Peréz gets everything going but fortune
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The Red Sox finally got the Martín Pérez they’ve been waiting for on Thursday night at Globe Life Field. The left-hander spotted his fastball and rediscovered his changeup and performed well enough to win.
But he didn’t win for two reasons: There were two costly errors behind him on defense, and Boston’s offense -- so prolific for most of April -- remained in its recent rut.
Just like that, the Sox had their three-game winning streak snapped in a 4-1 defeat in their first game at the Rangers’ two-season-old home venue.
The Boston bats produced just three hits, marking the fourth straight game manager Alex Cora’s offense has had five hits or fewer. At 16-10, the Red Sox still lead the American League East by three games.
“Overall it’s been a grind the last week, to be honest with you,” said Cora. “We haven’t been able to do too much, but as you guys know, this is a good offense. Just a matter of getting back to doing the things we do best. Compete out there, hit the ball the other way -- and when we do that, we become a good, good offense.”
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Of late, the starting pitching has been stellar. And in the big picture, this loss won’t sting that much if it proves to be the start of a revival for Peréz, who was far and away better in this one than his first four starts this season.
The lefty fired 5 2/3 innings, allowing five hits and two runs (one earned), walking none and striking out seven.
“Good game,” said Peréz. “I think I needed one of these games to get everything back, and I think I put everything together. … My changeup was there and was able to [create differential] between the pitches. Good outing. I was competing and doing my best to win the game.”
Of the 20 changeups Peréz threw, 16 were for strikes, including five whiffs.
“I tried to have a little long toss with my changeup a little bit [in between starts] to get back the feeling with that pitch,” said Peréz. “At 120 feet, just trying to get good extension in front of my eyes and have my pitch back and finally get it, and it made me excited.
“I feel good things are coming. When you’re a pitcher and you have a great changeup, sometimes you don’t have it and it’s hard for you to compete with only two pitches.”
While it was a big night for Peréz, his team wasn’t crisp. It could have been related to a late night of travel from New York, which had the players landing in their Texas hotel rooms at roughly 5 a.m. ET.
The first defensive miscue happened with one out in the fourth inning, when Joey Gallo ripped one into the corner in left field and Alex Verdugo bounced a throw back into the infield that bounced before third baseman Rafael Devers or shortstop Xander Bogaerts could get to it. Devers was charged with the error. It proved to be costly when Adolis García followed with a sacrifice fly.
“Alex threw the ball and it kind of took an awkward hop for Raffy,” said Cora. “He tipped it. As soon as he tipped it, Xander’s going to third base and the ball just kept rolling. It’s one of those freak plays, it’s nobody’s fault. It’s just a bad hop. He tried to make a play, and it just kept rolling. A tough one.”
The Sox temporarily offset that run when Devers belted a down-and-away 3-2 slider from Kyle Gibson and raked it for an RBI double to tie the game in the top of the sixth inning.
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That momentum was short-lived. Defense haunted Boston again in the bottom of the sixth. This time, it was sure-handed veteran Bogaerts coming up with the untimely miscue on a routine grounder by García when an out would have given Peréz two outs and nobody on.
After Peréz got the second out, Cora lifted him at 82 pitches in favor of righty Hirokazu Sawamura with right-handed-hitting Jose Trevino coming up. That move quickly backfired, as Trevino smashed Sawamura’s second pitch out of the yard in left-center for a two-run homer.
“We have a righty in that situation, and we pushed Martín to go out there, and we didn’t make a play,” Cora said. “We thought that was a good matchup for us and we got burned.”
J.D. exits with migraine
As if things weren’t tough enough for the Red Sox on offense on Thursday, designated hitter J.D. Martinez exited before his at-bat in the top of the eighth inning because of symptoms associated with a migraine.
Martinez isn’t expected to start on Friday.
“He felt his neck, and started getting some headaches,” Cora said. “Hopefully, it’s something that it’s nothing too serious, and he can be back on Saturday.”