The Red Sox opened a three-game series against the Rockies in disappointing fashion on Monday night. Boston fell to Colorado by a final score of 4-3 in a rain-filled 10 innings at Fenway Park to drop below .500 on the season at 33-34.
With old friend Connor Seabold starting for the Rockies, the Red Sox had a golden opportunity to strike first in the first inning. Jarren Duran, Alex Verdugo, and Justin Turner led off the bottom half of the frame with three consecutive singles to fill the bases with no outs.
Though it already appeared as if they had Seabold on the ropes, the Red Sox got nothing out of it. Rafael Devers grounded into a 1-2-3 double play chasing a first-pitch changeup and tapping a comebacker back to Seabold, who then fanned Adam Duvall on five pitches to escape the jam unscathed.
Seabold continued to put up zeroes from there, as did his counterpart in James Paxton. Making his sixth start of the season for the Sox, Paxton allowed just one unearned run on four hits and one walk to go along with eight strikeouts over six-plus strong innings of work.
After giving up a leadoff double to the very first batter he faced in Jurickson Profar, Paxton settled into a nice groove. The veteran left-hander stranded Profar at third base and then retired seven straight Rockies before yielding a one-out double to Ryan McMahon in the top of the fourth.
With two outs in the inning, it seemed like Paxton was going to strand another runner in scoring position when he got Randal Grichuk to hit a routine grounder to shortstop Enrique Hernandez. Hernandez, however, bounced his throw to first and the ball got past Triston Casas, which allowed McMahon to score all the way from second to put the Rockies up, 1-0.
For Hernandez, it was his major-league-leading 14th error of the season, with 12 of those coming on throws. Paxton proved to be unaffected by the sloppy play, however, as that was the only run he surrendered in yet another impressive performance.
Finishing with 98 pitches (70 strikes), Paxton induced 16 swings-and-misses while mixing in a 94-98 mph four-seam fastball as well as a curveball, cutter, and changeup. The 34-year-old southpaw did not factor into Monday’s decision, though he did lower his ERA on the season to 3.09.
With Paxton’s night done, the Boston bats finally got to Seabold in the latter half of the sixth. After drawing a one-out walk, Verdugo came in to score all the way from first on a hard-hit, RBI double off the bat of Turner to knot the score at 1-1. Despite having a runner in scoring position with only one out in the inning, both Devers (strikeout) and Duvall (groundout) were retired to extinguish the threat.
Following a scoreless top of the seventh from Josh Winckowski, Christian Arroyo quickly untied the contest by taking lefty reliever Brent Suter 376 feet over the Green Monster for his second home run of the season. The Red Sox took a 2-1 lead on Arroyo’s solo shot, but the Rockies responded in the eighth by tagging Winckowski for a crucial run when Profar ripped a one-out double and — after a two-out walk — scored from second on a game-tying single from Elias Diaz.
The two sides were deadlocked at 2-2 going into the bottom of the eighth. Turner drew a two-out walk off Pierce Johnson to put the go-ahead run on base for Devers, who promptly laced a 105.8 mph line drive that appeared to be headed towards the Red Sox bullpen. But Rockies right fielder Nolan Jones made a sensational leaping catch against the fence to rob Devers of a potential two-run homer.
According to Baseball Savant, Devers’ blast had an expected batting average of .870 and would have been a home run in seven of 30 MLB ballparks, including Fenway Park had Jones not robbed him. Alas, that is what happened and the score remained tied heading into the ninth. Kenley Jansen worked a scoreless top half, and Daniel Bard — making his first-ever appearance at Fenway as a visiting pitcher — followed suit in the bottom half to send this one into extras.
Nick Pivetta came on for the 10th and recorded two quick outs before intentionally walking McMahaon to put runners at first and second. He then unintentionally walked Diaz to fill the bases and issued a five-pitch free pass to Grichuk, allowing the automatic runner (Mike Moustakas) to score.
That sequence of events prompted Red Sox manager Alex Cora to pull Pivetta in favor of lefty Joe Jacques, who was making his big-league debut. Jacques, in turn, induced what had the makings to be an inning-ending groundout to Jones. But Casas could not field the ball cleanly and was late with his throw to first. As a result, Jones reached base safely while McMahon scored an important insurance run on Casas’ fielding error.
At that point, the skies above Fenway began to open and an 89-minute rain delay commenced. On the other side of the lengthy break, the Red Sox got one of those runs back when Connor Wong scored on a Rob Refsnyder groundout. That was as close as they would get, though, as Verdugo grounded into a game-ending, 5-6-3 double play.
Next up: Crawford vs. Anderson
The Red Sox will look to even the series against the Rockies on Tuesday night. Kutter Crawford is slated to get the start for Boston while Colorado will counter with fellow righty Chase Anderson.
First pitch from Fenway Park is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. eastern time on NESN.
(Picture of Triston Casas: Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
Blogging the Red Sox 