Already sitting at rock bottom, the Boston Red Sox dug themselves a deeper hole following another dejecting loss.
The Red Sox blew a four-run lead to the Minnesota Twins on Thursday to fall 8-4. It was their fifth loss in the last seven games.
Losing at Fenway Park has become all too familiar for the Red Sox, who have dropped to 46-61 over the past two seasons at home. While there was plenty for manager John Farrell to grumble about following another disappointing effort, it was the mental miscues that really struck a cord.
"That was a poor display of baseball today," Farrell told reporters. "Those situations are addressed individually, they're addressed collectively, and we will continue to do so."
There were no shortage of unthinkable mistakes that the Red Sox committed on the afternoon.
With a one-run lead in the sixth inning, this baseman Pablo Sandoval airmailed a throw to first base that would have ended the inning. The error proved costly as the Twins would tie the game 4-4 on the next at bat.
Sandoval made another crucial error in the ninth inning. With Twins runners on first and second, Red Sox catcher Blake Swihart corralled a bunt attempt and threw it to third. However, Sandoval missed the ball, allowing the Twins to score the eventual winning run.
"I tried to do everything to stop the ball, but it got under my glove," Sandoval said. "That’s my fault."
"It's tough. But you've got to keep your head up. Tomorrow's another day. It was a tough game, tough situation. You try to do the best you can, try to make a play, try to win games."
Sandoval wasn't the only one of the Red Sox's high priced offseason acquisitions to make a critical mistake. Standing on second base in the seventh inning, Hanley Ramirez lost track of the outs on a ball hit to the left side of the infield. He was tagged out in a run down. Farrell said following the game that Hanley believed there were two outs.
The seventh inning proved to be a complete disaster. Following Hanley's blunder, Mike Napoli was sent home by third base coach Brian Butterfield on a bloop single, only to be thrown out by 15 feet.
"I thought we might be able to steal one there, but it didn't work," Butterfield said. "The thing we always try to impress upon is to stay aggressive. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In today's case, we did run into some outs."
