Mid-August represents baseball’s Heartbreak Hill, each setback magnified both by the exhaustion of the season’s late stage and desperation to grab at a goal that remains within reach but can recede quickly.
On Wednesday night at Fenway, the Red Sox gave ground. With a chance to complete a three-game sweep against the Rangers, they gave away leads of one, two, and three runs, ultimately falling, 9-7, in 10 innings. In a sloppy yet winnable game, defeat came from the increasingly familiar pairing of poor defense and a bullpen meltdown.
“It’s frustrating,” said reliever Josh Winckowski. “We’ve all kind of taken turns [blowing games]. It’s not like you can look at one guy. We’re all kind of, at different points, failing to do our part.”
Where to begin? Perhaps in the top of the ninth on what should have been the game’s final play.
The Sox had just rallied for three runs in the eighth to turn a 4-4 game into a seemingly comfortable 7-4 advantage. Three-run lead with three outs? Pshaw.
Except that the degree of difficulty was elevated by a shorthanded bullpen.
Closer Kenley Jansen was unavailable. Setup man Chris Martin, who’d been earmarked for the ninth, instead had to enter the game in the eighth to clean up the mess of Luis García, who’d allowed two runs to turn a 4-2 advantage into a 4-4 tie.
And so, Winckowski got the ninth. He opened the inning by allowing back-to-back singles. Atop that ominous beginning came a plot twist: Second baseman Nick Sogard’s calf had tightened. He exited the game.
And so, the Sox scrambled in a game of musical chairs: Rob Refsnyder entered in left field, Jarren Duran went from left to center, Ceddanne Rafaela relocated from center to shortstop, and David Hamilton moved from short to second. Cue foreshadowing music.
Winckowski got a popup for the first out, then elicited a grounder to second from Nathaniel Lowe.
“We got the ground-ball double play,” said manager Alex Cora.
Only they failed to turn what would have been a game-ending GIDP. After Hamilton’s clean throw to second, Rafaela’s relay to first baseman Romy Gonzalez was slightly high.
Perhaps if Rafaela hadn’t just moved to short, he’d have made a clean throw. Perhaps a more experienced first baseman — Gonzalez, prior to 2024, hadn’t played first since 2019 — would have corralled the throw and held the bag with his foot to close out a 7-4 win.
Neither happened. The Rangers had life, and with runners on the corners and two outs, Winckowski left a thigh-high cutter over the plate to rookie Wyatt Langford. When the ball descended in the Monster Seats following a 389-foot journey, the game was tied.
One inning later, with an automatic runner on second, Zack Kelly tried to get ahead with a first-pitch cutter. The offering found the middle of the zone, and Jonah Heim drilled a two-run homer just over the fence into the Sox bullpen for a 9-7 advantage that proved decisive.
That debacle undid what could have been a plucky, sweep-completing victory.
Despite a distrustful relationship with the strike zone throughout the night (64 of 108 pitches, 59 percent, for strikes), Sox starter Tanner Houck incited a grass-manicuring succession of grounders, particularly with runners on base, to subdue the Rangers over 6⅔ innings — his longest outing since late June.
“Pushed myself tonight going 108 pitches, but felt great,” said Houck.
After the Sox took a 2-1 lead in the second on a Sogard safety squeeze and Hamilton RBI single, Houck held Texas scoreless for the next three innings.
The Rangers did tie the game, 2-2, in the sixth when Adolis García ripped a perfectly located 3-2 slider into the Monster Seats for a solo homer, but the Sox immediately answered with two runs (a solo homer by Wilyer Abreu, a sacrifice fly by Gonzalez) to take a 4-2 lead. Houck made it stand.
But in the seventh, Luis García proved unable to preserve the lead. He allowed a homer to slugger Adolis García — his second launch of the night, and one of three long balls allowed by the Sox bullpen.
With the game now 4-3, García’s wobble became more dramatic, allowing two infield singles.
Still, García — who has allowed runs in five straight games — got the outcome he wanted: a two-out grounder up the middle by No. 9 hitter Leody Taveras. But Hamilton — then at short — rushed his effort to glove the ball and make a quick transfer. The ball clanged off Hamilton’s glove for a tying E6, increasing the Sox’ major league-high total of unearned runs to a ghastly 78.
“Defense is going to dictate who we are,” said Cora. “If we don’t play defense, we’re not going to make it to October. Today, we didn’t make a few plays, and it cost us.”
It almost didn’t. The Sox answered the Rangers’ two-run eighth-inning rally with a larger one, scoring three two-out runs in the bottom of the eighth on a Danny Jansen RBI double, backed by a two-run double from Gonzalez.
It seemed like enough — until it wasn’t. Again.
Since the All-Star break, the Sox bullpen has 11 blown saves (four more than any team), allowed 23 homers (second-most: 20), and a 6.82 ERA (second-worst: 5.56), pulling away in a race they have no desire to win.
“I still trust in this group,” said Kelly. “I don’t think a couple-week stretch really defines who we are or kind of erases all the other stuff that we’ve done this season. Just a tough, rough patch right now, but I still ride with those guys.”
But where are they riding? For now, a bit further from the lead pack — two games behind the Royals for the final wild-card spot — and fighting not to be broken by what remains of Heartbreak Hill.
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.