BOSTON — How low can it get for the Red Sox?
They walked off the Fenway Park field Saturday followed by boos after another night of misery and another pitiful loss. The season started a month ago and there are already too many of them to count.
This one followed an all-too-familiar script. Lifeless offense? Check. A blown ninth-inning lead? Check. An extra-innings loss? Check. It was the same old story in a 3-1 loss to the White Sox, clinching their sixth consecutive series loss.
The Red Sox led 1-0 in the ninth – behind Rafael Devers’ RBI double in the fifth – when Hansel Robles came in to try to lock down a needed save for a struggling bullpen. But it went south quickly.
Robles walked the leadoff batter, Jake Burger, before Adam Engel went the other way on a double down the left line that rolled to the wall and put both runners in scoring position with one out. It took just a sacrifice fly from Leury Garcia, who hit one to right that scored Burger for the tying run, to extend the game.
The Red Sox have now blown an MLB-leading ninth save this season, which includes five in the ninth inning or later.
Robles kept it a tied game, but it didn’t matter. The Red Sox had a chance for a walk-off victory with two runners in scoring position and one out in the bottom half, but the struggling Bobby Dalbec struck out again, and Trevor Story chased at the first pitch and popped up to send the game to extras.
In the 10th, Matt Barnes – fresh off his best outing of the season Friday night – coughed up two runs as the White Sox led off with a go-ahead RBI double from Jose Abreu and RBI single by Luis Robert.
The two-run lead was more than enough of a cushion. Devers, Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez all went down as the Red Sox (10-18) fell to 0-6 in extra innings games this season.
The Red Sox entered Saturday in last place in the American League East and their outlook looked even bleaker in the third inning, when manager Alex Cora was tossed for arguing a borderline strike three call on Story.
But the loss of their manager didn’t exactly light a fire under the Red Sox.
The Red Sox wasted Nick Pivetta’s best start of the season, even though he didn’t have his best fastball and allowed his fair share of traffic on the bases, but he made outs when he needed – striking out a season-high eight batters – and maybe even more importantly, he didn’t walk anyone for a second consecutive outing.
Pivetta had to battle through some difficult wind conditions at Fenway Park – with gusts up to 35 mph at first pitch – which cost him a baserunner in the third inning when Leury Garcia hit a routine fly ball to left that died in the wind and swirled back toward the infield, forcing Alex Verdugo to dive and ultimately not make the catch for a single. Pivetta hit the next batter, Tim Anderson with a pitch, but responded with back-to-back strikeouts of AJ Pollock and Abreu, both looking at fastballs.
Pivetta worked around a pair of singles in the fifth and a leadoff single in the sixth but otherwise wasn’t threatened much by the White Sox, holding them to 0-for-6 with men in scoring position. He finished his outing with a strikeout of Gavin Sheet, and showed some emotion as he walked off the mound.
Red Sox starters have been the shining light in a dull season to this point. After Pivetta’s performance Saturday, they have produced a 1.90 ERA in their last 16 starts, a span of 80 2/3 innings.
They didn’t get much help from the offense, which had another quiet day. They broke through in the fifth thanks to a one-out rally started by Franchy Cordero, who singled before Story walked to bring up Devers, who brought Cordero home on an RBI wall-ball double to left.
