It’s been a tough few days for the Red Sox. Yesterday, a fielding error by Xander Bogaerts resulted in a grand slam. Tonight, a fielding error by Junichi Tazawa cost Boston the game.
After escaping a potentially sketchy first inning, Brandon Workman allowed two runs in the top of the third via a Mike Trout double and an Albert Pujols single.
Boston answered in the fourth inning courtesy of Brock Holt, who drove in the recently called-up Mookie Betts to make it 2-1.
The score held until the eighth, and that’s when things got shaky for Boston. After Tazawa loaded the bases with one out, Howie Kendrick hit a grounder back toward Tazawa who, after botching the ground ball, fired a wild throw home that deflected off of Chris Iannetta and rolled toward the wall on the first base side, allowing another run to score, making it 4-1.
Yoenis Cespedes grounded in Brock Holt in the bottom half of the ninth to cut the lead to 4-2, but Boston couldn’t string together any more runs, and dropped the first game of the serie,s 4-2.
Despite a pretty solid outing by Workman (two earned runs in seven innings), he still earned the loss, dropping his record to 1-7. Meanwhile, C.J. Wilson picked up the win to improve his record to 10-8.
Boston and Anaheim return to action at 7:10 tomorrow from Fenway Park.