Red Sox commit three errors, struggle at the plate in sloppy 5-2 loss to Guardians; Chris Murphy strikes out 5 in major-league debut

The Red Sox were held to just five hits in a series-evening loss to the Guardians on Wednesday night. In the process of committing three more errors, Boston fell to Cleveland by a final score of 5-2 at Progressive Field to drop back to .500 at 31-31 on the season.

With rookie right-hander Tanner Bibee starting for the Guardians, the Sox jumped out to an early lead in their half of the first inning. Alex Verdugo drew a leadoff walk and moved up to second base on a Masataka Yoshida single. After Justin Turner popped out, Rafael Devers opened the scoring by plating Verdugo from second on a softly-hit bloop single to left field.

Verdugo, to his credit, made an excellent read on the ball and was able to score with ease. Unfortunately, Boston’s 1-0 lead did not last too long as Cleveland responded in the latter half of the second.

Kutter Crawford, in the midst of his fourth start of the season for the Sox and working on short rest, ran into some trouble after giving up a leadoff double to Josh Naylor. Josh Bell followed by driving in Naylor on an RBI single down the right field line to knot things back up at one run apiece.

After trading zeroes in the third, the fourth inning proved to be sloppy for both sides defensively. In the top half, Hernandez led off with a single and moved up to second on a throwing error committed by Andres Gimenez. Hernandez advanced to third before Enmanuel Valdez grounded into what looked like an inning-ending putout at first base.

Rather than record the final out of the inning, though, Naylor fumbled the ball as he attempted to make an underhanded toss to Bibee, who was covering the first-base bag. As a result of Naylor’s blunder, Hernandez scored from third to put Boston back up, 2-1.

Again, that lead was short-lived. In the bottom of the fourth, Amed Rosario led off with a single. Jose Ramirez then hit a grounder in the direction of Triston Casas, but the rookie first baseman failed to corral it and the ball wound up deflecting over to Valdez. Valdez fielded the ball cleanly, but his underhanded toss went over the head of Casas, allowing both Rosario and Ramirez to advance into scoring position.

Both Casas and Valdez were charged with errors on the play, but the Red Sox were not done yet. After Naylor singled in Rosario to tie and knock Crawford out of the game, Brennan Bernardino got Bell to hit a grounder to Devers, but the ball deflected off his glove and Ramirez came into score the go-ahead run as a result.

Devers allowed the Guardians to take a 3-2 lead on his sixth error of the season. Of those three runs, only one was charged to Crawford. The 27-year-old righty gave up five hits, zero walks, and struck out three over three-plus innings of work. He finished with 58 pitches (41 strikes) and was ultimately hit with the losing decision.

Picking things up in the middle of the fifth, Justin Garza took over for Bernardino out of the bullpen. Garza retired two of the first three batters he faced before surrendering back-to-back run-scoring doubles to Rosario and Ramirez with two outs in the inning to give Cleveland a 5-2 advantage.

Chris Murphy came on with two outs in the fifth and proceeded to impress in what was his major-league debut. After getting called up for the first time on Tuesday, the 25-year-old lefty scattered two hits and one walk to go along with a game-high five punchouts across 3 1/3 scoreless frames of relief.

Murphy retired the side in order in the sixth, worked his way around a single and a walk in the seventh, and stranded a runner at second in the eighth. The California-born southpaw threw 54 pitches (32 strikes) and induced seven swings-and-misses. He also averaged 94.5 mph and topped out at 95.8 mph with his four-seam fastball.

While Murphy was busy putting up zeroes, though, the Red Sox lineup was unable to close the gap. From the top of the sixth through the end of the ninth, four different Guardians relievers (Eli Morgan, Sam Hentges, Trevor Stephan, and closer Emmanuel Clase) combined for four scoreless innings of one-hit ball.

By the time Boston was down to its final three outs in the ninth, Jarren Duran made things somewhat interesting by drawing a leadoff walk and stealing second base. But Connor Wong and the pinch-hitting Rob Refsnyder both fanned before Christian Arroyo lined out sharply to deep center field to end it.

All told, the Red Sox went a measly 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base as a team. They were limited to just one hit after the fourth inning and have now dropped seven of their last 10.

Next up: Dermody gets the ball for rubber match

The Red Sox will select the contract of left-hander Matt Dermody from Triple-A Worcester and have him start the rubber match of this three-game set on Thursday. The Guardians will counter with right-hander Aaron Civale.

First pitch from Progressive Field is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. eastern time on NESN.