Red Sox Notes: Lineup Change Doesn’t Solve Lefty Issue Vs. Royals

Running into a left-handed starter continued to be bad news for the Boston Red Sox on Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora even tried a new lineup in an effort to curb Boston’s lefty woes. He loaded up on right-handed batters — left-handed hitters Mastaka Yoshida, Wilyer Abreu and Dominic Smith didn’t start — and placed usual leadoff hitter Jarren Duran second in the order.

The order shuffle didn’t make a difference as Royals All-Star pitcher Cole Ragans dominated across seven innings to hand the Red Sox a 6-1 loss at Fenway Park. Boston is now 12-15 against left-handed starters on the season.

“We just got to find a way to do it,” Cora told reporters as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “I think the last good one against a lefty was in Cincinnati. We faced a few of them and they’ve done a good job. We just got to keep working. We switched the lineup. (Rob Refsnyder) got on base twice leading off. So, just got to be patient. Keep working.”

The Red Sox have now lost just eight times in their last 26 games, but nearly half of those losses have come when the opposition trotted out a left-handed starter to the mound.

Ragans, who allowed one run on four hits and struck out seven, became the third lefty starter this month to defeat the Red Sox. Oakland Athletics starter J.P. Sears, who surrendered just four hits in his outing at Fenway on Wednesday, and New York Yankees lefty Nestor Cortes were the other two pitchers to hold down Boston’s offense.

“I haven’t noticed anything in particular,” Red Sox outfielder Tyler O’Neill told reporters, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “I know we have a good lineup and we have a lot of depth and there’s a lot of potential here. Just run into some good pitching lately, couple good teams and stuff. Just try to be better, just try to make better at-bats.”

The Red Sox won’t see another left-handed starter in the series against the Royals, but O’Neill believes a breakthrough could be just around the corner.

“Yeah, of course,” O’Neill said. “I mean, you’ve seen our lineup throw up 10 runs in the first two innings before so anything can happen on any given day. Just ran into a good squad over there.”

Here are more notes from Friday’s Red Sox-Royals game:

— The Red Sox recalled Cooper Criswell prior to the contest for a spot start and he turned in a spotty result. He gave up five runs — only two were earned due to an error from Romy González — on eight hits with two walks and one strikeout. The right-hander did work six innings to save the bullpen. It actually ended up being Criswell’s first career quality start.

“I know the line looks bad, but he gave us enough,” Cora said. “With him, we got to be on point on defense. They’re going to put the ball in play. He did a good job later in the game using his sinker, cutter, keeping them honest. He gave us six. That was good.”

— The Red Sox are now 3-13 in series openers at Fenway Park and for some reason have had a problem playing on Fridays. They are 4-12 on that day of the week, which is a stark difference to their 14-1 record on Sundays.

“We got a lot of guys going to chapel on Sunday,” Cora said.

— MJ Melendez continued to be a certified Red Sox killer. The Royals outfielder crushed his eighth home run in 14 career games against the Red Sox and is hitting .431 with 12 extra-base hits and 19 RBIs over that span.

— The Red Sox will send Kutter Crawford to the mound at Fenway Park on Saturday in hopes of bouncing back against the Royals. First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. ET and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.