In Monday’s meeting of mediocre May teams, the Brewers pulled out a 3-2 win over the Red Sox in Milwaukee.
Both clubs entered their series opener 10-13 on the month, with some of the worst pitching in the league. In May, the Brewers rank 10th in ERA and 13th in home runs, while the Red Sox arrived at American Family Field 15th in ERA and 14th in homers, exactly one round-tripper behind their host team.
Jackson Chourio erased that deficit on the first pitch of the Brewers’ side of the game, taking Garrett Crochet 413 feet deep for an immediate 1-0 lead.
Rebounding from Chourio’s blast, Crochet pitched 6.2 innings and largely overpowered the Brewers; on his remaining 107 pitches, he struck out 11, walked a pair, and yielded one additional earned runs on four hits.
Yet once again, it wasn’t enough for the Red Sox. Each team collected exactly seven hits in the contest. Yet despite the fact that they’ve been maxed out at two runs 19 times this season, the Red Sox have been one of baseball’s most productive teams overall (though as their record indicates, inconsistently so). They arrived in Milwaukee with the sixth-most homers and total bases, seventh in hits, and ninth in runs, to face the team with the second-lowest homer and run counts, and fewest hits in the majors this month.
The Red Sox, however, are the Sultans of Squander. Following a 19-5 victory over the Orioles in Friday’s series opener at Fenway Park, Boston went 2 for 20 with runners in scoring position and left 20 men on base over the remaining three games of the series. The Red Sox already led the Majors with 398 men left on base, 14 more than any other American League team, when they wasted several scoring opportunities on Monday: 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position and 10 men left on base, including bases-loaded when they lost in the ninth.
“Right now, we’re not putting a complete game together,” manager Alex Cora told reporters postgame. “As of now, it’s not happening to us.”
Facing an unknown in Chad Patrick, the Red Sox went quietly, including 1-2-3 in the first, and fourth. They wasted a pair of back-to-back singles by Wilyer Abreu and Marcelo Mayer in the second, and back-to-back walks by Jarren Duran – who also swiped his 13th bag – and Rafael Devers in the third.
Patrick had struck out three consecutive Boston batters when Duran knocked him out of the game with a two-out double in the fifth. Making his season debut, DL Hall immediately got Devers to ground out to preserve Patrick’s scoreless line: 4.2 scoreless innings, three hits, two walks, and six strikeouts on 79 pitches (50 strikes).
Joey Ortiz and Andruw Monasterio broke through against Crochet in the bottom of the fifth, plating a second run on a pair of back-to-back doubles. The Sox southpaw rebounded for a second time, setting the Brewers down in order in the sixth, and striking out the first two batters of the seventh before a walk to Monasterio brought Cora out to the mound.
Garrett Whitlock got Chourio to pop-out on the first pitch to end the seventh, but gave up the deciding run in the eighth, moments after the Red Sox had finally gotten on the board on Devers’ second walk and an RBI-force-out by Kristian Campbell. Whitlock issued a one-out walk to William Contreras, then gave up a two-out single and loaded the bases on a second walk to Caleb Durbin. Eric Haase’s soft single scored Milwaukee’s third run and reloaded the bases before Wilyer Abreu made a sliding catch to prevent any further damage.
That run proved the difference maker in the ninth, when Trevor Megill offered the Red Sox one last opportunity. With two outs and Trevor Story and Rob Refsnyder on base with a pair of walks, Duran drove in Boston’s second run with a single. Unlike the Orioles, who opted to pitch to Devers and got walked off on Saturday afternoon, the Brewers didn’t dare. Megill intentionally-walked the Sox slugger to load the bases.
It would’ve been Narváez’s turn to bat, but Cora had sent Connor Wong to pinch-run for his fellow catcher the inning before. Thus, instead of one of their most consistent hitters and a top AL Rookie of the Year candidate, the Red Sox had Wong, who remains without an RBI this season, coming to the plate with the game on the line. The at-bat began with two balls, and ended with a 2-2 flyout to Massachusetts native Sal Frelick in shallow right.
Crochet has been excellent for Boston thus far, but he and the rest of the rotation have struggled in first innings; entering the contest, Sox starters owned a 5.40 ERA with 33 earned runs (including 8 homers) allowed in first innings. Opponents have also come out swinging against him all season: including Chourio’s 105.8 mph rocket, teams are 6-for-12 on the first pitch of the southpaw’s starts, including two of the six homers he’s given up this year.
“Obviously, first pitch of the game I’m gonna throw a fastball, everybody knows that. I’m never not going to do that,” Crochet told reporters. “The guy next game could clip me on a heater, and I’d be OK with that. It’s just not making that one pitch (to Monasterio) I feel like really came back to bite me.”
It’s a significant problem for a team that doesn’t fight back often. While the Red Sox are the only team that hasn’t been shut out this season, they’ve come perilously close several times. They’re 10-22 when opponents score first and 6-14 in one-run games, and are now faced with the Herculean task of replacing Alex Bregman’s production: a .299 average, .938 OPS, 17 doubles and 11 home runs in 51 games.
Bregman’s absence has amplified the struggling bats throughout the lineup, especially Trevor Story. Though he went 1 for 3 with a single and a walk on Monday, the veteran shortstop is 15 for his last 114 dating back to April 22. He was originally supposed to have Monday off, before Cora changed his mind.
The Red Sox are 27-29 and a season-worst seven games out of first.
“I think that we have a lot of faith in our offense, at any given moment we’re going to break out and the rest of the season we’re going to forget about these first two months,” Crochet said. “I think the most important part is that we’re getting in the situations to have success, and eventually the ball is going to go our way.”
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