Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox are now 9-19 at home and haven’t won a series at Fenway Park since early April.
Payton Tolle delivers a pitch against the Braves on Thursday. Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe
Picture this, for a moment, if you will.
It’s a beautiful spring night at Fenway Park, the bleachers are buzzing, and Chris Sale takes the mound boasting a 1.89 ERA and residing firmly in the Cy Young discussion.
The 37-year-old future Hall of Famer leads his Major League-leading club to another win over an inferior opponent. He doesn’t have his best stuff, but as usual, he does enough to give his team a chance before the star-studded lineup takes care of the rest.
It’s a lovely scenario, but there’s just one problem for Red Sox fans. Sale plays for the Braves, and the Braves haven’t called Boston home since 1952.
The Red Sox had a chance to use Wednesday’s victory over Atlanta as a springboard. Instead, they took another step back in a disheartening 10-2 loss Thursday night. Boston has now lost five of six and continues to play an uninspiring brand of baseball.
“I think there was a lot of good in this homestand,” said third baseman Caleb Durbin. “Obviously, at the end of the day, it’s wins and losses that matters.”
Here are five takeaways as a disappointing season gets even worse.
Left on left
Two overpowering, 6-foot-6-inch, lefties — one the face of the past and the other perhaps the face of the future — went head to head Thursday in a heavyweight battle.
Both Payton Tolle and Sale shined in spots but struggled in others, each allowing two runs in the fourth inning after escaping unscathed earlier in the game.
“I try not to get caught up in it,” Tolle said. “This week, with the pitching matchup, was very similar to last year with the debut with [Paul] Skenes. Sale is a guy that I’ve watched for a long time.”
Tolle still has a long way to go to reach the same echelon as Sale, of course, yet it’s worth noting that he held his own and just about matched his counterpart’s performance.
Tolle (4 ⅔ innings, 5 hits, 2 earned runs, 7 strikeouts, 2 walks, 94 pitches, 64 strikes) retired the first six Braves he faced before allowing a double in the third. Atlanta put runners on second and third in the fourth and capitalized when a ball off Jorge Mateo’s bat hit Tolle in the glove. Old friend Dominic Smith then singled to left to make it 2-0.
“I want to be able to get deep into games and put myself in the best position to win and put this team in the best position to win,” Tolle said. “Going as long as I did, with how many pitches I did, I’m not going to look back at this one in a good light.”
Sale’s first few innings weren’t as smooth, as the Red Sox put a runner in scoring position in the first, second, and third. They tied it up when Durbin smoked a double to left and Jarren Duran singled to left.
Sale (5 innings, 6 hits, 2 earned runs, 8 strikeouts, 3 walks, 1 hit batsman, 96 pitches, 61 strikes), who entered 2-0 with a 0.69 ERA and 18 strikeouts in two starts with Atlanta against Boston, didn’t dominate like he had in the past. He and Tolle, however, both did enough to give their team a chance.
“It was what you’d expect,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “That being said, I thought we did a good job with Sale. You don’t go into a game against Sale thinking we’re going to score nine. You’d like to, but we had multiple runners on base in each of the first three innings and answered there with the two.”
The Red Sox have struggled to rally from early deficits all season, and they deserve credit for immediately bouncing back after Atlanta scored two runs.
Following an eight-run explosion the night prior, the fourth inning was another step in the right direction for a team that has lacked a killer instinct most of the way.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa drew a walk, Durbin gave one a ride and wisely advanced to third on the throw home, then Duran didn’t try to do too much and brought Durbin home.
Duran, who is riding a five-game hitting streak and had four hits Wednesday, is batting .340 in his last 11 games. One could make a case that Duran is the biggest X-factor for this particular team, and his recent production is a welcome sight for a lineup that desperately needs it.
Durbin’s numbers still aren’t close to where he would like, but he had two hits Thursday and nine of his last 21 hits have gone for extra bases.
The only problem was that they didn’t score the rest of the game. Production is there in spurts, but consistency is sorely lacking.
All downhill from there
The momentum didn’t last long, as the Braves erupted for five runs in a disastrous sixth inning for the Red Sox.
Atlanta loaded the bases with no outs and Andover native and St. John’s Prep Hall of Famer Mike Yastrzemski (yes, Carl’s grandson) walked to give the Braves the lead for good. Ronald Acuña then stepped to the plate and blasted one over the Green Monster for a grand slam to make it 7-2.
“If you said before the game that we’d get [Sale] out of there after five and it’s 2-2, you’d be feeling pretty good about that,” Tracy said. “Then, obviously, it just got away from us.”
Tyron Guerrero and Danny Coulombe put Greg Weissert in a tough spot, and Weissert allowed the homer to just about seal it.
“It’s obviously a tough situation, but goal No. 1 is to throw strikes and get ahead,” Weissert said.
A comeback would be unlikely for any team, but with this roster, the rest of the action was just a formality. The Red Sox are 21-0 when leading after seven innings, but that stat doesn’t mean much if you allow five runs in the sixth.
Michael Harris II added a solo shot to right off Jovani Morán in the seventh, then Ozzie Albies hit a two-run blast off Ryan Watson in the eighth for good measure.
With Garrett Whitlock (3-1, 3.20 ERA) on the 15-day injured list with left knee inflammation, it puts even more pressure on the other relievers to give Aroldis Chapman a chance. Thursday was far from a promising step.
Caleb’s climb
While Durbin was out of the lineup, he focused on fine-tuning his swing to ensure he’s using all parts of the ballpark.
“A lot of it has been direction-based,” Durbin said. “My spray chart, it’s a lot of cutting myself off from half the field, really. For me, that was pretty eye-opening.”
Durbin recorded his sixth multi-hit game, and 10 of his total 26 hits have gone for extra bases.
One of his hits went to right-center and the other down the left-field line. He said it felt good to get back in there and play the way he wanted to, and he hopes this is just the beginning.
“The approach was better,” Durbin said. “I think the swing was in a lot better place, but obviously a lot of work to still be done.”
Fenway frustrations
The Red Sox are now 9-19 at home, compared to 14-13 on the road. They’ve lost six of seven at Fenway Park and are 1-7-1 in home series, with the lone series win coming in early April.
Fans aren’t coming to the ballpark with the expectation that the team will win. They’re coming to eat, drink, and socialize, which is nothing new, but the most important part of the equation is noticeably absent.
Unless something changes soon, it’s going to be a long summer and fall in Boston.
Trevor Hass is a sports producer for Boston.com, where he writes and edits stories about Boston’s professional teams, among other tasks.
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