Red Sox squander one opportunity after another in shutout loss to Blue Jays

BOSTON — The Red Sox have had no shortage of scoring opportunities this week, and in Tuesday night’s series opener the offense endured one of its most frustrating performances of the season, going 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position while stranding 13 batters in a loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Somehow, the Red Sox outdid themselves Wednesday.

Even with the Blue Jays going with a hastily arranged bullpen game, the Red Sox still squandered one chance after another. Boston had runners reach second base in each of the first six innings, but ultimately went 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position with 13 men left on base in a 3-0 loss.

It was the Red Sox’s third straight loss after winning the first two games of the homestand over the weekend, and it also dropped Boston to 29-42 and a season-low 13 games below .500.

The Red Sox were originally slated to face off against future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer but instead faced the Blue Jays bullpen when Scherzer was scratched from his start and placed on the 15-day injured list with back spasms shortly before first pitch.

Much like Tuesday night against Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease, the Red Sox had plenty of early opportunities but struggled to capitalize.

Opener Braydon Fisher worked around two first-inning walks to record 1 1/3 scoreless innings, and bulk reliever Simeon Woods Richardson took the ball from there and continued frustrating the Red Sox batters.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa was stranded in the second when he walked and stole second, Wilyer Abreu in the third after a two-out double and two men were left after a short-lived fourth-inning rally.

That rally was hampered when Jarren Duran was hit by Masataka Yoshida’s hard hit ground ball going from first to second, which resulted in him being called out and Yoshida awarded a single. Kiner-Falefa followed with another walk but Woods Richardson retired the next two to escape the jam.

The biggest missed opportunity came in the fifth when the Red Sox loaded the bases but couldn’t get a run across. Ceddanne Rafaela hit a one-out single that chased Woods Richardson for left-hander Mason Fluharty, who allowed an Abreu single, struck out Willson Contreras and walked Duran.

With the bases loaded Boston pinch hit Nate Eaton for the left-handed hitting Masataka Yoshida, and Blue Jays manager John Schneider responded by going to the pen again for right-hander Spencer Miles. The move paid off as Miles forced Eaton to ground out to first, once again leaving the Red Sox with nothing to show for all their work.

The offense also didn’t do much to lift up rookie starter Jake Bennett.

After Bennett retired the first six batters he faced, Toronto got some traffic in the top of the third and immediately set about causing havoc. The Blue Jays took a 1-0 lead when Davis Schneider led off with a double and scored on an Andres Gimenez RBI single, and over the next two at-bats Gimenez and George Springer — who reached after getting hit by a pitch — combined to steal four bases.

Both runners moved up on a double steal during Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s at-bat, putting Gimenez in position to score when Guerrero grounded out to third, and Springer moved to third as well with two outs when Kazuma Okamoto was at the plate, though Bennett also forced him to ground out to keep it a 2-0 game.

Bennett kept the Blue Jays off the base paths for most of the rest of his outing, retiring nine straight batters between the third and sixth innings before allowing a single to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with one out in the sixth. He finished with two runs allowed on three hits, no walks and five strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings in one of the strongest starts of his young MLB career.

Yet he was still on the hook for the loss.

The Blue Jays extended their lead to 3-0 in the eighth on an RBI bloop single by Guerrero off right-hander Greg Weissert, and the Red Sox offense went quietly the rest of the way. One more runner reached second in the eighth after Andruw Monasterio singled and advanced on a groundout, but he was stranded like all the others.

Wednesday marked the fourth time this season the Red Sox have been shut out, and the last time the Red Sox were as many as 13 games below .500 was at the end of the 2020 season, when the club fell as far as 15 games under in late September before winning five of the team’s last seven games to end the year.

Before that you’d have to go back another five years to August 2015, when the Red Sox fell a season-low 14 games under in the midst of that season’s last-place campaign.

The Red Sox will look to avoid a home sweep Thursday. First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 p.m.

Sandoval, Gonzalez latest

Red Sox left-hander Patrick Sandoval made his latest rehab start for Double-A Portland on Wednesday, allowing one run over three innings on one hit, one walk and four strikeouts. The lone run came on a solo home run and Sandoval otherwise faced two batters over the minimum.

Infielder Romy Gonzalez also appeared in the second game of his rehab stint, starting at designated hitter and going 0 for 3 with a hit by pitch and a run scored for the Portland Sea Dogs.

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