Brayan Bello had his roughest outing of the season on the mound on Wednesday afternoon, as the Boston Red Sox dropped the rubber match of a three game series to the Oakland Athletics 6-5 at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The loss snaps a steak of four straight series wins for Boston.
Bello, who has become the ace of the pitching staff and hadn’t given up more than three earned runs since his first start of the season back on April 17 against the Los Angeles Angels when he gave up five, was touched up for six runs in the defeat. After Justin Turner gave Boston (51-46) a 2-0 first inning lead with a two-run homerun, Oakland would answer in the bottom half when JJ Bleday took Bello deep with a two-run shot to rightfield. The Athletics jumped in front for good with one out in the second with a man on base when Cody Thomas hit a two-run homer to right center. Bello in his last inning of work would cough up his third two-run longball of the afternoon when Jace Peterson also found the seats in right centerfield in the fourth to make it 6-2. The Sox worked their way back into the game scoring two in the fifth inning that included an error, on a Rob Refsnyder RBI single and a run scoring groundout from Turner to slice the deficit in half. With Kike Hernandez batting in the sixth, the visitors cut it to a single run when Hernandez reached on another Oakland error that scored Adam Duvall. They couldn’t get the tying run across however going down in order in the seventh and eighth innings, and then in the ninth with Connor Wong at second base and two outs Refsnyder would line out sharply to the rightfielder Thomas to end it.
Bello (7-6) had a final line of 4.0 innings pitched and was charged with six runs on five hits with two walks and three strikeouts in taking the loss. Joely Rodriguez, Josh Winckowski, and Kenley Jansen helped keep Boston in the game firing a combined 4.0 innings not allowing any runs with six strikeouts. Duvall had two hits to lead the offense and Turner drove in three. Tony Kemp, Bleday, Jordan Diaz, and Thomas each had two hits for Oakland (27-71). Angel Felipe (1-0) picked up the pitching win in relief of Ken Waldichuk. Trevor May got his eighth save of the season. Waldichuk went the first 4.1 innings allowing four runs on five hits in the no-decision. The Red Sox now have the day off on Thursday and return to Boston to open a three game interleague series and a five game homestand with the New York Mets at Fenway Park on Friday night at 7:10. Righthander Kutter Crawford (4-4, 3.74 ERA) takes to the bump in the opener, to be opposed by Mets righty Kodai Senga (7-5, 3.20).
Story by Chris Lessner/Video highlights courtesy of MLB on YouTube
