For much of Fenway Park’s first evening game of the season, the Red Sox looked like they would not go quietly into the night.
But ultimately, they did, blowing a 5-0 lead and allowing the Orioles to score seven unanswered runs, guaranteeing a series win for the visiting team.
It was an unfamiliar kind of loss for Boston after the previous season, when the Sox had too many short, ineffective starts and a shutdown bullpen. On Wednesday, the script flipped. Kutter Crawford pitched five scoreless innings, only to have Isaiah Campbell and Chris Martin give up a combined seven runs, six of them earned.
Crawford has struggled throughout his career at Fenway, and came into the contest with a 5.73 ERA in 99 innings at home, compared to a 3.59 ERA over 120.1 frames on the road. His third start of the season was far from a walk in the ballpark. Or rather, he issued four walks. He loaded the bases in the fourth and fifth, but managed to escape unscathed.
But and the end of the top of the fifth, all was well that ended well. Over five scoreless frames, the right-hander struck out six, hit a batter, and held the O’s to a pair of knocks. Dating back to the end of last season, he’s allowed one earned run in his last four starts. Through 12 games this season, Red Sox pitchers have made six scoreless starts, and only allowed multiple earned runs twice; according to the club’s media relations, the rotation’s 1.42 ERA not only leads the Majors, but is their lowest through 12 games in the Live Ball Era (since 1920).
The Orioles, however, would not be contained for long. The Sox took a 5-0 lead into the top of the six, and immediately saw it cut to two. Isaiah Campbell gave up four hits and two runs before recording the first out of the seventh, a groundout by the debuting Jackson Holliday, which netted MLB’s No. 1 prospect his first big-league RBI. By the time the top of inning was over, the Red Sox had a slim two-run lead.
But the true shock was Martin’s appearance in the top of the seventh. After getting the leadoff man out, he gave up a single, and a passed ball by Wong advanced the runner, Ryan O’Hearn, to second. Martin then walked Ryan Mountcastle, and O’Hearn advanced to third on a wild pitch. Cedric Mullins reached on catcher interference, and O’Hearn scored on Martin’s second wild pitch of the frame, putting the O’s within a run.
“I gotta do better,” Martin said. “Obviously, a lot of things went on that inning. Like I said, I didn’t manage it very well.”
Jordan Westburg’s three-run homer sealed Boston’s fate and the final score. By the time Martin got the third out, he’d allowed four runs, three of them earned, and given the Orioles their first lead of the contest.
“Actually, that (pitch) did go where I wanted it to,” Martin said. “It’s a pitch I executed, and he put a good swing on it, he beat me. That’s the pitch we wanted. I was trying to go up and in there, and maybe didn’t get it in enough, but he put a good swing on it.”
Through the veteran reliever’s first 60 Sox outings, he’d never given up more than two runs. Ending such an impressive stretch didn’t matter to him on Wednesday night, though.
“To be completely honest with you, that’s last year,” he said. “I gotta do better job managing the inning. That’s something that I can control, and I didn’t control that very well today.”
Though Brennan Bernardino stanched the bleeding with two scoreless innings, the Boston bats had deflated. They’d begun the night with quick innings, and after scoring in three consecutive innings, struck out nine times over the remaining four frames. Their lone baserunners – Masataka Yoshida singled in the sixth and Devers drew a two-out walk in the seventh – were squandered, and they went 1-2-3 in the last two innings.
All told, the Sox collected eight hits and four walks, but struck out 13 times, went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position, and left five men on base. Four of the hits belonged to Jarren Duran and Triston Casas. They each collected a pair, including Casas’ two-run homer in the fifth.
The April chill didn’t help matters. Rafael Devers’ 396-foot flyout ended the third; it would’ve been a home run in four other ballparks, including Baltimore. Flyouts by Romy Gonzalez and Masataka Yoshida likely would’ve been wall-ball doubles in warmer weather, but were caught at the base of the Green Monster.
No further evidence is required to know that the Sox and Orioles have completely reversed fortunes over the last half-decade, but Wednesday night yielded some anyway. As Bernardino completed a 1-2-3 top of the ninth, Craig Kimbrel threw in the visitors’ bullpen.
With the Sox trailing by two runs, their former closer took the mound at Fenway for the first time since Game 2 of the 2018 World Series. But unlike that Fall Classic, when he’d been so unreliable that Alex Cora had used his rotation for over a dozen innings of relief work, Kimbrel was his old self in the bottom of the ninth. Swinging strikeout, swinging strikeout, groundout, game over.
