BOSTON -- In his first 60 appearances with the Red Sox, ace setup man Chris Martin had set standards that would be nearly impossible to duplicate.

Appearance No. 61 on Wednesday night at Fenway is one the veteran righty would soon like to forget, as he couldn’t protect a two-run lead in a 7-5 loss to the Orioles.

The 37-year-old righty had only given up more than a run one time in his year-plus with Boston, and that was only two runs.

In those first 60 outings for Boston, including his first five in 2024, Martin had a 1.12 ERA, allowing a mere seven runs, eight walks and two homers in 56 1/3 innings.

On Wednesday, he gave up four runs in the top of the seventh, three of them earned.

You could say that Martin was due for a clunker. Only he didn’t look at it that way.

“To be completely honest with you, that’s last year. I'm not even thinking about last year. I'm trying to improve off of that season and get better,” Martin said. “It happens. It's baseball. I’m going to continue to work as hard as I can and I’ve got to do a better job managing the inning. That's something that I can control. And I didn’t control that very well today, so that's why I'm a little more upset than normal.”

The inning started innocently enough, as Martin induced a flyout to center. After a single to left by Ryan O’Hearn, things took a turn for the worst. Catcher Connor Wong had a passed ball. Then Martin did something he hardly ever does, walked Ryan Mountcastle.

After that, more quirkiness. Martin uncorked a wild pitch. Catcher’s interference on Wong loaded the bases.

Needless to say, it was a bad time for Martin to throw his second wild pitch of the inning. But that’s what happened, and O’Hearn scored to make it a one-run game.

After Martin got a temporary reprieve with a strikeout for out No. 2, there seemed a chance he could get his team back in the dugout with a lead.

But his 2-2 sinker caught too much plate and Jordan Westburg drilled the 93.6 mph offering for a three-run homer to center that silenced the Fenway Park crowd and turned Boston’s one-run lead into a two-run deficit.

“I’m not a big sinker guy,” said Martin. “I use it in certain situations. It was just a pitch I thought we could get him with it in. … I just didn’t get it in enough and he put a good swing on it.”

This was a game the Red Sox led, 5-0, after starter Kutter Crawford escaped bases-loaded jams in the fourth and fifth.

But things started to go wrong soon after Crawford exited.

For sure, this wasn’t all on Martin. Isaiah Campbell was first out of the bullpen, and he gave up three runs in the top of the sixth, putting Baltimore back in the ballgame.

“With Campbell, the cutter wasn't as sharp as before,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “As you guys know, we trust him with lefties. He's trying to get a shutdown inning right there after scoring two. It didn’t happen.”

Even with that stumble, the Sox still had Martin to go to, and they felt pretty good about that.

“He was our guy last year,” Crawford said. “He was almost kind of automatic coming out of the bullpen and filling up the zone. He just kind of had one of those days. It was kind of just a bad day at work for him. I think we all have confidence and faith that he’ll get back to his normal self, absolutely.”

What was different about Martin on Wednesday?

“With Chris, he was just off,” said Cora. “Bloop single, walk, catcher interference, one pitch away from getting away from it and tried to pitch in and the kid put a good swing on it.”