Barnes stumbles in nightcap of doubleheader

NEW YORK -- They had gone a full week without winning a game, and the Red Sox turned their lonely eyes to red-hot relief pitcher Matt Barnes to end the team's worst stretch of the season on Saturday night at Yankee Stadium.

Instead, Barnes picked a most untimely situation to end his strong run from July.

Barnes came on in a tie game in the bottom of the seventh. After throwing 40 pitches and getting just one out, he left with the Red Sox down by two runs and on their on their way to a disheartening 6-4 loss to the Yankees.

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This, after a 9-2 loss in Game 1 of the day-night doubleheader that was followed by a players-only team meeting.

Whatever was said in the meeting couldn't inspire manager Alex Cora's team to what they needed most -- a win.

And nobody felt worse about it than Barnes. In July, the righty didn't give up a run in 10 games, allowing only three hits while striking out 15 and holding opponents to a .111 average.

August started in a bad way for the setup man.

"Yeah, I mean, it sucks," Barnes said. "The guys played great tonight; the bullpen threw good except for me. We needed a win and I didn't come through. It's tough. I had guys in kill counts and just wasn't able to put them away."

The Sox will turn to David Price on Sunday night in an effort to snap a seven-game losing streak and avoid the indignity of being swept in a four-game series by the Yankees.

Almost unfathomably, it was just a week ago that the Red Sox were the team that took three straight against the Yankees to trim their deficit in the American League East to eight games. That deficit is now 13 1/2 games, and Boston has been left with little choice but to play for the AL Wild Card Game.

Boston trails Tampa Bay by 5 1/2 games for the second Wild Card spot with 49 games left in the season. Nobody envisioned the season unfolding like this for the defending World Series champions. But they still think it can turn at any moment. It needs to start soon -- if not Sunday.

"We've just got to go out and do it," Barnes said. "It is what it is. We are where we are. It's not where we want to be, but there's some baseball to be played left. We've seen this team rattle off 15 out of 20 or 17 out of 20 before. We're definitely capable of doing that. Like I said, tonight, I didn't get the job done, and that one's on me."

In truth, it wasn't all on Barnes.

The offense, as prolific as the overall numbers are, has sputtered at times with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox are in another one of those ruts now. They went 2-for-11 in the nightcap with runners in scoring position, leaving 11 men on base.

The dangerous Rafael Devers -- who belted a two-run shot to break a scoreless tie in the third inning -- had a chance to get his team right after the mishap by Barnes.

Devers stepped up with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth against lefty Zack Britton. Devers watched the first two pitches go over for strikes, and then swung wildly at an 0-2 pitch well out of the zone to strike out.

"The last month and a half we were good [with runners in scoring position], and the last week we haven't been good," Cora said. "You have to give credit to the Rays and the Yankees, but at the same time, we've got to do better. It's been like that the last five days, six days. Kind of like, we regress. It's kind of like early in the season, we have a lot of traffic but we're not taking advantage of those situations."

After a long day of baseball went entirely against them, the Red Sox had no choice but to turn their attention to Sunday, and hope that will mark the end of their longest losing streak since 2015.

"You've just got to go out and play -- you know? If we go out and we play how we're capable of playing and what everybody knows we can do, the rest takes care of itself," Barnes said. "It's about a process. Unfortunately it hasn't gotten us to where we want to get to right now."