That sucked. The Red Sox were ahead for most of the day on Saturday, looking to bounce back from a tough loss on Friday, but the eighth inning was just mired in mistakes. Tanner Houck issued a big two-out walk to keep the inning alive, and then Alex Cora decided to bring in a wild Darwinzon Hernandez to try and finish out the inning with two men on. The end result was a Giancarlo Stanton grand slam, a wildly frustrating loss, and a tie atop the wildcard race.
On Friday night to start a huge series, the Red Sox not only watched their de facto ace of 2021 get hit around early and often, but also had to use a lot of their long relief depth in the process as well.