In a surprising turn of events, the Red Sox bullpen, which had previously dominated in a one-run win, experienced a significant setback. One of its key players, Garrett Whitlock, struggled during the game against the Nationals.
Whitlock entered the game with scores tied in the eighth inning but unfortunately gave up back-to-back home runs (including a go-ahead three-run shot by Keibert Ruiz). This led to an unfortunate 6-2 loss for the Red Sox on Wednesday night. The team was unable to make any significant progress against Nats starter MacKenzie Gore and managed only four hits throughout the game. Their runs were scored on a two-run blast by Pablo Reyes that temporarily tied up the game in the eighth inning.
This loss marks only their third defeat in nine games and brings their record to 63-57.
Before this dramatic turn of events in the eighth inning, starters James Paxton and MacKenzie Gore had been engaged in an intense duel deep into gameplay. However, it was Gore who outperformed Paxton as he helped secure an early 2-0 lead for his team with solo homers by Michael Chavis and Stone Garrett.
Gore maintained his momentum throughout most of his playtime before leaving with a trainer after striking out seven players over six scoreless innings. On another note, despite giving up one hit through two innings before Chavis’s second home run of this season and Garrett’s leadoff shot making it 2-0 for Nationals; Paxton managed to keep his ERA at 3.34 after six strong innings.
With Gore no longer partaking in gameplay during this match-up between Red Sox vs Nationals; Alex Verdugo managed to get on base via single before Reyes hit his second homerun of this season tying it at 2-2 briefly during eight-inning mark.
However Whitlock who recently returned from injury list ran into trouble immediately allowing Lane Thomas’ leadoff single followed by Joey Meneses being hit by pitch leading up to Ruiz’s low changeup homerun putting Washington ahead once again followed shortly after by Garrett’s sinker going over center field wall making it final scoreline at 6-2 favoring Washington side as Finnegan closed out ninth-inning without any further scoring from Boston side resulting into Whitlock taking loss for tonight’s match-up
The Red Sox now stand at 19 wins -23 losses ratio when playing interleague matches snapping their previous six-game winning streak against Washington falling down further when facing left-handed starting pitchers standing currently at win-loss ratio of just above .500 (21 wins -13 losses).
Looking forward towards series finale Chris Sale will be starting pitcher for Boston while Patrick Corbin will take mound representing Washington side tomorrow evening with first pitch scheduled earlier than usual time slot i.e., around four o’clock Eastern Time zone.
After wrapping up current series Boston will be heading towards New York via train ride preparing themselves for upcoming three-match series against Yankees starting Friday night onwards hosted within Bronx borough limits.