BOSTON — The Purple Sox are in the midst of chasing down the ultimate spot within the American League wild-card race however fell farther again by dropping the center sport to the Astros on Tuesday night time at Fenway Park.
It was an evening that Boston simply couldn’t appear to get something going and falling behind 2-0 within the first inning to Houston actually didn’t assist the Purple Sox’s trigger.
Brayan Bello made two errors that led to Alex Bregman and Yordan Álvarez’s launching back-to-back residence runs. After the primary, Bello settled down and gave his group an opportunity to win.
“We simply didn’t make performs behind him,” Purple Sox supervisor Alex Cora mentioned. “… We put ourselves in a foul spot not making performs.”
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Rafael Devers dedicated his seventeenth error of the season and David Hamilton failed to finish a double play within the fifth inning which allowed the Astros to attain a run.
Cora mentioned these two defensive performs outlined the sport and never in a great way.
“We didn’t make two routine performs,” Cora mentioned. “(Houston) is admittedly good at what they do they usually saved placing strain on.”
Together with the miscues within the subject, John Schreiber walked Yainer Díaz with two outs within the sixth earlier than giving up a double to Mauricio Dubón that plated two extra runs for the Astros.
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“The satan is the satan,” Cora mentioned. “We gotta be extra aggressive within the strike zone. I imply, two-out walks are robust to defend.”
Regardless of falling 6 1/2 video games again within the wild-card race, Cora mentioned there’s loads of baseball left to be performed within the season, particularly inside the division.
“We simply gotta play higher baseball. We haven’t finished that,” Cora mentioned. “We’re the place we’re as a result of we now have struggled in sure areas of the sport and it’s catching up now.”
Listed here are extra notes from Tuesday’s Purple Sox-Astros sport:
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— Bello is the fourth Boston starter in as many video games that has not made it out of the fifth inning for the Purple Sox.
“I felt good right now,” Bello mentioned by way of Purple Sox translator Carlos Villoria Benitez. “I really feel good. Moreover the 2 pitches within the first inning, I felt good. My physique felt good. My arm felt good. I really feel like my pitches had good motion.”
The 24-year-old righty dropped to 10-8 on the season with the loss after permitting three runs, two of them earned, on 4 hits whereas throwing 62.1% of his pitches for strikes (51-of-82 pitches).
— The Purple Sox dropped to under .500 for the month of August at 13-14 and have misplaced six of their final 9 video games. They’re now 24-46 when their opponents rating first and 7-42 when scoring lower than 4 runs in a sport.
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— Triston Casas drew two walks within the sport for his twelfth multi-walk sport of the season. The primary baseman has walked 62 occasions within the marketing campaign whereas slashing .258/.363/.484 with 97 hits, 18 doubles, 21 residence runs and 53 RBI.
— The Purple Sox will shut out their collection in opposition to the Astros on Wednesday afternoon. NESN’s full protection of the sport from Fenway Park begins at 3 p.m. ET.