game.

“Not at all,” Barraclough said. “That’s why I’m here. Those guys are supposed to be pitching to clean up my mess. I pitched like crap. Go out there and wear it so those guys are fresh for the next day.”

“It’s awful, I feel bad,” Cora expressed after the loss. “It happened to them last week when they brought up a guy who threw 100 pitches and saved their bullpen when we beat them. (Barraclough) wanted to go out in the ninth and we were thinking about sending a position player. You saw me. My face was probably all over TV. It was uncomfortable.”

With another added night of rest, the Red Sox bullpen should be ready to fight for high-leverage outs as Boston can still win the series with two straight wins.

Here are more notes from Monday’s Red Sox-Astros game:

— The Red Sox moved to 5 1/2 games behind the Astros in the American League wild-card race.

— Boston has homered in 17 straight games after Duvall’s fifth-inning blast, according to Red Sox senior manager of media relations and baseball information J.P. Long.

— Adam Duvall has eight of his 17 home runs in the month of August. More recently, the slugger has homered in three straight games and six of the last eight.

— On the same day he was called up to the big leagues, Boston’s No. 3 prospect Ceddanne Rafaela entered the game as a defensive replacement and earned his first career hit in the eighth inning of his Major League Baseball debut.

— Masataka Yoshida bounced back in his return to the lineup, tallying three hits and two walks to reach base five times in the contest.

— The Red Sox continue a three-game series against the Houston Astros on Tuesday night. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET. You can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.