By signing Roman Anthony to an eight-year contract extension, Wednesday could go down as a momentous day in Red Sox history.
Just don’t ask how things went later that night.
The Red Sox saw their seven-game win streak come to an unceremonious end on Wednesday, losing 7-3 to the Kansas City Royals in the club’s worst all-around effort in weeks. The team committed two errors, set a franchise record by hitting five Royals batters, and went 2 for 7 with runners in scoring position.
The loss puts Boston four games back of Toronto in the AL East race following the Blue Jays’ 20-1 annihilation of the Colorado Rockies earlier in the day.
Dustin May’s first start as a member of the Red Sox didn’t go well. The former Los Angeles Dodgers hurler was highly inefficient and didn’t make it through the fourth inning, needing 91 pitches to record just 11 outs.
May was able to avoid serious damage early on, stranding two men in the top of the first before working around an error by Alex Bregman for a scoreless second. But in the third inning he gave up a leadoff double to Andover’s Mike Yastrzemski, who immediately came in to score on an RBI single by Bobby Witt Jr.
Then things completely got away in the fourth, when he allowed a leadoff walk and three straight singles, the last of which by No. 9 hitter Kyle Isbel drove in two to put the Royals ahead 3-2.
May was lifted with two outs, finishing his outing with three runs allowed over 3.2 innings with six hits, a walk, two hit batsmen and four strikeouts.
Meanwhile, former Red Sox starter Michael Wacha delivered a gem for the Royals.
The Red Sox got off to a strong start in the first, scoring twice on a two-run double by Romy Gonzalez that made it 2-0 out of the gate. But after that Wacha largely shut Boston’s bats down, retiring 15 of the last 17 batters he faced following Gonzalez’s icebreaking hit.
One of those batters was Anthony, who in the fifth inning appeared to tie the game with a towering fly ball to right field. It would have been a storybook moment for the rookie coming shortly after his $130 million extension, but while the ball would have been a home run in every other ballpark but Fenway, it stayed just close enough for Yastrzemski to haul in against the wall.
Wacha finished with two runs over six innings, allowing five hits, no walks and recording three strikeouts.
While the offense struggled to break through, Chris Murphy was able to keep it a one-run game. The left-hander got the final out of the fourth to strand a pair of Royals runners, and followed that with two scoreless frames.
The sixth inning almost went sideways, however, when Murphy hit the first two batters he faced and later allowed a deep fly ball off the bat of Randal Grichuk. That was hauled in by Jarren Duran, who made an incredible running grab near the warning track to save two runs, but both runners advanced to scoring position anyway when cutoff man Ceddanne Rafaela fired to first base to try and get a double play without realizing nobody was there to receive the throw.
Murphy intentionally walked Witt to load the bases but got out of the jam unscathed by drawing a groundout to first from Vinnie Pasquantino.
Jordan Hicks wasn’t so fortunate when he got into a jam in the top of the seventh. After allowing singles to Salvador Perez and Adam Frazier, he gave up a three-run shot to the Green Monster seats that put the Royals up 6-2.
Hicks was able to get out of the inning afterwards, but by that point the damage had been done. The Royals tacked on another run in the eighth on a Vinnie Pasquantino RBI single, and while Trevor Story was able to drive in Connor Wong with an RBI single in the bottom of the frame, the Red Sox never seriously threatened.
Even with the loss, the Red Sox finish the homestand 5-1 and have now won their last four series dating back to late July. The Red Sox also hosted another packed crowd of 37,012, the club’s 11th consecutive sellout at Fenway Park after tallying just seven all season prior.
The Red Sox now have Thursday off while they travel out to the west coast for this weekend’s series against old friend Xander Bogaerts and the San Diego Padres. First pitch Friday is scheduled for 9:40 p.m. ET.
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