Red Sox waste stellar outing by Garrett Crochet in extra-inning loss to Angels
Aroldis Chapman recorded a scoreless bottom of the ninth.
But because these Red Sox have virtually no margin for error, they lost anyway. Christian Moore, a Suffield Academy grad in his first month in the majors, tagged righthander Greg Weissert for a tying home run in the eighth and lefthander Justin Wilson for a walkoff two-run shot in the 10th.
Advertisement
Despite great success in one aspect of the game for most of the night, a little went wrong and the Red Sox couldn't recover. It was their fourth consecutive loss.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
That dropped the Red Sox to 40-41, entrenched in the mediocre range. They have had a .500 record 15 times. And they are six games behind the first-place Yankees in the AL East, 2½ games back of an AL wild-card spot.
'We've been an average team,' manager Alex Cora said before the game. 'I still believe we can be better in certain areas, more consistent.'
Because of the major personnel changes the Red Sox have endured, Cora said, the team's identity has been slower to form than it would be most other years.
Advertisement
What can or should that identity be?
Trevor Story and Rob Refsnyder, respected veterans, touched on similar themes: a club that should take advantage of its youth, athleticism, and talent.
Those tend to be accompanied, though, by mistakes, inconsistency, and feelings of pressure to perform. Such is the nature of inexperience.
'Sometimes it's tough to have an identity with the versatility, but maybe that's what it is,' Story said. 'Be versatile, find different ways to win, doing it by slugging, by bunting. I feel like when we played our best, it's clean baseball, playing good defense, running the bases well, not really making mistakes, not giving them more opportunities or more things like that. We can be a little more consistent in that area.'
Refsnyder said: 'The identity is a very young team, but we have to play aggressive, we have to play fast, hopefully smart. That's doing your homework before the game, at night preparing for the next game. So I think the identity is a young and fast, athletic team. We're going to mix and match a lot, we're going to pinch hit a lot, we're going to do a bunch of defensive substitutions.'
A key, in Refsnyder's view, is not to 'shy away from those mistakes.' They happen. They are how the newbies learn. They might even be better than the alternative.
'Sometimes when you try not to make mistakes or you're nervous and you're not applying as aggressively or fast as you maybe would in Triple A when the lights aren't as bright, that's just not a recipe for winning baseball,' he said. 'I'm not saying we're doing that, but I used to do that when I was younger. I would prepare but then be playing a little timid. You ultimately just don't play your best baseball.
Advertisement
'Over the course of a season, if you play aggressive and smart and let your talent take over at times, ultimately you're going to play better than if you play safe and scared.'
Because the Red Sox are missing the hitters who represented the meat of their lineup at the start of the season — Alex Bregman (injured for at least a couple more weeks), Rafael Devers (traded), Triston Casas (injured and out for the year) — their starting nine of late has featured near-daily changes and few sure things. Even Jarren Duran, an All-Star in 2024, bounces between leadoff and dropping to fifth depending on which way the opposing starting pitcher throws the ball.
On Tuesday, for example, the Sox' batting order included three rookies, a second-year full-timer, a couple of journeymen, and Story, Refsnyder, and Duran. That Duran — with about three years of service time in the majors — is a pseudo-veteran speaks to how young the group is.
Some of that will change in the coming weeks. Bregman is due to return in the first half of July. Masataka Yoshida is on pace to beat him back. They figure to be reliable bats and bring the lineup more day-to-day regularity.
'It's a different lineup when those two guys are in it, honestly,' Refsnyder said.
Cora said: 'When they're ready, they're going to help us. Right now, this is who we are.'
Tim Healey can be reached at
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
42 minutes ago
- New York Times
MLB trade deadline tiers 1.0: From buyers to sellers to… the AL Central?
One side effect of MLB expanding the playoff field to 12 teams in 2022 was a big decrease in obvious trade deadline 'sellers' and a big increase in the murky middle, where even sub-.500 teams can see a path to October — even if they aren't necessarily incentivized to push all of their chips into the middle as 'buyers.' Advertisement With roughly five weeks until this season's July 31 trade deadline, 21 of 30 teams began this week with playoff odds above 20 percent, according to FanGraphs, and more than half of the league has at least a one-in-three shot of reaching the postseason. But we know that many of those teams with decent odds in June won't be aggressive buyers. Our goal today is to group the 30 teams into trade deadline tiers based on whether they should be buying or selling, and how aggressively they should act within that overall approach. We'll update the tiers as the deadline nears, with more of a focus on individual team outlooks in the days leading up to July 31. The Tigers, Dodgers and Yankees are the only teams in baseball with a better than 95 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs, but the Phillies and (until very recently) the Mets aren't far behind. The Dodgers, Mets and Yankees are the sport's biggest spenders, and all three reached the LCS last season. They're clearly all-in on championship ambition. The Tigers are financial outliers, but they're another historic franchise, and they've made a case — at least at times — for being the best in baseball this season. After almost a decade of irrelevance, there should be no lack of motivation to make moves and reassert themselves as serious threats to win a championship. Then, there are the Phillies. A recent hot streak has put them neck-and-neck with the recently scuffling Mets atop the NL East, as the playoff odds having climbed considerably in the past week. But even before the climb, the Phillies were firmly in Tier 1 territory. They are still firmly within their window of opportunity, but Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto are approaching free agency, while Bryce Harper and Trea Turner are playing their age-32 seasons, and Zack Wheeler has already turned 35. The Phillies have been in the championship mix for four years now, and the clock's ticking to finally win one. An outfielder? A closer? A third baseman? All of the above? The Phillies should be as committed as anyone to building a roster with a chance. Advertisement Basically, these teams look like standard trade deadline buyers: imperfect rosters with needs to address, but still with reasons to believe that a deep October run is possible. The Cubs and Astros have excellent playoff odds at the moment, but they feel a little less all-in than the teams in Tier 1. The playoff odds aren't nearly as good for the Mariners and Padres, but each has gone through stretches when a meaningful October seemed likely, and they haven't fallen far enough to think of them as sellers just yet. (If the Padres, in particular, get to that point, the impact on the trade deadline could be massive given the chips they could move.) But what to do with the Giants? They've already made a Tier 1 move by trading for Rafael Devers. Does that make the Giants an unmistakable Tier 1 team, or was Devers a special case putting them firmly in Tier 2 territory now that they've made their splash? Despite being aggressive early, we find it difficult to think of the Giants as one of the teams most likely to be super aggressive a month from now. Not so long ago, it would have been perfectly valid to declare any one of these teams dead in the water. The Brewers' playoff odds slipped to 10 percent last month, the Rays got down to 11 percent, and the Blue Jays had only briefly risen above 45 percent — and they were mostly in the 30s — until just a few weeks ago. Are any of these three all-in buyers? Probably not. At least, not right now. The Brewers' odds are still relatively underwhelming (40 percent or so), and both the Blue Jays and Rays have been in playoff contention for only a short amount of time. But things are trending in a good direction for all three. It's at least worth wondering if they might hold onto Rhys Hoskins, Bo Bichette and Pete Fairbanks, and maybe even add a little bit at the deadline. Too early for any one of these teams to commit one way or the other, but they've put themselves back in the mix. Advertisement These three teams seem most clearly stuck between a short-term opportunity and a long-term plan. The Cardinals came into this season with a stated goal to rebuild, but have largely outperformed expectations. The Diamondbacks are very much alive, but they're in a tough division, haven't pitched as well as expected, and already lost Corbin Burnes to Tommy John surgery. And this week, Corbin Carroll hit the IL with a chip fracture in his left wrist. The Red Sox had a young position core to begin with and have called up each of their top three prospects, but they're still struggling to get above .500 (and, most notably, they've already traded away their best hitter). There's little sense that any of these three teams is in position to completely rip their rosters apart — the Red Sox and Diamondbacks in particular are built around young hitters who aren't going to be traded, and the Cardinals' playoff odds aren't all that different from the Brewers and Padres — but each could be selective in who they trade and how they reinforce. The Red Sox and Cardinals could trade their closers (Aroldis Chapman and Ryan Helsley) for a meaningful return, while entrusting the ninth inning to someone younger. The Diamondbacks could deal slugging third baseman Eugenio Suárez, while opening the position for top prospect Jordan Lawlar. We're dumping the middle of the AL Central into its own tier because, well, just look at this playoff odds graphic from FanGraphs. The Tigers, clearly, have separated themselves at the top of the division, and the White Sox are practically invisible at the bottom, and in the middle are these three teams. They're not exactly trending up — quite the opposite — but they've not exactly dropped out, either. The AL wild-card race is going to twist and turn a lot in the next few months, and it's conceivable that one of these AL Central teams will get hot and decide to go for it while another will turn cold and decide to sell. A third could attempt to thread the needle. But it's anyone's guess which of these teams will end up in which category. We've spent three months waiting for the Braves and Rangers to make a run. Their rosters have plenty of talent, including remnants of recent championships, but it just hasn't happened. Both have a positive run differential but a losing record, and now Chris Sale and Tyler Mahle are on the IL. Time is running out for a couple of preseason favorites to actually make a case for being buyers at the deadline. Advertisement The Reds weren't preseason darlings, but they did seem to have a shot in a wide-open NL Central. They have a positive run differential — which would suggest the possibility of being a playoff team — but they're only a bit over.500 and just haven't gained much traction this season. Their playoff odds have been consistently in the single digits. Maybe they could be more tailors than sellers, but it would be hard to justify mortgaging the future for a last-ditch effort in the present. The main thing keeping these teams out of the lowest tier is: what are they going to sell? The A's most valuable assets are young players who don't cost a ton of money, the White Sox sold last summer and are once again bare — Luis Robert Jr. has been worse than last season, and their best player might be Rule 5 pick Shane Smith — and the Pirates are understandably unwilling to trade Paul Skenes. So, these three teams are clearly out of contention, but they're also in a position to sell in a fairly typical way. They'll surely try to move some veterans, but their most valuable trade chips either aren't that valuable or are young enough to hold onto for the future. Most of this final tier could have been predicted five months ago. There was, perhaps, hope that the Nationals or Angels would show some improvement, but it wouldn't have been shocking to know they'd be firmly in sell mode five weeks before the trade deadline. The Marlins are obviously rebuilding, and the Rockies have been doing … something. They should be rebuilding. They should be selling. But history suggests they'll once again sit at the bottom of the NL West and do very little to actually move the needle at the deadline. The Orioles are the big surprise. Sure, there was every reason to question their rotation heading into the season, but it's been worse than even the most pessimistic of predictions, and the young core of position players hasn't hit enough to lift them out of the muck. Those young players, though, do give the Orioles reason to believe in a quick return to relevance, meaning a massive fire sale of anyone not bolted down for next season — Cedric Mullins, Zack Eflin, Ryan O'Hearn, Ramón Laureano, and others — feels inevitable. (Top illustration by Kelsea Peterson / The Athletic; Photos by Thearon Henderson, Matthew Grimes, Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Reds rookie Chase Burns strikes out first 5 batters in big league debut before faltering vs. Yankees
CINCINNATI — Major league debuts are a milestone for any player. Chase Burns had one for the record books. The Cincinnati Reds rookie became the first starting pitcher in the expansion era to strike out the first five batters on Tuesday night against the New York Yankees. The 22-year old Burns, the second overall pick in last July's amateur draft, gave up three runs in five innings, but his teammates made sure that the night ended on a positive note as the Reds rallied for a 5-4 victory in 11 innings. 'I feel like after the first batter, I kind of settled in there, but I was amped up, so it was fun,' Burns said. 'It was everything I could ask for. I mean, to walk it off like that, to be in the dugout and see that, there's nothing better than that.' The right-hander struck out his first five batters before Jazz Chisholm Jr's single. He gave up six hits and struck out eight, the seventh Cincinnati starter to have at least that many in his first career start. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Burns also joined the Yankees' Al Leiter (vs. Brewers in 1987) and Tampa Bay's Wade Davis (vs. Tigers in 2009) as the only pitchers since 1961 whose first six outs in their debuts were strikeouts. Both gave up a run during the first two innings. The Dodgers' Pete Richert struck out the first six batters he faced in relief against the Reds in 1962, but the third batter reached on a third strike passed ball. 'That was pretty cool,' Reds manager Terry Francona said. 'He didn't get too excited, I think he enjoyed the competition. There's a lot to like. His slider is really good.' Burns struck out seven of his first 10 hitters and allowed only one hit until Ben Rice led off the fourth by connecting on a hanging slider that went 413 feet and two-thirds of the way into the right field sun deck at Great American Ball Park. Aaron Judge followed with a base hit. Burns retired the next two hitters, Chisholm got aboard with a single and Anthony Volpe hit a two-run triple when center fielder TJ Friedl made an ill-advised dive and the ball got by him. Catcher Tyler Stephenson noticed though that the three-run fourth did not faze Burns too much. 'I think the maturity shows when they score a couple runs and then he goes right back out the next inning and goes out and attacks,' he said. Burns averaged 98.1 mph with 48 fastballs, topping out with a pair at 100.1 mph in the first inning. He threw 24 sliders, eight changeups and one curveball. New York was 1 for 9 with six strikeouts in his first time through the order and 5 for 9 with a triple and home run the second time through. Burns threw 53 of 81 pitches for strikes. His first big league pitch was a 98.4 mph fastball to Trent Grisham that just caught the inside corner of the plate. He got Judge to chase a 91.1 mph slider for the third out in the first inning. 'Big arm. Excited for his future. He's running it up there at 100 miles per hour and has a good feel for all the breaking pitches,' Judge said. 'It was impressive to see him out there doing his thing. You see guys like that kind of amped up and throwing it all over the place, but he did a good job of attacking the zone.' Burns also fell behind 3-0 on three of the first 10 batters before ending up with strikeouts. Burns started 11 of 21 batters with strikes and induced 12 swing and misses. He is the fifth first-round selection from last year's draft to reach the majors, joining Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz, Royals outfielder Jac Caglianone, Angels second baseman Christian Moore and Astros outfielder Cam Smith, who was selected by the Cubs before going to Houston in the Kyle Tucker trade last December. 'Everyone has kept telling me to do what I've been doing and not change anything,' Burns said. ___ AP MLB:
Associated Press
2 hours ago
- Associated Press
Yankees take road slide into matchup against the Reds
New York Yankees (45-34, first in the AL East) vs. Cincinnati Reds (42-38, fourth in the NL Central) Cincinnati; Wednesday, 7:10 p.m. EDT PITCHING PROBABLES: Yankees: Max Fried (9-2, 2.05 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 97 strikeouts); Reds: Brady Singer (7-5, 4.13 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 67 strikeouts) BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Yankees -213, Reds +176; over/under is 9 1/2 runs BOTTOM LINE: The New York Yankees will aim to break a five-game road skid when they take on the Cincinnati Reds. Cincinnati has a 42-38 record overall and a 22-17 record at home. The Reds are 32-15 in games when they record eight or more hits. New York has a 45-34 record overall and a 21-18 record on the road. The Yankees are 22-10 in games when they hit two or more home runs. Wednesday's game is the third meeting between these teams this season. TOP PERFORMERS: Elly De La Cruz has 15 doubles, two triples and 18 home runs for the Reds. Spencer Steer is 13 for 38 with three doubles, a triple and two home runs over the past 10 games. Aaron Judge has 28 home runs, 53 walks and 62 RBIs while hitting .364 for the Yankees. Jazz Chisholm is 13 for 39 with three doubles, a home run and four RBIs over the past 10 games. LAST 10 GAMES: Reds: 7-3, .260 batting average, 3.33 ERA, outscored opponents by 13 runs Yankees: 3-7, .235 batting average, 2.77 ERA, outscored by one run INJURIES: Reds: Wade Miley: 15-Day IL (flexor), Graham Ashcraft: 15-Day IL (groin), Rhett Lowder: 60-Day IL (forearm), Hunter Greene: 15-Day IL (groin), Austin Hays: 10-Day IL (foot), Carson Spiers: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Tyler Callihan: 60-Day IL (forearm), Noelvi Marte: 10-Day IL (side), Brandon Williamson: 60-Day IL (elbow), Julian Aguiar: 60-Day IL (elbow) Yankees: Ryan Yarbrough: 15-Day IL (oblique), Oswaldo Cabrera: 60-Day IL (ankle), Yerry De Los Santos: 15-Day IL (elbow), Marcus Stroman: 15-Day IL (knee), Jake Cousins: 60-Day IL (elbow), Gerrit Cole: 60-Day IL (elbow), Luis Gil: 60-Day IL (back) ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
