CHICAGO — The Red Sox trailed by a run with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Gavin Sheets was on first after Kutter Crawford handed out a leadoff walk and Andrew Benintendi, who had Boston’s number all series, was at the plate.
Sheets got a head start, moving on the 3-2 pitch that Benintendi would hit down the right-field line. The ball kicked right, ricocheting off the padding in foul territory before Rob Refsnyder corralled it, tossing it toward the first cutoff man, Christian Arroyo, who positioned himself in short right field.
But Refsnyder overthrew Arroyo and the ball fell into the glove of Triston Casas, the second cutoff man. The mishap by Refsnyder gave Sheets time to score, putting the Sox in a two-run hole.
“It’s my fault,” Refsnyder said after the Sox’ 4-1 defeat and series loss to the White Sox. “I take accountability for that, for sure. I just got to hit the first cut.”
“If we hit the [first] cutoff, we get the guy at the plate,” manager Alex Cora said.
Yet the Sox had a chance at recovery, even after the throw sailed high.
When the ball was hit beyond his reach and into right field, Casas hit the snooze button. First, he floated to his position. Second, his head was down. Third, he drifted to his spot as the second cut, likely not anticipating an airmailed throw. Fourth, Casas turned his back on the play behind him, meaning he had no awareness of where Sheets was on the bases.
“That’s a tough situation there,” Cora noted. “But as an infielder, you’ve got to keep looking back, keep looking back. He caught it and then looked.”
The look could be translated to hesitation. The ball fell into Casas’s glove. The slow-footed Sheets, meanwhile, was roughly halfway to home. The play would have been close, maybe Sheets would have been safe, but Casas elected not to throw home. He glanced at third, but threw to second behind Benintendi, who was already on his way to third. It should be noted that Rafael Devers, standing flat-footed and playing spectator, was slow to break to third base for what seemingly would have been a tough throw for Casas to make at a moving target.
Benintendi slid in safely.
Though Benintendi was left stranded at third, mental and defensive lapses — coupled with injuries and lack of talent — have played a significant role in the Sox’ 40-39 record
They won the first two games against the Twins, then lost their next two to split the series. They won their first game against Chicago on Friday, then lost their next two to lose the series.
“I mean, that’s the goal every series is to obviously win the series,” said Adam Duvall, who had two of the Sox’ five hits in what was a bullpen contest for the White Sox. “We took care of the first part and didn’t finish it. So it happens but we got to do a little better job of finishing.”
Crawford surrendered four runs on five hits in his six innings, which included a two-homer day by Luis Robert Jr., his third in two games.
The Red Sox offense hit another rut this series when the game mattered most. The club was 3 for 18 with runners in scoring position in the three games.
“Today we had chances early on, we didn’t put the ball in play,” Cora said. “We had first and second no outs [in the second inning] Bobby [Dalbec] strikes out, Arroyo does, too. Infield single and then Caleb [Hamilton] strikes out.
“We set it up with Casas [in the third inning]. We had an idea they were going to a righty. They went to it and we took our shot there. He put a good at-bat but it didn’t work out. We haven’t hit with men in scoring position the last two days. Not too many opportunities, either.”
The Sox had an opportunity in the fifth inning, however, to keep the game at a run. But much like the season, the club couldn’t close the deal.
Julian McWilliams can be reached at julian.mcwilliams@globe.com. Follow him @byJulianMack.