By all accounts the Boston Red Sox had this one in the bag.

Facing a terrible Colorado Rockies team who came into Monday with the worst record in MLB, the Red Sox held a 2-0 lead and watched as the Rockies ran themselves out of a potential eighth inning rally after recording two outs on the base paths. With Aroldis Chapman coming on for the ninth, this one should have been a wrap.

And then, disaster.

Normally one of the most dominant relievers in baseball, Chapman completely melted down and allowed four straight hits to start the bottom of the ninth. The first three were singles to load the bases, and the last was a walk-off bases-clearing triple by Jake McCarthy to give the Rockies a shocking 3-2 win.

“They just took good at bats, there’s not much else to it,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “It doesn’t happen to us often and it hasn’t happened all year, those guys are tremendous at the back end and give credit where credit’s due.”

Dating back to the eighth inning the Rockies finished the game with eight consecutive hits, and it marked the first time this season the Red Sox have lost when leading after the eighth inning (31-1).

The bullpen collapse also spoiled a brilliant outing by rookie left-hander Jake Bennett, who struck out a career-high nine batters over six scoreless innings, and it marked the first blown save for Chapman since July 23, 2025.

“That stuff is in the past, it is what it is,” Chapman said about his 11-month stretch without a blown save via interpreter Daveson Perez. “I didn’t get the job done tonight, my job is to come through, and now we just turn the page and look forward to the next game.”

It was a wild finish to what started off as a sleepy affair.

Neither the Red Sox or Rockies could muster any sort of offense through the first half of the game. The Red Sox couldn’t score despite two walks in the first and then squandered a two-run, one-out opportunity in the second when Anthony Seigler lined out and Marcelo Mayer grounded out to end the threat.

Those two were the first of 13 straight Red Sox batters Rockies starter Ryan Feltner retired from the second into the sixth inning.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, Bennett was up to the task as well.

The rookie left-hander retired the first seven batters he faced and limited Colorado to four singles and no walks over six brilliant innings. He also benefited from some good defense behind him, particularly a diving catch in shallow center field by Ceddanne Rafaela in the third and a first pitch 4-6-3 double play to immediately wipe out Tyler Freeman’s leadoff single.

“He was awesome,” Tracy said. “Pounded the strike zone, got some quick outs, was in the zone, ahead in counts, a lot of weak contact, you couldn’t ask for more, he was tremendous.”

Feltner, who entered Monday with a 5.05 ERA through his first nine starts, reached the top of the sixth with only 59 pitches. He got two quick outs and looked set for another quick inning until Wilyer Abreu reached on a softly-hit infield single.

Then the game flipped on its head.

Willson Contreras busted out of his 2-for-24 slump by lining a double into right field, driving in Abreu for the game’s first run and giving the Red Sox a 1-0 lead. Jarren Duran walked and Caleb Durbin singled to score Contreras, improving his batting average to .327 with eight RBI in 17 games since the start of June.

Feltner needed 32 pitches to finally get out of the inning, finishing his outing with two runs allowed over six innings with four hits, four walks and two strikeouts.

Bennett was taken out after only throwing 72 pitches, though that was on par with his usual workload, having thrown fewer than 80 pitches in 12 of his 14 outings between Triple-A and the majors this season. Instead interim manager Chad Tracy handed the ball to Tyron Guerrero, who sent the Rockies down 1-2-3 in the seventh while hitting 101 mph on the radar gun.

Garrett Whitlock had a tougher time in the eighth but also preserved the 2-0 lead thanks to some great defense and boneheaded base running.

After drawing a leadoff lineout Whitlock allowed four consecutive singles, the first two coming from pinch hitters Edouard Julien and Mickey Moniak. Willi Castro had the third to center, but the Rockies tested Rafaela’s arm by sending Julien and paid for it after the Red Sox outfielder threw Julien out by a mile.

Then, to rub salt in the wound, Freeman’s single to right led to another base running blunder. Abreu’s quick throw home forced Moniak to hold up at third, but Castro wasn’t looking and almost ran all the way to third himself before he realized his mistake and was easily thrown out back at second to end the inning.

But the Rockies kept coming.

Still trailing by two in the bottom of the ninth, Colorado greeted Chapman with singles by TJ Rumfield, Hunter Goodman and Cole Carrigg to load the bases. Just like that the Red Sox found themselves hanging on by a thread, and McCarthy completed the rally by lining a 99.6 mph sinker down the left field line, which bounced off the left-field wall too awkwardly for Duran to field cleanly.

With that the winning run came in, and the Red Sox were left to wonder what just happened.

Though with the club now 31-45 on the season, Tracy said at this point it almost doesn’t matter how the losses come.

____

©2026 The Boston Herald. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.