Red Sox snap 10-game win streak as ‘bad decision' on bases squashes rally

New York Times

19-07-2025

CHICAGO — The All-Star break can offer a needed respite for some teams and an unavoidable obstacle for others.
It proved to be the latter for the Boston Red Sox on Friday.
Riding a 10-game winning streak entering the break, the Red Sox fell flat in Chicago, and the second half began with a 4-1 loss to the Cubs. A costly base-running mistake from Abraham Toro in the fifth squashed a potential Red Sox rally. With two on and no outs, Alex Bregman lined out to center, and Toro, caught off the second-base bag, was doubled off.
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'I have to put the blame on me,' Toro said. 'Being thrown out on a double play, that kills rallies. It was a bad decision.'
During the club's longest winning streak since 2018, the Red Sox still made mistakes in the field and on the bases, but they weren't as costly with a relentless offensive approach and a stretch of solid starts from the rotation. On Friday, the Red Sox benefited from neither of those.
Starter Lucas Giolito entered the break with a 0.70 ERA in his previous six starts, but he walked the first two batters he faced, then gave up a first-pitch homer to Seiya Suzuki to put the Red Sox in a quick 3-0 hole. Giolito settled down to silence the Cubs' bats through the sixth inning, putting together a decent line, but the early deficit set them back.
'That's a bad way to start the series and the second half,' he said. 'I've got to be a tone-setter, and I didn't do that.'
As Giolito settled down, Boston's offense couldn't capitalize despite putting runners on base in the second through fifth innings. Toro's mistake in the fifth crushed their best chance at mounting a rally.
Toro took full blame.
'I should have just froze there, and I took a couple steps, and next thing you know, it was too late to come back,' he said.
Rookie Roman Anthony drove in the team's lone run on the day with a double in the third. It extended his hitting streak to 10 games, making him the youngest Red Sox hitter since Tony Conigliaro in 1965 with a hitting streak as long as 10 games.
10 game hitting streak.10th 2B on the season. pic.twitter.com/cXDGPmifXF
— Red Sox (@RedSox) July 18, 2025
'He's a good at-bat,' Cora said. 'He's going to walk. He's going to hit the ball hard. We know that. And we're going to push him to face lefties and righties, and he's going to hit in the middle lineup.'
In an attempt to keep their pre-break momentum flowing, the Red Sox held an impromptu optional workout Thursday night at an empty Wrigley Field. Nearly every hitter showed up, along with several pitchers needing to get work in.
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Bregman, still working his way back to full speed after missing 43 games with a right quad injury, spurred the idea when he asked Red Sox coaches if he could hit Thursday and several other players asked to join.
'I think it says a lot,' Trevor Story said. 'The boys are ready to just be together again. I think we missed each other, believe it or not. We're with each other every single day, but when you go through four days without it, it's like, 'Man, where are the boys at?''
Bench coach Ramón Vázquez scrambled to make sure the Red Sox could use Wrigley on Thursday night, and after he got the all-clear, he set up a bus for players after the team plane landed in Chicago. They took batting practice and ran through defensive drills for about two hours.
'It was good to get the guys together,' Rob Refsnyder said. 'I think the more I'm around, the more you can recognize really good groups of guys, guys that get along really well. And I think this group gets along really well. And it was good to kind of just hang out, get back to baseball.'
Though the workout didn't have the immediate impact they'd hoped, that kind of chemistry Refsnyder and Story described is what sustains teams through good and bad stretches and can help them flip the page after a disappointing loss coming out of the break.
One loss won't ruin the work it took the Red Sox to back into a more comfortable position in the wild-card race — they're currently holding the second American League wild-card spot — but it's a reminder of the tough schedule ahead.
The Red Sox beat bad teams, like the Washington Nationals and Colorado Rockies, during their win streak, but they also took four straight against a strong Tampa Bay Rays team to close out the first half. Still, the next 10 days see them facing even steeper competition, with three consecutive division-leading teams — the Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers — over the next nine games.
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'I don't get caught up in all that,' Cora said of the tough schedule. 'That's just for (the media) to decide. We're just here to play baseball.'
Cora also thwarted the idea that his teams have faltered after the break the past two seasons. Boston surged into the break last year, only to go 4-8 heading into the trade deadline.
'It's a different team; we're in a different spot,' Cora said. 'Like I said, we just got to show up and play.'
With Brayan Bello on the mound Saturday, the Red Sox will look to do just that.
(Photo of Lucas Giolito: Kamil Krzaczynski / Imagn Images)