Bats quiet as Red Sox lose the opener of the season’s final series

The Red Sox’ failed pursuit beyond 162 games has become a norm.

Not in the souls of fans, per se, but ultimately, in the team’s results.

For the third consecutive season and the fifth occurrence in six years, the Sox will only play for pride. Yet even with that dark cloud hovering over Fenway since 2019, the reality still cuts deep. Manager Alex Cora acknowledged the deflated feeling Friday afternoon.

“It feels different,” he said. “But we’re going to show up the next three days and we’re going to play hard, you know? You can talk about the bullpen struggling, or the rotation struggling, not hitting, the defense sucks, whatever, you know, but you cannot say that we don’t play hard, right? And we’re going to do that for the next three days.”

On the first of three days against the Rays, Nick Pivetta did show up, but the bats were silenced once again, in a 2-1 loss to Tampa Bay.

The righthander will head into free agency with a 4.14 ERA after going 6⅔ innings, allowing two earned runs on four hits and a walk. Pivetta made it through six innings without yielding a run in what was then a scoreless tie. But a one-out walk followed by a Jonny DeLuca single in the seventh, with Pivetta’s pitch count approaching 100, had the Sox’s bullpen stirring.

A brief mound visit from pitching coach Andrew Bailey proved ineffective as Josh Lowe launched a double off the left-center field wall, scoring the first run of the game. DeLuca tried to score from first but was gunned down by relay man Trevor Story for the second out.

Cora praised his starter after the game.

“He was excellent,” said the Sox manager. “Fastball command was on point. Using both sides of the plate. [Locating] up and down. Overall, a really good one.”

Nick Pivetta tipped his cap to the fans after making what could be his final start for the Red Sox.Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

Zach Penrod took over for Pivetta and struggled. He walked a batter, and then hit one to load the bases, before walking another to force in a run.

Rays starter Taj Bradley totaled six scoreless innings, striking out seven while allowing just three hits.

The Sox got one run back in the seventh on a Nick Sogard sacrifice fly. However, with two outs, Jarren Duran laced a ball to center for the final out of the frame, stranding runners at the corners.

In the eighth inning, the Red Sox were retired in order by Manuel Rodriguez behind a strikeout by Trevor Story, a ground out from Triston Casas, and another strikeout from Connor Wong.

Vaughn Grissom collected his third hit of the evening with a one-out single in the ninth against Edwin Uceta, but Romy Gonzalez flied out to right and Sogard struck out to end it.

Yet within the “Who Cares?” Classic that was played Friday, was a clearly emotional Pivetta, who did care. The five seasons he accumulated with the Sox, brought him to tears in the dugout after Cora took him out. Even amidst the lows of an inconsistent Sox tenure — such as last year’s demotion to the bullpen and struggles against the American League East in ‘22 — he maintained a sense of gratitude toward the Sox, although the team punched their ticket to the postseason just once.

“I think the road to greatness is a weird one and there’s a lot of different turns and a lot of different variations to it,” said Pivetta. “I think that through the three years, there has been growth and there’s been change, and I think it’s growing up to a moment that I think this organization, this team, is very capable of doing. I mean, from hands down, everybody shows up and does the right things.”

The “right things” ultimately weren’t right — again. Now, it will be up to chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to shift the Sox’ fate this offseason.

That likely doesn’t include Pivetta — a starter with the kind of stuff that makes analytics departments drool — but one that likely fails to get the Sox over the hump.

“He likes it here. He likes the atmosphere,” said Cora.

At one point after his outing, Pivetta took a seat in Cora’s managerial spot in the Sox dugout, taking in the Fenway air, while reminiscing on moments. He was in awe of Cora’s view, to which Cora responded, “It’s better when Kyle Schwarber hits it out of the ballpark,” a reference to Schwarber’s home run off Yankee starter Gerrit Cole in the ‘21 Wild Card Game at Fenway.

It was a clear message relayed by Cora, however lighthearted: losing just isn’t a good feeling.