Red Sox Notes: Triston Casas Accountable For Miscue Vs. Guardians

BOSTON — The Red Sox didn’t play their sharpest 11-innings of baseball and it spoiled an impressive five-run come-from-behind rally against the Guardians on Tuesday night at Fenway Park.

Aside from flashes of resiliency in the sixth and ninth innings, Boston paid the price for one key miscue in the bottom of the second inning. Triston Casas, after opening up the inning with a double, was caught trying to steal third base, squandering an early-game scoring opportunity for the Red Sox.

The 24-year-old owned up to the mistake and expressed his regret after Boston suffered a 10-7 loss to Cleveland, dropping the Red Sox to the bottom of the American League East — and a division-worst 2-6 at home this season.

“One of my goals is when I go up to hit is to try to make the at-bat for the guy behind me as easy as possible,” Casas explained. “I was trying to get to third base there with less than one out. I knew (Wilyer) Abreu was battling with (Tanner) Bibee, and I thought if I could get him in a situation where he just had to put the ball in play, that’d be his best chance to get an RBI, get me in. But overall, based off the situation and where we were in the game it was very poor judgment and it was a low-IQ baseball play for sure.”

While Casas did commit a costly base-running miscue, the loss didn’t fall entirely on the young first baseman.

There were several chances throughout the night for Boston to avoid the loss column, including its 6-5 lead in the ninth inning. Closer Kenley Jansen took the mound but coughed up the lead, sending the battle into extra innings. Cleveland’s grit proved too much for the Red Sox to match, and a three-run Guardians rally in the 11th inning shut the door for good.

That leaves plenty to reflect on beyond Casas’ brain fart on the base path.

“At the end of the day, (expletive), we gotta play better,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “… That’s the bottom line. 27 outs are too valuable in his game. And the same way we talk about defense that we cannot give the opposition 27 outs, we cannot do the same defensively. We only have 24, especially with teams like this.”

So far, opposing teams have outperformed the Red Sox on their home turf. However, Cora looks forward to flipping the page with a chance to split the four-game series with Cleveland still in play.

“We still got two games in this homestand,” Cora added. “It’s been a tough one so far, but we come here, we win two games, and we get ready for Pittsburgh.”

Here are more notes from Tuesday night’s Red Sox-Guardians game:

— Right-handed starter Garrett Whitlock threw only 54 pitches, charged with two runs after logging four innings on the mound, before being removed early with left oblique tightness.

“Just had some tightness in my oblique and they just felt like the precautionary move was to pull me out,” Whitlock said. “… I’m not worried about it so we’ll wait and see.”

— Rafael Devers also departed with left knee discomfort in the ninth inning.

“That’s totally new. I never had any issues with my legs, “Devers shared. “So that happened today and I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to think about it. I’ve never been that type of player that’s been injured. Obviously, it’s frustrating to deal with another pain.”

— Boston allowed a season-high in hits (14) and runs (10), falling to 0-5 in games where the opposing team scores first.

— The Red Sox lineup scored five-plus runs for the 10th time in 18 games played this season, falling to 8-2 when doing so.

— The series between Boston and Cleveland continues Wednesday night for the third of four. First pitch from Fenway Park is set for 7 p.m. ET, and you can catch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, live on NESN.