The Red Sox saw a 5-0 lead vanish Wednesday night at Fenway Park against the Orioles.
The bullpen, anchored by two of its most dependable arms, leaked in a 7-5 loss and series defeat.
The Orioles posted three runs on reliever Isaiah Campbell in the sixth. But the real damage came in the seventh when Chris Martin, the Sox’ best arm out of the bullpen last season, yielded a Ryan O’Hearn one-out single before walking Ryan Mountcastle, followed by a catcher’s interference call against Connor Wong to load the bases. A wild pitch scored O’Hearn, and, later on, with two outs, Jordan Westburg drilled a three-run shot to center, giving the Orioles a two-run lead.
“Did a pretty bad job of managing that inning,” Martin said. “Obviously a lot of things happened. But it was just a bad job by me with managing that inning and executing pitches.”
The surrendered lead, and all that came with it, was an anomaly for Martin. If you’re looking for the last time he conceded a homer, you would have to go back to July 28 of last season when the Sox played the Giants at Oracle Park. Before that was exactly a year ago from Wednesday when the Sox were at Tampa. Martin allowed only two homers in 2023. Martin’s walk to Mountcastle was his first this season. He had just eight last year. His most recent came on Aug. 23 in Houston.
But that holds no weight for Martin.
“To be completely honest with you, that’s last year,” Martin firmly asserted. “I’m not even thinking about last year. I’m trying to improve off that season and get better. It happens. It’s baseball. I want to continue to work as hard as I can.
“But I got to do a better job of managing that inning. That’s something that I can control. I didn’t control it very well today, so that’s why I am a little more upset than normal.”
The breakdown from Campbell, described by manager Alex Cora as lacking feel for his cutter, and Martin, spoiled an arduous but effective outing from Kutter Crawford.
In the fourth and fifth innings, Crawford’s struggles with pitching deep into the game appeared to stifle his ability once more, mirroring his start in Anaheim when he toiled, but ultimately failed to deliver five innings in a Red Sox loss.
“It was kind of similar [to the start against the Angels],” said Crawford. “I just kind of got out there for the fourth and fifth inning and got out of sync command-wise.”
Crawford had to lean on his sweeper, the only pitch he felt he could really locate. He navigated the meat of the lineup for the first two outs of the fourth. He induced an Adley Rutschman ground out. Then Anthony Santander to pop out in foul territory. But Crawford, who retired 11 of the 12 batters he faced, relinquished a two-out walk to O’Hearn. The next batter, Mountcastle, slashed a single to right-center, putting runners on first and third before Cedric Mullins walked on four pitches. Yet Crawford wiggled out of the jam, striking out Colton Cowser to end the inning.
He loaded the bases again in the fifth, but again wiggled his way out of trouble — this time inducing a ground out to first. Crawford’s outing included four walks and a hit batter. Still, he limited the Orioles to just two hits.
“At one point he lost his delivery,” said Cora. “But he battled. He gave us five. He gave us enough.”
The Sox’ offense gave the club enough, or so it seemed. The Sox tagged lefthander Cole Irving for five runs, highlighted by a Triston Casas two-run shot in the fifth that made it 5-0.
But the Sox offense went cold after the fifth inning, collecting just one hit, a Masataka Yoshida chopper through the right side in the sixth. The Sox struck out 13 times, nine of which came after the fifth.
“With a team like that, that doesn’t stop and is relentless offensively, you’ve got to keep adding on,” said Cora.
The Red Sox didn’t add on, and in the end, the bullpen sputtered.
Julian McWilliams can be reached at julian.mcwilliams@globe.com. Follow him @byJulianMack.