Red Sox Notes: Back-To-Back Losses For Boston ‘Not Deflating’

The Boston Red Sox dropped their second straight game in extra innings, falling to the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night by failing to capitalize with runners in scoring position on nine different occasions during the ball game.

First baseman Justin Turner finished the night 2-for-5 from the plate, knocking in one of the runs but also stranding a runner.

“I mean, it’s baseball. There’s going to be ups and downs,” Turner told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “But obviously, you show up every day to win every single game and we know that over a 162-game season, we’re not going to win them all.

“But, as long as we can put ourselves in a position to win as many as most of those games as we can and give ourselves a chance every time. We go home tonight and shake it off and come back and try to win a game tomorrow.”

Manager Alex Cora told reporters after the game that starting pitcher Kutter Crawford didn’t have his command, but the bullpen did an outstanding job keeping the Red Sox within reach of winning the game.

“We’re trying to be disciplined. We’re not gonna burn these guys because we played close games and tonight there were a few guys down,” Cora said of the bullpen, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Joe (Jacques) did an outstanding job, threw the ball well. Corey (Kluber) did an amazing job. Chris (Martin) has been outstanding the last two, three weeks.

“At the end, Justin (Garza) didn’t throw strikes. … They did a good job putting the ball in play and doing their thing. They put up a big inning against us.”

Going extra innings in three straight games taxed the bullpen, but Cora isn’t taking the two straight losses to the Rockies as catastrophic.

“We just got to play well,” Cora said. “Two extra-inning games, it’s kinda like the flip of a coin. … Obviously yesterday we didn’t play well. Today, we played OK. We played better. We didn’t pitch the way we’ve been pitching lately. But you know, from my end, it’s not deflating.”

Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Red Sox-Rockies game:

— Kutter Crawford retired eight of the first nine batters he faced before allowing three runs off on three hits in the third inning.

— The Red Sox fell 3-2 in extra-inning games, along with dropping to 12-29 when the opponents score first and 29-11 when Boston scores four or more runs.

— Boston is 16-17 in games decided by two or fewer runs this season and 14 of their last 17 games have been decided by three or fewer runs.

— The Red Sox will look to avoid the sweep when they host the Rockies in the final game of the series Wednesday night. First pitch from Fenway is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET. You can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.

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