Red Sox World Series: Five reasons why Game 3 was lost

We can boil it down to five key reasons why the Boston Red Sox came up short in an 18-inning marathon in Game 3 of the World Series.

Every loss hurts when the stakes are this high. When that loss comes at the end of a lengthy extra-innings game it almost feels like two losses. It leaves us with a pit in our stomachs wondering where it all went wrong. In the case of Game 3 of the World Series, there are a handful of reasons we can point to for the Boston Red Sox coming up short.

At seven hours and 20 minutes, Game 3’s 18-inning marathon stands as the longest postseason game in major league history. That’s a lot of baseball, which means there were plenty of opportunities for pivotal moments. I’ve narrowed it down to the five key factors that led to this loss.

Many will point to the obvious of Nathan Eovaldi giving up the walk-off home run to Max Muncy leading off the bottom of the 18th inning. Sure, that technically was the reason for the loss. However, the Red Sox wouldn’t have stayed in the game as long as they did without the six innings of relief that Eovaldi gave them prior to that point. What he did was downright heroic so we will not pin the blame for this loss on Eovaldi.

To find the reasons truly responsible for this loss we need to look back to moments earlier in the game that prevented the Red Sox from escaping with a win before Eovaldi was pushed beyond his limits.