By Tiffany Williams –
Fenway Park keeps watching the same movie over and over again. Different opponent. Different night. Same collapse.
The Boston Red Sox wasted another strong pitching performance Thursday night and got burned late by the Philadelphia Phillies, falling 3-1 in another brutal offensive faceplant at Fenway Park.
And at this point, the numbers are becoming impossible to ignore.
Boston has now scored one run or zero runs 12 different times this season. Twelve. The Red Sox have been held to two runs or fewer in five of their last seven home games. They are now 1-5-1 in home series play and have lost four straight home series since April 21.
That is not a playoff contender. That is a baseball team suffocating itself nightly.
The maddening part? The pitching has actually shown signs of stabilizing.
Red Sox pitchers own a 2.56 ERA in May. The starters, excluding openers, have posted a microscopic 1.61 ERA over the last eight games since May 3. Left-handed starters have completely outperformed the right-handers all season long.
And none of it matters because this lineup disappears for innings at a time.
Boston went 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position Thursday night and stranded runner after runner after runner in scoring position. The Red Sox left a runner on third with less than two outs in both the third and sixth innings and stranded seven total runners in scoring position overall.
That is how you lose winnable baseball games.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia walked into Fenway playing with confidence and swagger. The Phillies have now won 12 of their last 16 games and suddenly look alive again after their ugly six-series losing streak earlier this season.
Kyle Schwarber delivered the dagger Boston fans saw coming from a mile away.
Tie game in the eighth inning. Fenway tense. One mistake. Gone.
Schwarber crushed a go-ahead two-run home run in the eighth inning for his National League-leading 18th homer of the season. The Phillies slugger has now homered in six of his last seven games with seven home runs since May 7 and continues looking like one of the most dangerous power hitters in baseball.
That swing completely flipped the night.
Jesús Luzardo carved through Boston for six shutout innings, allowing just four hits while recording his fourth quality start of the season. Ranger Suarez was equally dominant for Boston early, retiring his first 11 batters faced and extending his scoreless streak to 19 innings.
Again — the pitching gave the Red Sox every opportunity to win.
The offense gave them almost nothing back.
Andruw Monasterio continued to be one of the few reliable sparks in this lineup, going 2-for-4 with two doubles and scoring Boston’s only run. Wilyer Abreu added two hits and an RBI single in the eighth inning to briefly give Fenway life.
But this offense still looks completely broken in big spots.
Boston now sits at 18-25 and the deeper this season goes, the uglier the reality becomes. The Red Sox are wasting quality starts, wasting bullpen performances and wasting opportunities because they simply cannot consistently score runs at Fenway Park.
That is the story of this season right now.
Not effort. Not pitching. Not bad luck.
Runs.
Or more accurately, the complete lack of them.