The Thursday, August 13, 2020

* The Boston Globe

Red Sox lose another to Rays

Alex Speier

Good teams take advantage of their extra opportunities. Bad teams provide them. On Wednesday night, the Red Sox and Rays held true to form as Tampa Bay jumped out to an 8-0 advantage and then held on for a 9-5 victory at Fenway.

Three defensive mishaps in the first two innings charted the game’s course. In the top of the first inning, a hard grounder by Yandy Diaz clanged off the glove of first baseman to put two on with one out. After a walk loaded the bases, smashed a hard grounder to first, and this time the ball found Chavis’s glove — tailor made for a force at the plate or perhaps a play.

But the ball stuck in the webbing of the first baseman’s mitt, and so he could get just the out at first base as the first Rays scored. It would not be the last.

One inning later, Sox starter Zack Godley allowed a leadoff homer to as the Rays stretched their lead to 2-0. Godley would have escaped the inning without further harm, but right fielder Kevin Pillar lost a routine two-out fly ball in the twilight for an Austin Meadows . One batter later, Brandon Lowe took advantage of the extended opportunity, crushing a ball deep into the right field grandstand for a two- run homer. What could have been a one-run game had mushroomed into a 4-0 advantage.

“It’s just hard to say what’s going to happen from game to game,” said manager . “When things aren’t going well, you see some weird stuff happening … Things just aren’t going well. That’s all there is to it. Things aren’t going well, we’re not getting breaks, and weird things are happening.”

Tampa Bay extended the lead to 8-0 by the fourth inning and appeared set to cruise to victory. Though the Red Sox rallied for five runs in the eighth — an uprising keyed by a J.D. Martinez and solid long relief from — the deficit proved too much to overcome, a statement that feels like it might also ring true about the Red Sox’ 2020 season.

The Sox are 6-12, the worst record in the American League and the second worst in the majors. Eighteen games into this misshapen season, the acrid stench of defeat is already familiar.

Some takeaways:

▪ The Red Sox have lost three straight to Tampa Bay to open the series at Fenway, and in the process, they’ve dropped to 1-7 against the Rays and Yankees this season. Dating to 2019, the Sox are 13-33 (.283 winning percentage) against the two — the sort of head-to-head failure that makes it challenging to anticipate a return to contention in the division until there are far-reaching improvements.

▪ The mere fact that Godley — released by the Tigers in mid-July — started on three days’ rest following a sharp four-inning outing against the Blue Jays on Saturday speaks volumes about the startling lack of depth in the Red Sox rotation. Godley’s performance on Wednesday amplified the point.

While the Red Sox defense did the righthander no favors in the first two innings, the Rays found him an easy mark, well aware of his shift in reliance from his two-seam fastball in past years to a cutter this year. The Rays smashed three homers off Godley, two on cutters, and amassed 10 hits and eight runs in three- plus innings. It was the ugliest line of the year for a Sox starting in a season that has offered impressive competition for that distinction.

▪ When Pillar led off the first inning for the Red Sox with the longest plate appearance — a 10-pitch confrontation with 2018 Cy Young winner Blake Snell that resulted in a single — it seemed like the Sox had a chance to build on a spark. Instead, Rafael Devers — in his first plate appearance after missing two games because of an ankle injury — grounded into a double play on the second pitch he saw, and Martinez followed with a two-pitch out.

Snell never was challenged again, cruising through five scoreless innings in which he scattered four hits, didn’t walk a batter, and struck out six. Snell needed just 70 pitches to complete his night’s work.

Even when the Sox lineup is at its best, Snell has proven capable of mastering it. Even so, the ease with which Tampa Bay’s have dissected Red Sox hitters has been startling. The Sox entered Wednesday having swung at 34.2 percent of pitches out of the strike zone, the highest chase rate in the majors, and a shortcoming easily exposed by a Tampa Bay staff that’s loaded with pitchers who have excellent breaking stuff.

▪ Down, 8-0, in the eighth, the Sox rallied for five runs against Rays reliever Aaron Slegers, who was in his third inning after being called up on Wednesday. Four straight singles plated one run before Martinez unloaded on a first-pitch slider for a grand slam, his second homer in three games. The glimmers of a return to form for Martinez could loom large for the Sox — whether in helping the team to escape its morass or potentially in elevating the slugger’s value before the Aug. 31 trade deadline.

▪ After Godley’s early exit, Weber — recalled from the alternate training site on Wednesday — delivered six sharp innings of relief, allowing one run (a ninth-inning homer) while walking none and striking out four.

The Sox had planned to give Weber another start, but based on his success as a long reliever, Roenicke said the team would consider having him continue to work out of the bullpen. Either way, Weber and the Sox found the outing encouraging after the righthander’s struggles in three starts prior to his brief trip to Pawtucket.

“I pitched decent in this role last year,” Weber said of long relief. “After tonight, it’s obviously worked better than the three starts I had, that’s for sure.”

Kyle Hart to make major league debut Thursday for Red Sox

Peter Abraham

Kyle Hart was called into a meeting with Red Sox minor league director Ben Crockett, A manager Billy McMillon, and two of the pitching coaches at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket earlier this week.

They told the lefthander that was fining him for not wearing his mask when he was supposed to.

Hart, knowing such a thing could well happen, was worried for a second.

Then he was told he could pay his fine at Fenway Park … because he was being called up to face the on Thursday afternoon.

Even in a pandemic, pranking a player on his way to the big leagues for the first time continues.

Hart was quick to call his family and friends with the good news. In a normal season, they’d all be on their way to Fenway Park, but they will settle for watching on television instead.

“It totally is a disappointment. But it’s something everybody is dealing with,” Hart said. “We all kind of have to lean on each other.”

Ryan Hart decided to fly to Boston anyway. He plans to find a bar near Fenway and watch his brother pitch from there.

“That’s just who he is,” Kyle Hart said. “I’d love to be able to wave at him.”

Righthander Aaron Slegers, one of Hart’s college teammates, was called up by the Rays on Wednesday. He made his major league debut in 2017.

Slegers was thrilled when he heard Hart was getting a chance.

“I jumped up out of my chair and gave a little shout in my hotel room,” he said. “I made a point when pitchers were stretching out there on the field to walk out there and give him a little chest bump congratulations from the opposite foul line, a socially distant congratulations.”

That Hart is starting a major league game in the first place is its own story.

He had Tommy John surgery in 2014 while playing for the University of Indiana. The Red Sox liked Hart enough to select him in the 19th round of the draft in 2016, but they invested only a $5,000 signing bonus.

“I wanted to give it a shot. I didn’t know how much I’d love it,” he said.

Most college draft picks start out at Lowell in the New York-Penn League. Hart was sent to the Gulf Coast League Red Sox with the high school kids.

But Hart posted a 3.13 average in 77 games, 71 of them starts. At 27, he’ll make his debut.

“None of this was handed to me. I earned every drop of it,” Hart said. “I’m going to continue to earn every drop of it.”

Hart doesn’t throw hard but attacks hitters with a variety of pitches. He changes angles and speeds. In essence, he knows how to pitch.

The Red Sox have been running what amounts to a tryout camp on the mound with an assortment of no- hopers getting opportunities.

At least Hart is a product of the organization. As manager Ron Roenicke noted, it’s a good day for the people who worked with Hart along the way.

Judge questionable Aaron Judge was out of the lineup for the Yankees on Wednesday with what was described as lower-body soreness by manager Aaron Boone.

His status for the four-game series against the Red Sox that starts Friday in the Bronx is uncertain.

“That’s a long way from now,” Boone said.

Judge .290 with nine home runs and 20 RBIs through his first 17 games. He was 4 for 12 in three games against the Sox earlier this season with four home runs and eight RBIs.

Eovaldi pushed back Nate Eovaldi, who started on Sunday, will not pitch again until Saturday against the Yankees. The Sox decided to give him an extra day off. “We all thought that was really the best way to do it,” Roenicke said. “I know Nate still wants to come back and pitch on his fifth day. But whenever we can do it, we’d like to take care of those starters.” The Sox have not named a starter for Friday night. Martin Perez would be available for Sunday … Michael Chavis beat himself up after the game Tuesday after a mental at second base, saying he has worked hard on defense since being drafted. He started at first base on Wednesday and misplayed the first ball hit his way. He later got a ball stuck in the webbing of his glove and couldn’t throw home on what should have been an out. The Rays went on to a 9-5 victory … Tampa Bay used righthander Andrew Kittredge to get the final two outs against the Red Sox on Monday, then started him against the Sox on Tuesday. Kittredge lasted only two batters before leaving the game with an elbow injury that proved to be a sprained ulnar collateral ligament. He was placed on the 45-day and is likely to require Tommy John surgery.

Red Sox outfielder placed on injured list

Peter Abraham

Andrew Benintendi had two hits against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night, which doubled his total for the season. But whatever progress that represented was blunted in the eighth inning when he suffered an injury that landed him on the injured list.

Benintendi was diagnosed with a strain on the right side of his rib cage. X-rays were negative, but the left fielder will be shut down for at least two weeks based on further tests.

“He’s going to be a while,” manager Ron Roenicke said. “It’s going to be more than that 10 days.”

Rib cage injuries are often slow to heal. With the 6-12 Sox having the worst record in the American League, they’ll likely proceed cautiously with Benintendi

Benintendi was injured when he stumbled and fell trying to go from first to third on a single and was “hurting” after the game, according to Roenicke.

The Red Sox did not make Benintendi available to the media.

Alex Verdugo started in left field on Wednesday with Kevin Pillar in right. That is likely how the Sox will line up in most games with Benintendi out. J.D. Martinez, Jose Peraza, and Tzu-Wei Lin will be used, as well.

Martinez has played only one game in the outfield this season but has experience on the corners. Peraza, usually an infielder, has 37 career starts in the outfield. Lin has two.

“We think we’re covered fine there,” Roenicke said.

It may not be the worst thing for Benintendi to miss some time. He has hit .103 with a .442 OPS, one extra- base hit, and one RBI over 14 games.

Through Tuesday, Benintendi had the lowest average among the 169 players in the majors with at least 50 plate appearances and the third-lowest OPS.

“I was hoping with the two hits that he got to start off [Tuesday] that was going to kick-start him some,” Roenicke said. “Actually, this is really unfortunate. I think it’s a tough break.”

This is Benintendi’s first stint on the injured list since 2016, when he sprained his left knee in a game against the Rays on Aug. 24 at Tropicana Field and missed three weeks.

He was injured running from second to third in that game, too.

Benintendi appeared to be a star on the rise early in his career, hitting .282 with an .806 OPS from 2016-18. He also stole 42 bases in 50 attempts and played above-average defense.

The 26-year-old has since hit .255 with a .751 OPS over 152 games and stolen only 11 bases in 16 attempts. His defense has fallen off, too.

Righthander Ryan Weber was recalled from the Pawtucket reserve group to replace Benintendi on the roster.

Weber started three games before he was demoted on Saturday. The Red Sox were hoping not to use him, but he pitched six innings of relief in a 9-5 loss against the Rays and threw 58 pitches.

* The Boston Herald

J.D. Martinez hits late grand slam, but Red Sox can’t overcome early hole in 9-5 loss to Rays

Steve Hewitt

For a moment, J.D. Martinez’s eighth-inning grand slam gave the Red Sox a rare sign of life.

But like so many positive moments for the Red Sox this season, it was fleeting. The Red Sox had trailed 8- 0 going into the eighth and rallied to make it 8-5 with no outs on Martinez’s homer over the Green Monster. But the rally stopped there, and the Red Sox couldn’t overcome more bad pitching and even more sloppiness in a 9-5 loss to the Rays at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox will send rookie Kyle Hart to the mound Thursday as they try to avoid a sweep. Here were three takeaways from Wednesday’s loss:

One play says it all: If there was one sequence of events that could sum up the 2020 version of the Red Sox, it came in the second inning.

The Rays led 2-0 with two outs and no one on when Zack Godley induced Austin Meadows into what should have been a routine fly ball to right field for the third out. But Kevin Pillar lost the ball in the twilight, Jackie Bradley Jr. couldn’t get over in time and it dropped onto the grass.

Godley’s very next pitch, a cutter to Brandon Lowe, was crushed into the right-field seats for a two-run homer to make it 4-0. The Rays never looked back from there.

The Red Sox, who entered the night with the third-most errors in the American League this season, were again sloppy on defense, even if they didn’t commit any errors. A night after Michael Chavis blamed himself for the Red Sox’ loss due to a misplay he made at second base, he made a couple of mistakes at first in the first inning. First, a grounder deflected off his glove, allowing Yandy Diaz to reach, before another grounder got caught in the webbing of his glove, allowing the game’s first run to score.

“When things aren’t going well, you see some weird stuff happening,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “Things aren’t going well, that’s all there is to it. They’re not going well, we’re not getting breaks. And weird things are happening.”

Godley hits another setback: Godley can only put so much blame on his defense for this one, because he had his worst start in a Red Sox uniform.

After a bounce-back outing against the Blue Jays last weekend, it went downhill quickly for the right- hander, who faced 21 Rays batters, gave up 10 hits and eight earned runs, which included three homers. Rays batters had a field day against him, hitting five extra-base hits, all of which were smoked. Two of the three homers he surrendered were on the first pitch, and the other was on the second. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

Eighteen games into the season, the Red Sox still can’t find a suitable starter outside and Martin Perez. The Sox are 5-3 this season when their top two pitchers start, and 1-9 when anyone else does. No starter besides Eovaldi or Perez has completed at least four innings yet.

Ironically, Ryan Weber, who was the Red Sox’ No. 3 starter to start the season but was optioned last weekend after three bad starts, was recalled Wednesday and threw six innings in relief, giving up five hits and one run as he struck out four.

“It would be nice to reverse those zeroes but this is just a strange game and you have things happen,” Roenicke said. “Zack, the last outing, threw up a bunch of zeroes. Just hard to say what’s going to happen from game to game.”

Blake Snell cruises through Red Sox lineup: Snell has had lots of success against the Red Sox in his career, entering Wednesday with a 5-3 record and 3.10 ERA in 10 starts, and the 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner had no issues dispatching a struggling Boston lineup.

Snell was on a pitch count limit as he continues to work back to full health after elbow surgery last year, but he looked like himself Wednesday, tossing five shutout innings as he allowed four hits and struck out six. It looked like he was off to a long night after Pillar led off the game with a 10-pitch at-bat that produced a single, but Snell responded by inducing Rafael Devers into a double play and retiring J.D. Martinez in four pitches, setting the tone for the rest of the outing.

The Red Sox’ offense finally broke open with their five-run eighth, stringing together six consecutive hits off Rays reliever Aaron Slegers. But it was too little, too late.

Red Sox LHP Kyle Hart learned of call-up for first MLB start by getting pranked

Steve Hewitt

The moment Kyle Hart’s dream was realized came with the punch line of a prank.

It was Tuesday in Pawtucket, where the left-hander has been pitching at the Red Sox’ alternate training site. PawSox manager Billy McMillon called Hart into his office, along with pitching coordinator Shawn Haviland, pitching coach Paul Abbott and farm director Ben Crockett, to tell the 27-year-old that he’d be making his big-league debut on Thursday in a start against the Rays.

It took a second to get to that point, though.

“They told me that I was actually getting fined by Major League Baseball for not wearing my mask,” Hart recalled. “That’s kind of a real scenario that’s going to happen and probably has happened. I was a little worried at first, but then they told me, you can go pay your fine at Fenway Park tomorrow. Luckily it was just a prank and they were pulling my leg.”

The news is certainly no joke. A 19th-round pick by the Red Sox in the 2016 draft, Hart, after Tommy John surgery set him back at Indiana, paved a path to the majors with grit and determination. He pitched five years in the minors, was called up to Triple-A last season and impressed enough to earn a 40-man roster spot.

With the Red Sox in desperate need of a starter, they called Hart, who has dominated intrasquad games in Pawtucket recently.

“I’m glad I chose to stick with it and keep playing,” Hart said of his journey. “I’m glad of every opportunity I’ve been given and certainly the one I’m being given now, the ultimate opportunity of pitching in the big leagues. I’m proud I got my degree, but my degree is going to be there for a long time, and Major League Baseball doesn’t wait for anybody. I’m happy with the path and decision that I ultimately made.”

Hart has plenty of close supporters. He called his parents first, speaking to his mom and then his dad, who expectedly wanted to talk with him about how to attack the Rays. Then he called his girlfriend and her parents, who he said were the most excited of all.

Then there’s his brother Ryan, who was so excited about the news that he actually flew up to Boston. He obviously won’t be able to be inside Fenway Park, but Hart said he’s going to watch as close as possible from a nearby bar.

“That’s just who he is,” Hart said.

Hart will obviously hope to make them all proud, and hope to reward the Red Sox’ faith in him. In two intrasquad starts in Pawtucket, Hart has thrown 11⅓ scoreless innings, retiring 34 of the 38 batters he’s faced. He’s done it without a high-velocity fastball, but instead with a healthy pitch mix and supreme control of his off-speed pitches. He said he’s relished the work he’s done with Haviland and Abbott, who have helped him sharpen his pitches and locate each quadrant of the strike zone.

Hart has already started a game at Fenway, and though it was just an intrasquad game during summer camp last month, he said that should help the nerves. The Red Sox are hoping he can pitch at least five innings.

Hart, confident in his abilities, said his approach going into the biggest day of his career is pretty simple.

“My mindset going into tomorrow is the same as it has been my entire career,” Hart said. “Every year, I started, 2016, 2017, I started a level lower than what I thought I should be at, which I think a lot of guys, that’s the case. … This year I thought maybe I had a chance of starting with the big-league team and they put me at the alternate site. Honestly, I appreciated it, because that’s how every year has gone. And every year I’ve kind of sought out success. I’m comfortable in the position I’m in right now, of being a mid- season call-up, and kind of fulfilling that need.

“My mindset is they’re giving me an opportunity tomorrow, I need to go pitch to earn another one. That’s going to be my mindset as long as I play this game. Hopefully you look back and you’ve got six, eight, 10 years in this league. Right now I need to go out and earn every single start, opportunity to pitch, whatever it is, every single night.”

Red Sox notes: Andrew Benintendi placed on injured list with strained right rib cage

Steve Hewitt

Ron Roenicke was hoping Andrew Benintendi’s breakthrough at the plate Tuesday could be a prelude of things to come for the struggling Red Sox left fielder, but they’ll have to put those hopes on pause for now.

The Red Sox manager announced before Wednesday’s game against the Rays that Benintendi will be going on the injured list after he strained his right rib cage in Tuesday’s loss. Benintendi injured himself when he fell down while running the basepaths in the eighth inning. Though he finished the game, he got X-rays afterward that came back negative. He was scheduled to have further evaluations on Wednesday.

“That fall, however he put out his arms and came down on that ribcage, he finished the game (Tuesday night) but he was hurt,” Roenicke said. “He wasn’t going to hit if his time came up again.”

The Red Sox will call up right-hander Ryan Weber, who was optioned last weekend after struggling in his first three starts. Roenicke feels that he has enough outfield depth to make up for Benintendi’s absence, with taking his spot in left, Jackie Bradley Jr. in center and Kevin Pillar in right. He said his other options include J.D. Martinez, Tzu-Wei Lin and Jose Peraza.

Benintendi, who’s batting .103 this season, snapped an 0-for-17 skid with two hits on Tuesday, and his manager was disappointed by the timing of the injury.

“This is really unfortunate that it happened.” Roenicke said. “We talked about it (Tuesday) for quite a while, what can get a player going again. Sometimes what he did (Tuesday) could get him going. No, I think it’s a tough break and hopefully he’s not out too long to where he loses that feeling of his swing that he’s been working so hard on.”

Devers back in lineup

Rafael Devers, who missed the previous two games with a sore ankle, was back in the Red Sox lineup on Wednesday. They were planning on monitoring him closely to see how the ankle reacts.

“We’ll just see how it goes along the way,” Roenicke said. “I’ll ask him during the game if he’s still feeling it and if something’s still going on some we’ll try to get him out of there. But right now he feels really good and (assistant trainer) Brandon (Henry) felt really good about him going out there.”

Eovaldi slated for Saturday

Nathan Eovaldi, who started Sunday’s win over the Blue Jays, is scheduled to pitch Saturday night against the Yankees. The starter for Friday’s series opener at Yankee Stadium is still to be determined.

The Red Sox are trying to give Eovaldi a breather whenever they can, and Roenicke talked with chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and pitching coach and determined to give him an extra day for this turn.

“I know Nate still wants to come back on those and pitch his fifth day, but whenever we can do it, we would like to try to take care of those starters,” Roenicke said. “We ride him pretty hard because of who he is and what he does and I want to make sure that we’re also taking care of him when we can and giving him one extra day.”

* The Providence Journal

These Red Sox seem on a bridge to nowhere

Bill Koch

BOSTON --- This isn’t even a bridge year at the moment.

This is the Red Sox moving further away from the on-field culture they built while rolling to a championship just two short years ago.

Attention to detail was the norm as Boston set a new franchise record with 108 victories. Wednesday night saw more difficulties on defense, base runners thrown out while facing a six-run deficit and the Rays taking a perverse pleasure in the spanking they dished out.

Every Tampa Bay run or defensive gem in the field in this 9-5 victory was greeted with dugout cheers that could be heard throughout an empty Fenway Park. The Rays are certainly the more confident and complete team in this series, as they’ve shown through the first three nights. Kyle Hart makes his Red Sox debut Thursday afternoon attempting to avoid a 13th home loss to Tampa Bay in Boston’s last 14 tries.

Michael Chavis had one ball clank off his glove at first base and another finish stuck in the webbing, costing him a chance to make a throw to the plate. Kevin Pillar lost a fly ball in the twilight in right field and was thrown out at second attempting to stretch one of his four singles into a double. It’s generally difficult to take any shine off a 4-for-5 evening at the plate, but those two situations might have done the trick.

We’re now reaching beyond what Boston might do over the course of just these two months. The Red Sox are 6-12 and would require a week-long run of victories to reach .500 again. That’s not going to happen with Boston’s dismal array of starting pitchers posting a combined 6.01 earned-run average through 18 games.

It would be somewhat defensible if the Red Sox were doing this with a collection of talented prospects just taking their licks. That certainly worked for Atlanta in the 1990s, Oakland in the 2000s and Houston in the 2010s. But most of the guilty parties here are veteran castoffs doubling as lottery tickets, and Boston chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom would have a negative balance in his current gambling account.

This isn’t development. This is the Red Sox trading their best player in as a means to balance the financial books and entering a season – whether it was 60 games or 162 – with a severely flawed roster. What you’ve seen thus far, with a member of the Dodgers and annually bound for October, is the result.

That we even have to ask whether or not service time manipulation plays into Boston not promoting some of its top organizational talent tells you even more. The Red Sox are setting the stage for younger, cheaper, more flexible rosters in 2021 and 2022. They’re buying time in the midst of a pandemic where public attention is rightly turned elsewhere and 36,000 disgruntled fans aren’t here every night to make their opinions known.

Boston is on pace to finish 20-40 this year and, over 162 games, would stagger to a 54-108 mark. That’s the reverse of the 108-54 bulldozer that hammered its way through 29 other franchises in 2018. The Red Sox are 90-90 in their last 180 games – an even .500 – and could well be on the way to something worse.

How does any veteran with a realistic alternative willingly endure this? That’s something to monitor as this season unfolds. and J.D. Martinez are among those who could opt out of their contracts over the next two years or decline to return as free agents, and most of those players have tasted success too often now to waste prime years of their respective careers with a rebuild.

Bogaerts, Martinez and their teammates are professionals, sure. They’ve long since crossed the threshold where the kid’s game becomes a job and a responsibility. But talent like theirs would be both handsomely compensated and welcome in far more places than Boston – places that aren’t staggering like this.

Rays 9, Red Sox 5: Tampa Bay rides quick start to verge of Boston sweep

Bill Koch

BOSTON --- The Rays are on the verge of closing out a four-game sweep of the Red Sox after another disappointing night at Fenway Park.

Blake Snell was masterful through his five innings and his offense provided plenty of fireworks. Zack Godley was neither as effective nor as well supported.

The resulting 9-5 victory authored by Tampa Bay maroons the Red Sox even further behind the American League East field. The Rays have won five straight to nip at the heels of the Yankees atop the division, including the last three here.

Only a late rally by Boston in the bottom of the eighth inning made this one interesting. The Red Sox scored all five of their runs against Aaron Slegers, a right-hander who cruised through his previous two frames. Nick Anderson and Pete Fairbanks staged a late intervention, retiring six of the seven men they faced to stop Boston in its tracks.

“Things aren’t going well,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “That’s all there is to it. They’re not going well. We’re not getting breaks, and weird things are happening.”

The Red Sox faced an 8-0 deficit and had their regular left side of the infield, Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts, already out of the game for some extra rest. They suddenly came to life with six consecutive hits, including a long J.D. Martinez grand slam onto Lansdowne Street. It was an 8-5 game and the Rays summoned Anderson in an attempt to stop the rally.

That’s exactly what the right-hander did, but not before allowing the potential tying run to dig in from the left side. Jackie Bradley Jr. grounded into the shift with two on and two out in the eighth, keeping it a three- run game. Austin Meadows cracked a leadoff homer to the Boston bullpen in the ninth, the only damage done against Ryan Weber in his six strong innings of mop-up duty.

“Got my ground ball outs,” Weber said. “Got my couple . Got some double plays. Stayed ahead of guys. It felt really good to go out there and do that tonight.”

Godley allowed 10 hits and three home runs while facing just 21 batters. Brandon Lowe was a triple short of the cycle against the right-hander through three plate appearances. Lowe, Willy Adames and Yoshi Tsutsugo all went deep to right field as Tampa Bay steadily built its lead.

Godley’s difficulties on the mound extended to the defense behind him. Yandy Diaz was generously awarded a hit on a grounder to the right side that clanked off the glove of Michael Chavis. Meadows picked up another single on a lazy fly to right Kevin Pillar lost in the twilight.

“It went up and he thought it was hit better,” Roenicke said. “He turned around and lost it.”

The Rays, of course, made the Red Sox pay each time. Joey Wendle’s RBI grounder made it 1-0 in the first and Lowe crushed a two-run shot to the grandstand in right to make it a 4-0 game in the second. Tsutsugo’s two-run blast found the auxiliary visiting bullpen in the third and Diaz singled through the left side to finish off Godley in the fourth.

Left elbow troubles limited Snell to just 23 starts last season, and his earned-run average swelled to 4.29. This looked much more like the A.L. Cy Young winner of two years ago, as Snell cut through five scoreless innings on just four hits. Pillar’s 10-pitch at-bat led off the game and Snell required just 60 more to record his 15 outs.

Pillar managed singles in each of his first four plate appearances, including a liner to right in the eighth. Bradley touched things off with an infield roller and Jose Peraza sent a sharp liner into left. Jonathan Arauz shot an RBI single into left-center before Martinez picked on a hanging slider from Slegers.

Rafael Devers (left ankle) returns to Red Sox lineup Wednesday

Bill Koch

BOSTON --- Rafael Devers (left ankle) returned to the Red Sox lineup Wednesday.

The missed the first half of this four-game set with the Rays, including Tuesday’s 8-2 defeat. Devers cracked his second of the season Sunday afternoon in a 5-3 victory over the Blue Jays, a ringing solo shot to the Fenway Park bleachers in center.

“We’ll just see how it goes along the way,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “I’ll ask him during the game if he’s still feeling it. If something’s still going on we’ll try to get him out of there.”

Devers wore a soft cast on the ankle while sitting outside his suite Monday afternoon. He progressed to an early workout on the field Tuesday, running and fielding ground balls, and also took some swings in the indoor batting cage. Devers was among the early hitting groups on the field Wednesday, joining Jackie Bradley Jr. and Tzu-Wei Lin.

Devers went on what was then known as the disabled list three times in 2018, including a pair of stints for a strained left hamstring. He was healthy and productive during a breakout 2019 campaign, appearing in 156 games and setting new Boston single-season records for a third baseman with 32 home runs, 54 doubles, 90 extra-base hits and 359 .

Red Sox place Benintendi on the injured list, recall Ryan Weber

Bill Koch

BOSTON — Andrew Benintendi won’t have a chance any time soon to build on his two-hit night Tuesday.

The Red Sox outfielder has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a strained right rib cage. Benintendi was caught in a rundown in the eighth inning of an 8-2 loss to the Rays and suffered the injury when he was tagged out and fell to the ground.

It’s the second career IL stint for Benintendi and his first since his 2016 debut season. Benintendi sprained his left knee as a rookie and has been quite durable ever since, averaging nearly 146 games played over the last three seasons.

“It’s part of his ribs,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “That fall, however he put out his arms and came down on his rib cage.

“He finished the game last night. He wasn’t going to hit if his time came up again.”

Benintendi’s X-rays were negative, and he was due for more testing when he reported to Fenway Park on Wednesday afternoon. The 26-year-old was off to a 2-for-36 start before a pair of infield singles and a hit by pitch put him on base three times Tuesday. His single to second in the first inning snapped an 0-for-17 skid.

“I was hoping with the two hits he got to start off yesterday that was going to kick-start him some,” Roenicke said. “Actually, this is really unfortunate that it happened.

“We talked for quite a while about what could get a player going again. Sometimes what he did yesterday could get him going. I think it’s a tough break.”

Benintendi took a fastball from Aaron Loup to the lower back and was on first base when Alex Verdugo grounded a base hit inside the bag at third. The ball caromed off the wall fronting the field boxes that juts out toward the left field line, and Benintendi was caught flying around second base headed for third. He attempted to stop, fell down and ended up on the ground again when Tampa Bay second baseman Brandon Lowe applied the tag from behind.

Boston recalled right-hander Ryan Weber from the alternate site at Pawtucket in a corresponding move. Verdugo started in left field Wednesday against Rays left-hander Blake Snell and Kevin Pillar opened in right field. Roenicke said J.D. Martinez, Jose Peraza and Tzu-Wei Lin could also see defensive innings in the outfield in place of Benintendi.

“We think we’re covered fine there,” Roenicke said. “We’ll see with left-handers versus right-handers when we go to New York, what we do there. We may have J.D. in the outfield against a couple of their left- handers.”

Weber posted a 9.90 earned-run average through his first three starts before he was sent to McCoy Stadium. The Red Sox promoted Kyle Hart to make his debut Thursday afternoon against Tampa Bay and have lined up their rotation to feature Nathan Eovaldi, Martin Perez, Wednesday starter Zack Godley and Hart in order. Boston has opted for a bullpen day Friday in its No. 5 spot and will bring back Eovaldi on an extra day of rest in the middle game of the series against the Yankees in the Bronx.

“I know Nate still wants to come back and pitch on his fifth day, but whenever we can do it we’d like to take care of those starters and make sure,” Roenicke said. “With Nate, we ride him pretty hard because of who he is and what he does. We want to make sure we’re taking care of him when we can and giving him one extra day.”

* MassLive.com

J.D. Martinez’s grand slam in eighth inning not enough, Boston Red Sox lose to Rays, on pace to finish 20-40

Christopher Smith

BOSTON — The Red Sox began the eighth inning with six straight hits, including J.D. Martinez’s grand slam over the Green Monster to cut an 8-0 deficit to 8-5.

But that’s as close as Boston came against the Rays on Wednesday.

Starting pitching remains a major issue for the Red Sox. Zack Godley gave up home runs of 400 feet, 415 feet and 405 feet as Tampa won 9-5 over the Red Sox here at Fenway Park.

Rays batters hit six balls in play over 100 mph and nine balls in play over 95 mph against Godley. The righty allowed eight runs, all earned, 10 hits (three home runs) and two walks while striking out three in 3- plus innings. He gave up two runs in the fourth without recording an out.

The Red Sox will try to avoid a four-game sweep when they host the Rays at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Lefty Kyle Hart will make his major league debut.

Boston’s starter ERA increased to 6.01. The rotation has allowed 48 runs (47 earned runs) and 80 hits (15 home runs) in 70 ⅓ innings. Godley and Ryan Weber have combined to allow 10 of those 15 homers (five each).

With a 6-12 record, the Red Sox have a .333 winning percentage. They are on pace to finish 20-40.

Blake Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young winner, pitched 5 scoreless innings for the Rays, allowing four hits and no walks while striking out six.

Two weird plays

Joey Wendle’s ground ball to first base with one out in the first inning got stuck in the webbing of Michael Chavis’ mitt. Chavis couldn’t throw home with the bases loaded. His only play was to tag the first base bag for one out. The Rays took a 1-0 lead.

Kevin Pillar then misplayed a routine 85.3 mph fly ball to right field with two outs in the second inning. Pillar likely lost sight of the fly ball. The next hitter, Brandon Lowe, crushed a 415-foot, 109.5-mph two- run home run.

Kyle Hart enters MLB debut for Boston Red Sox with ‘fearless’ approach, Cubs slugger ’s message in mind

Christopher Smith

Boston Red Sox pitcher Kyle Hart roomed with slugger Kyle Schwarber at Indiana University their freshman, sophomore and junior years.

Schwarber, who bashed 38 home runs last year, left Indiana after his junior season in 2014, when Chicago drafted him fourth overall. He made his big league debut one year later, in June 2015. Hart remained in college for two more years after undergoing Tommy John surgery as a junior and receiving a medical redshirt. The Red Sox drafted him 568th overall in 2016. He’ll make his MLB debut on Thursday — after completing a much longer road there than Schwarber’s.

The 27-year-old lefty will start against the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park.

“He (Schwarber) is probably one of only three of my friends that I texted before the news broke,” Hart said during an appearance on MassLive.com’s Fenway Rundown podcast. “He sent me a text that probably hit home the most. He just said, the butterflies are going to be there, the anxiousness is going to be there. But when you step on the mound, it’s all business. And that’s kind of where my mind is going to be throughout the day tomorrow — on those words that he sent me.”

What does an all-business Kyle Hart look like? Don’t expect the 6-foot-5, 200-pounder to overpower any hitters with velocity. He commands his cutter, slider, changeup and to the edges of the plate.

“I‘m not going to be naive. I understand that my stuff isn’t sexy,” he said. “But I understand what I can do. And I know how to do it well. And that’s something I’ve told myself the last four years, even in college. Just know who you are, be prepared going into the game and execute the pitches you and your catcher want to execute. And just don’t try to be somebody you’re not.”

His pitch mix has “a little bit of a Patrick Corbin-style,” former Red Sox vice president of pitching development told MassLive.com last summer. Bannister said he has gone heavier with two different shapes of cutters and sliders.

“If I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, the cutter is more horizontal and the slider should have a little bit more depth,” Hart said. “Some days they’ll blend, which it really nags me. My changeup is one of my most comfortable pitches. I try to sink the fastball here and there. I’ve been really successful the last year and a half with the cut fastball. It’s not quite as explosive as I’d like. Sometimes it does blend into a slider. But as long as I get it to the spot that I want, I’m not going to sweat about it. And then the curveball is probably my fifth offering. But if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, it should have value. And obviously for it to have value, it needs to be located as well.”

He never has relied on velocity. He was this same type of pitcher pre-Tommy John surgery.

“The last couple years, I usually top out annually at 93 (mph),” Hart said. “But usually I’ll be 88-91. If I’m feeling good, I like to have 92, 93 in the tank, especially two strikes, maybe trying to get something up at the top of the zone.”

He said he has worked on increasing his velocity every offseason.

“It’s not like I’m totally content with throwing 88, 89 all the time. I’m consciously working on it. But it’s not something I’m going to drown myself in and get caught up in because I know at the end of the day, as a 27-year-old, you’re not going to just go out and find velocity going into age 29, 30. So I’m going to work on the stuff that adds value to me: movement, location, stamina.”

He recorded a 3.52 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and .233 against in 27 outings (24 starts) for Double- A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket during 2019.

He retired 34 of 38 batters he faced in two recent simulated game starts at Boston’s alternate training site, Pawtucket. He went 11 ⅓ scoreless innings, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out 11 in those two starts.

Red Sox pitching coach Dave Bush said command is critical for Hart. But what happens if he’s not commanding the baseball? How does he pitch around it?

His goal is to locate and execute every start, but he knows that’s not always a realistic goal, especially with big league strike zones being narrower.

“I think you have to be a little bit fearless,” Hart said. “If you’re not dialed in, locating, then for me, I’m probably not going to be in the game very long if I’m not locating because that’s almost not an option for me. But if you’re not locating, then you have to attack with whatever you have that day in the zone. And that kind of goes with trusting your catcher and trusting your defense. We’ve got a pretty darn good defense up here. When in doubt, I want to try to let them make a play. My philosophy is pretty simple on pitching. I want to get a guy out on the first three or four pitches. So I’m trying to miss their barrel early on. When I get to two strikes, I’m trying to miss the bat. That’s kind of how I think about it. If I get to two strikes, I’m going to give you my best punch-out pitch and miss your whole bat. Early in the count, I want to miss your barrel and get you out.”

Kyle Hart’s call-up to Boston Red Sox included team prank saying he was fined for not wearing mask, interrupting girlfriend’s furniture shopping

Chris Cotillo

When Red Sox lefty Kyle Hart was called into manager Billy McMillon’s office at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, he went in expecting to receive the news that he had been called up to the majors to start against the Rays on Thursday. When he saw pitching coaches Shawn Haviland and Paul Abbott and Red Sox farm director Ben Crockett, he knew the meeting was an important one.

Hart was shocked when the powwow took a negative turn.

“They told me that I was actually getting fined for Major League Baseball for not wearing my mask,” Hart said on a Zoom call with reporters. “That’s kind of a real scenario that is going to happen and probably has happened. I was a little worried at first, but then they told me, ‘You can pay your fine at Fenway Park tomorrow.’ Luckily, it was just a prank and they were pulling my leg.”

The group was pranking Hart, who is in fact coming up to the majors to make his big-league debut Thursday afternoon. The former 568th overall pick in the MLB draft will be the first pitcher to make his major-league debut for the Red Sox in 2020.

Hart was in big-league spring training and summer training camp with the Red Sox but was cut on both occasions. After dominating during his last two outings in intrasquad games (11 ⅓ scoreless innings, allowing just three hits while striking out 11 batters and issuing a single walk), he knew he had a good chance to replace Ryan Weber in Boston’s rotation.

“I finally knew, ‘Okay, this is really happening. I’m going to have a chance to make an impact with the Boston Red Sox,‘” Hart said on The Fenway Rundown podcast. “I don’t know if it has fully set in yet but yesterday was as special as it could be given the circumstances in the world that we’re all kind of operating in right now.”

Once Hart found out he was coming up, he called his parents, who were working from home in Ohio, and received a surprisingly measured reaction from his mother, Lauri. His father, Roger, wanted to get started on game-planning for the Rays.

“He’s kind of all business so he was like, ‘Alright, cool,‘” Hart said on The Fenway Rundown. “He wants to start talking about how we’re going to attack guys. I’m like, ‘Ok, easy, guy.’”

Hart then texted some friends, including his Indiana roommate and Cubs slugger Kyle Schwarber, and tried to call his girlfriend, Haley. But Haley, who Hart has been dating for more than three years, was picking out furniture for the couple’s new apartment when he called.

“I called her to tell her and she said, ‘Hey, can I call you back in a little bit? I’m in the middle of shopping right now.’ I said, ‘Yeah, call me back,’” Hart said. “So when she finally called me back an hour later, she was extremely mad I didn’t tell her, ‘Hold on, hold on, I’m getting called up.‘

“I knew if I told her then and there, she wouldn’t have been able to focus on getting me a comfortable couch,” Hart said. “I wanted to let her finish her business.”

Haley and Hart’s parents will watch from home Thursday afternoon, unable to attend Hart’s debut in person because no fans are allowed at games due to the coronavirus pandemic. That didn’t stop Hart’s brother, Ryan, from catching a flight to Boston, where he plans to watch the game at a bar in the Fenway neighborhood and at least take in some of the atmosphere while his little brother takes the mound.

“I think most of my family and friends are going to cut out of work early and have a few early evening Thursday brews and just take the game in,” Hart said.

For Hart, it’s fitting that the unlikely journey to the majors will take place in an unusual setting at an empty Fenway Park on Thursday. That journey was on the 27-year-old’s mind when he got the call to the big leagues earlier this week.

“I think those times that you are sleeping on an air mattress and aren’t eating the food you want to eat, you’re not living a normal life and you’re not able to do the activities you see your friends doing,” Hart said. “They’re starting families, they’re traveling the world and they’re padding their IRAs. They’re living the life you probably should be living. Those times are the ones that make it all worth it. You can look back and say, ‘None of this was handed to me. I earned very drop of it.”

Boston Red Sox’s Ryan Weber dazzles in 6 relief innings, pitching himself back into mix after demotion to Pawtucket: ‘That’s the guy we saw in spring training'

Chris Cotillo

It wasn’t in the role they envisioned for him at the beginning of the season, but the Red Sox might have seen something out of Ryan Weber in mop-up duty Wednesday night.

Weber, who entered the season as the team’s No. 3 starter, struggled in his first three starts and was optioned to Boston’s alternate training site in Pawtucket over the weekend. On the same day he was recalled to the big-league club to take the roster spot of injured outfielder Andrew Benintendi, Weber was thrust into a surprise role as the Sox’ long reliever in a blowout loss.

With Boston trailing 8-0 after starter Zack Godley imploded to allow eight runs on 10 hits and three homers, manager Ron Roenicke brought Weber into the game in the fourth inning. From there, the righty dazzled, allowing a single run on five hits in six relief innings.

Just four days after being shuttled to Pawtucket, Weber became the first Red Sox reliever since 2003 (John Burkett) to allow one or fewer runs over six relief innings in a game. The journeyman lowered his season ERA from 9.90 to 6.75 and had Roenicke thinking about what his role may look like for the rest of the season.

“That’s the guy that we saw in spring training that was commanding the pitches, all pitches,” Roenicke said. “He’s able to have tremendous movement on his balls. Hopefully, with that outing, he certainly should gain some confidence.”

Weber, who earned a spot in Boston’s makeshift rotation after nine scoreless innings in Grapefruit League action during spring training, didn’t make it out of the fourth inning in his three start before being sent down. In those games, in which the Red Sox went 1-2, Weber allowed 11 earned runs on 15 hits in 10 innings and had a 1:3 -to-walk ratio (3 to 9).

But after two bullpen sessions at Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium earlier in the week,

Maybe it’s just the circumstances. He’s sent down, you bring him back up, he’s not really thinking about a whole lot and the next thing you know, he’s in a ballgame. Sometimes, you over-prepare for things, you get hyped up about too much. Hard to say why it happens. We’ve certainly seen this type of thing happen before. I just know that throwing up a bunch of zeroes like that, knowing how he commanded the baseball, going into his next outing whether it’s in relief again or starting, hopefully that same feeling is there and he commands the ball.

Before Wednesday’s game, Roenicke said he was hopeful the club wouldn’t have to use Weber in relief of Godley against the Rays. But with the game out of hand and rookie lefty Kyle Hart slated to make his big- league debut Thursday, the Red Sox had no choice.

“I didn’t walk anyone tonight, kind of felt normal out there tonight,” Weber said. “Got my ground ball outs, got my strikeouts. Got some double plays, stayed ahead of things. It felt really good to go out there and do that tonight.”

According to Roenicke, the Red Sox were likely to give Weber another start in the coming days, though his six-inning appearance will likely change things. Over the next couple days, the club will discuss whether the righty is better suited for a relief role, potentially as a “bulk” pitcher who comes after a one- or two- inning opener.

“I pitched decent out of this role last year, so maybe during that bullpen game we have, the day we don’t have a starter, there’s a guy who pitches in front of me or whatever it is,” Weber said. “I’ll be available for multiple innings out of the bullpen. Obviously, tonight worked better than the three starts I had. That’s for sure.”

Andrew Benintendi injury: Boston Red Sox place outfielder on IL because of strained right rib cage

Christopher Smith

The Boston Red Sox have placed Andrew Benintendi on the 10-day injured list Wednesday because of a strained right rib cage.

He injured it when he fell down running from second to third base Tuesday. X-rays were negative but he will undergo further testing.

“Nothing’s broken,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said during a Zoom conference call Wednesday. “But today he’s going to get more evaluations.”

The Red Sox recalled right-handed pitcher Ryan Weber to take Benintendi’s spot on the 28-man active roster.

Roenicke said Jose Peraza, Tzu-Wei Lin and J.D. Martinez are options to play more outfield with Benintendi sidelined.

Kevin Pillar is most comfortable in right field. He’ll start most games and Alex Verdugo will shift from right field to left field when Pillar is playing.

Peraza and Martinez have made one start each in the outfield this year. Peraza’s start came in left. Martinez started one game in right field.

“Just feeling we’re OK (with) coverage in the outfield and we could use the other arm,” Roenicke said.

Roenicke said the Red Sox will have a clearer timetable after Benintendi undergoes further testing. Roenicke hopes for a standard 10-day IL stint.

“That fall, however he put out his arms and came down on that rib cage, he finished the game last night but he was hurting,” Roenicke said. “So he wasn’t going to hit if his time came up again.”

Benintendi recorded two hits Tuesday, but he is just 4 for 52 (.103 batting average) with one extra-base hit (double), one RBI and 17 strikeouts this season. He does have 11 walks, so he’s remained patient and hasn’t swung much at pitches outside the strike zone.

“I was hoping with the two hits that he got to start off yesterday, that was going to kickstart him some,” Roenicke said. “So actually this is really unfortunate that it happened. ... Sometimes what he did yesterday could get him going. So I think it’s a tough break and hopefully that he’s not out too long to where he loses that feeling of his swing that he’s been working so hard on.”

Andrew Benintendi injury update: Boston Red Sox outfielder likely to spend more than 10 days on IL with strained rib cage

Christopher Smith

BOSTON — Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke was hopeful before Wednesday’s game that left fielder Andrew Benintendi’s 10-day IL stint would last the minimum 10 days.

But Benintendi underwent further testing Wednesday that determined he does have a strained right rib cage.

“He did strain it so he’s going to be a while,” Roenicke said after Boston’s 9-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays here at Fenway Park. “It will probably be more than that 10 days that we talked about.”

Benintendi injured his rib cage when he tripped running from second to third base Tuesday. Initial X-rays were negative, but the additional testing determined he strained it.

Alex Verdugo started in left field and Kevin Pillar started in right field Wednesday. That will be Boston’s typical alignment without Benintendi. But J.D. Martinez, Tzu-Wei Lin and Jose Peraza also could see more time in the outfield with Benintendi sidelined.

Benintendi is just 4 for 52 (.103 batting average) with one extra-base hit (double), one RBI and 17 strikeouts this season. He does have 11 walks, so he has remained patient and has not swung much at pitches outside the strike zone.

“I was hoping with the two hits that he got to start off yesterday, that was going to kickstart him some,” Roenicke said before Wednesday’s game. “So actually this is really unfortunate that it happened. ... Sometimes what he did yesterday could get him going. So I think it’s a tough break and hopefully that he’s not out too long to where he loses that feeling of his swing that he’s been working so hard on.”

Boston trailed the Rays 8-0 entering the bottom of the eighth inning Wednesday. But six straight hits, including Martinez’s grand slam, cut the deficit to 8-5. Austin Meadows’ home run in the ninth inning put Tampa ahead 9-5.

The Red Sox dropped to 6-12 (.333 winning percentage). They are on pace to go 20-40. Kyle Hart will make his MLB debut on Thursday as Boston looks to avoid a four-game sweep against the Rays.

Boston Red Sox could finish with MLB’s worst record but not receive 2021 Draft top overall pick (projected to be Kumar Rocker)

Christopher Smith

BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox dropped to 6-12 (.333 winning percentage) with a 9-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday here at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox — who are on pace to finish with a 20-40 record — will look to avoid a four-game sweep Thursday. Or would they be better off if the Rays swept them?

The #TankForKumar hashtag has become popular among Red Sox fans on Twitter. Vanderbilt ace Kumar Rocker, the 2019 College World Series Most Outstanding Player, is the projected No. 1 overall in the 2021 MLB Draft.

The Red Sox own the second worst record in the majors behind only the Pittsburgh Pirates (3-13, .188 winning percentage). The order of the MLB Draft in a normal year is determined by reverse standings. The team with the worst record the previous season receives the No. 1 pick. The team with the second worst record receives the No. 2 pick.

But 2020 is everything but a normal year.

In June, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel noted on Twitter that MLB and the players union’s initial agreement in March stated, “In the event that each Club plays less than 81 regular season games in 2020, the Office of the Commissioner shall have the right, after conferring in good faith with the MLBPA, to modify the Draft order.”

Each team is scheduled to play 60 regular season games in a shortened 2020 schedule because of the coronavirus pandemic. Commissioner Rob Manfred, therefore, has the ability to modify the 2021 MLB Draft order.

Some have speculated Manfred could use a lottery system or determine the order based on teams’ combined winning percentages over the past two or three seasons.

Obviously this already is a topic of conversation in Pittsburgh with the Pirates playing the league’s worst baseball.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Mike Persak noted, “To me, it will come down to just how wonky the final standings are. If there are several teams who haven’t played 60 games — the St. Louis Cardinals have played just five so far — and preseason favorites like the , or Washington Nationals continue to toil at the bottom of their standings, it seems more likely that they’d employ a different format to get a truer outcome.”

Persak wrote that he thinks combining winning percentages over the past two seasons is the best way to do it.

The Athletic also recently wrote about this Tank for Kumar situation.

The Red Sox are not a good team. They rank 28th in starter ERA (6.01). The rotation has allowed 48 runs (47 earned runs) and 80 hits (15 home runs) in 70 ⅓ innings.

The offense has a .249 batting average, .310 on-base percentage, .413 and .724 OPS compared to .269/.340/.466/.806 last year.

Boston has a negative-18 run differential and has gone 1-7 against AL East rivals Tampa and New York.

But being this bad won’t necessarily be rewarded. Think twice before you use the #TankForKumar hashtag. Tanking isn’t that simple in this unprecedented year.

* RedSox.com

Martinez slam offset by early oddities

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- There was no full moon at Fenway Park on Wednesday night, but there was a ball in the top of the first inning that literally got stuck in the webbing of the glove Michael Chavis was using to play first base, forcing him to step on the bag and concede what would have been an easy force at the plate.

There was also right fielder Kevin Pillar losing the third out of the second inning in the twilight on a routine fly ball by Austin Meadows. The very next pitch was swatted into the seats in right field by Brandon Lowe for a two-run homer.

At the time, the Red Sox should have been down by a run. Instead, it was four, and Boston went on to a 9-5 loss to the Rays.

In addition, the Sox had a costly baserunning blunder for the second straight night. Down 6-0, Pillar (4-for- 5 on the night) tried to stretch a single off the Monster into a double, ending the bottom of the third and preventing Rafael Devers and J.D. Martinez from the chance to inch the team .

It was hard not to think back to those early miscues when Martinez clocked a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth, trimming what was once an 8-0 deficit to a mere three runs.

“Yeah, when things aren’t going well, you see some weird stuff happening,” said Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke. “We have the force at home plate there, [that] changes it. Pillar catches that ball, obviously, that’s two runs difference. Things aren’t going well, that’s all there is to it. They’re not going well; we’re not getting breaks. And weird things are happening.”

The Red Sox would have had a better chance of overcoming their early bad luck if not for a dominant night from Rays ace Blake Snell. The lefty, building back up from elbow woes, showcased his most powerful arsenal of the season. Snell fired five shutout innings, scattering four hits, walking none, striking out six and inducing countless ugly swings.

Red Sox starter Zack Godley didn’t come close to matching Snell. The Rays jumped on him for three homers. Godley allowed 10 hits and eight runs in three innings (plus three batters in the fourth).

It was a significant step back from the four shutout innings he threw in his last start against Toronto.

There was some good news on the pitching front. Ryan Weber, who had been bounced from the rotation after three shaky starts, returned from the team’s alternate training site in Pawtucket, R.I. and threw six solid innings (five hits, one run, no walks, four strikeouts) in relief.

For Roenicke, it’s hard to know what he’s going to get from most of his pitchers from one outing to the next.

“Yeah, no doubt, you see Weby go out and throw like that and you’re just [thinking], it would be nice to reverse those zeros. But this is just a strange game, and you have things happen,” Roenicke said. “Zack, the last outing, threw up a bunch of zeros. Just hard to say what’s going to happen from game to game.”

Roenicke suggested that perhaps the Sox have found the bulk-innings guy they need in Weber, which could be valuable, given how many openers the club is deploying.

“Well, it went well tonight, so I can’t argue with him,” said Weber. “But I mean, I pitched decent in this role last year, so maybe during that bullpen game we have, the day we don’t have a starter, there’s a bullpen guy that pitches in front of me or whatever it is, I’ll be available for multiple innings out of the bullpen. After tonight, it’s obviously worked better than the three starts I had, that’s for sure.”

Without a doubt, Roenicke is still searching for answers with his team off to a 6-12 start and in danger of getting swept in by the Rays in this four-game series

It is up to lefty Kyle Hart, a 19th-round pick in the 2016 Draft who will be making his Major League debut, to prevent that from happening.

And what a story that would be, considering the Rays have now ripped off 12 wins in their last 13 games at Fenway Park, including the last seven in a row.

Benintendi (rib cage) goes on injured list

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi not only fell down and was tagged out trying to go from first to third on Alex Verdugo's RBI single on Tuesday against the Rays, but he strained his right rib cage on the play and is now on the 10-day injured list.

Originally, the hope was that Benintendi might miss just the 10 days because X-rays showed there are no broken bones. But after some further evaluation on Wednesday afternoon, the Red Sox are under the belief he will be out longer.

“Still came back with the same diagnosis, but he did strain it,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said after his club’s 9-5 loss to the Rays on Wednesday night. “So he’s going to be a while. It will probably be more than that 10 days that we talked about.”

It has been a tough start to the season for Benintendi, who is hitting .103 (4-for-39) with no homers and one RBI.

To replace Benintendi on the roster, the Red Sox recalled righty Ryan Weber from the club’s alternate training site in Pawtucket, R.I. Weber, who opened the season as the No. 3 starter, had just been optioned on Saturday after a third straight shaky start. He’ll be used in the bullpen upon his return.

“Just feel we’re OK coverage-wise in the outfield, and we could use the other arm,” said Roenicke.

Roenicke added that the loss of Benintendi could lead to J.D. Martinez getting some more time in the outfield.

For Wednesday’s game, Verdugo played left field with Kevin Pillar getting the nod in right. José Peraza is another option for Roenicke in left.

Benintendi got two hits on Tuesday, so Roenicke had been looking forward to seeing how he would build off that. Now, the Red Sox are uncertain when Benintendi will be able to play again.

“I was hoping with the two hits that he got to start off yesterday that that was going to kick-start him some,” said Roenicke. “So actually, this is really unfortunate that it happened. We talked about it yesterday for quite a while, what can get a player going again. Sometimes what he did yesterday could get him going. No, I think it’s a tough break, and hopefully, he’s not out too long to where he loses that feeling of his swing that he’s been working so hard on.”

Hart amped for debut Red Sox lefty Kyle Hart, the team’s 19th-round selection in the 2016 Draft, will experience the thrill of making his Major League debut Thursday, when he starts the finale of this four-game series against the Rays.

The 27-year-old thinks that all the work he has done to get to this point has made him ready for what awaits at Fenway Park.

“That's the beauty of the game,” said Hart. “I've been at every level of this game, and I've seen every type of player come up, make it, not make it, somewhere in the middle. Young guys, old guys, uber-talented guys, guys maybe with less talent, more grit. I've seen a lot of different types of players. I'm proud of the player I am and the player that's going to debut tomorrow.”

From the other dugout, Rays righty Aaron Slegers, a teammate of Hart at Indiana University, will appreciate the journey Hart has made to get to this point.

“He’s just been one of the most intellectual pitchers I’ve ever played with or watched pitch, even going back to when we were 18 or 19 years old,” Slegers said. “You won’t fool Kyle Hart a second time -- just his cognitive ability out on the mound.

“I know it’s well-documented that he’s not going to light up the radar gun or anything, but what he does provide is a pitch mix and an understanding of scouting reports and what he does well. I think he does a good job of knowing who he is and understanding his pitchability.”

Devers back in lineup Though they lost Benintendi, the Red Sox did get third baseman Rafael Devers back. The lefty masher missed the previous two games with a sore left ankle that required him wearing a walking boot for a couple of days.

“Devers is doing pretty good,” Roenicke said. “So he went out and ran today, is in the lineup today, and we’ll just see how it goes along the way. I’ll ask him during the game if he’s still feeling it and if something’s still going on some, we’ll try to get him out of there. But right now, he feels really good and [assistant trainer] Brandon [Henry] felt really good about him going out there.”

* ESPN.com

Who could move at the weirdest MLB trade deadline in history?

David Schoenfield

The Aug. 31 trade deadline is still nearly three weeks off, but let's take an early look at some of the factors that will influence what might happen. Or won't happen. It's possible this year's deadline will be a dud for several reasons: lack of talent available, more teams in the playoff race because of the 16-team field, teams unwilling to take on additional payroll and even the risk to teams of bringing in players from outside their bubble.

Here's a look at the key elements leading up to the deadline.

Who is out of it? In other words, who are the possible sellers? Well, right now almost every team is still in it. Even the Tigers and Orioles, who lost 114 and 108 games in 2019, are off to good starts. Given that a sub-.500 team could sneak into the postseason, any team hanging around .500 has a chance. The only two teams that can really be eliminated right now are the Pirates and Mariners. Along with the Orioles, they are the only teams with less than a 10% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs. And these teams don't really have interesting trade candidates. Let's move on.

Who are the pending free agents? These players always are the first ones to consider in a conventional season, but it's a pretty weak crop of free agents. The best of the lot are Marcus Semien (A's), George Springer, Michael Brantley and Yuri Gurriel (Astros), DJ LeMahieu, Masahiro Tanaka and James Paxton (Yankees), Justin Turner and Joc Pederson (Dodgers), Trevor Bauer (Reds) and Nelson Cruz (Twins), but those players all are on likely playoff teams and won't be traded.

Here are few other names to consider:

Mike Minor, SP, Rangers: An All-Star last season, Minor suffered a dip in velocity two starts ago. As a result, he was limited to four innings on Tuesday, although his velocity was back into the lower 90s.

Robbie Ray, SP, Diamondbacks: Arizona hasn't looked good as a team and Ray has been particularly awful, allowing seven home runs and 14 walks in 17 innings. He has tweaked the way he stands at the beginning of his delivery, but it hasn't clicked yet. Still, he has a live arm and a 3.72 ERA over the past three seasons.

Jonathan Villar, INF, Marlins: He hit .274 with 24 home runs and 40 steals for the Orioles in 2019, but is off to a slow start this year. His versatility and speed could make him a nice bench option.

Tommy La Stella, 2B/1B, Angels: It seems unlikely the Angels would punt at any time, but they sure don't look like a good baseball team. Then again, neither do the Mariners or Rangers, but somebody in the AL West besides the A's and Astros will have a chance. Anyway, La Stella made the All-Star team last year before fracturing his tibia and missing the second half. He's hitting well again and getting on base more than 40% of the time -- 10 walks and three strikeouts! -- and somebody should want this guy as a possible leadoff hitter.

James McCann, C, White Sox: The White Sox have Yasmani Grandal, making McCann one of the best backup catchers in the league. Given the catching needs around the majors and the White Sox's own need for pitching help, McCann could go.

What will the Red Sox do? The Red Sox are off to a bad start and it's no fluke. They are a bad baseball team, with no and no Eduardo Rodriguez, and J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi off to slow starts. Really, what's the point in even making a push for the eighth playoff seed? There's no way this team, with this starting rotation, has a chance to do anything in the playoffs.

They have three pending free agents: outfielders Jackie Bradley Jr. and Kevin Pillar and closer , who is 10-1 with a 1.88 ERA over the past two seasons with just 34 hits and one home run allowed over 76⅔ innings. Given the shaky state of closers throughout the game, Workman might be the most desired commodity on the trade market. Martinez is interesting as well. He has an opt-out clause after 2020, and if he doesn't opt out he is set to make $19.375 million in 2021 and 2022. Given his slow start, teams would be wary about getting stuck with the final two years of his contract. If he heats up, however, he could provide a valuable bat for a team looking for a DH upgrade.

The Red Sox have some other trade options as well. Reliever has struggled with his control, but he had 110 strikeouts in 64⅓ innings last year and was a key bullpen guy during the run. Veteran first baseman has six home runs and could fit in with the Brewers, Twins (Miguel Sano has struck out in nearly 50% of his plate appearances) or Orioles (if they continue to play well).

Any other non-free agents? This is harder to gauge, with contracts playing into this. The Mariners, for example, might like to trade Kyle Seager, who is playing well, but he's set to make $18.5 million in 2021 with an option/buyout for 2022. The Giants are in a similar position with Johnny Cueto -- his $21.8 million salary for 2021 and $5 million buyout for 2022 make him all but untradeable.

An intriguing name here could be Jorge Soler, who has one year remaining on his contract. He is proving his 2019 season, when he led the AL with 48 home runs, wasn't a fluke, but the Royals may think they're getting closer to contending again, with rookies Brady Singer and Kris Bubic now in the rotation, and right now their offense is mostly just Soler and Whit Merrifield.

Otherwise, it's hard to predict what teams will do -- and front offices won't want to make rash judgments based on where their team stands after 30 games. In other words, all angles seem to point to a slow trade period.

Some team needs Colorado Rockies: Center fielder

The Rockies' hot start puts them in the thick of the NL West race and it will be interesting to see how general manager Jeff Bridich -- the least active GM in the game -- reacts, especially given the general lack of depth on the roster and in the organization. Here's what I would do: Trade for Jackie Bradley Jr. or Kevin Pillar to play center field, move David Dahl to right field and make Charlie Blackmon the designated hitter. Blackmon's top spring speed ranks in just the 35th percentile and his outfield jump rating is in the ninth percentile. He has become a defensive liability. Add an elite defender in Bradley and you upgrade defensively at two positions and upgrade at DH.

Houston Astros: Bullpen

Nine relievers have made their major league debuts this season for the Astros, and with Roberto Osuna now out for the season, the bullpen is basically Ryan Pressly, a struggling Josh James and a whole bunch of rookies. Entering Wednesday, the Houston bullpen actually ranked middle of the pack in ERA at 4.15 -- but it was dead last in win probability added and Pressly blew the Tuesday in a game the Astros lost in 10 innings. (The Astros are 1-4 in extra-inning games, so they are decidedly anti-runner on second.)

Atlanta Braves: Rotation

Mike Soroka is out for the season, Cole Hamels is still on the IL and Mike Foltynewicz was booted off the 40-man roster. Meanwhile, Sean Newcomb just got roughed up in a start and was sent back to the alternate training site, and has a 7.27 ERA (although a very good 23-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 17⅓ innings). They're down to one reliable starter in Max Fried. There isn't much starting pitching available, so maybe they'll ride with the youngsters and hope Hamels can get back.

Oakland Athletics: Designated hitter

Khris Davis is off to a slow start after struggling in 2019 and while he's signed through 2021, the A's have a really good team and a chance to win it all now, so why punt a position? Of course, they're also a small- market franchise and may be unlikely to bring on any additional salary to bench the highest-paid player on the team.

Tampa Bay Rays/San Diego Padres: Catcher

The Rays like Mike Zunino's defense, but he entered Wednesday batting .088 -- after hitting .165 last season. They've been hitting for him and bringing in backup Michael Perez, who might get more opportunities to start. The Padres gave the starting job to Francisco Mejia, but he has struggled at the plate with an .097 average and just one walk in 34 plate appearances. Backup Austin Hedges is better defensively, but he's hitting .143 on the heels of a .176 season. Of course, there aren't a lot of options out there, maybe Pedro Severino of the Orioles if they fall out of the race or Austin Romine of the Tigers.

Philadelphia Phillies: Bullpen

The Phillies' bullpen ERA entering Wednesday: 10.19. Not a misprint. OK, that's in only 12 games, but the pen has allowed 59 hits and 10 home runs in 35⅓ innings. Unfortunately, this one might require a complete makeover and that's more likely to occur in the offseason.

* WEEI.com

Who Kyle Hart is and why he is starting Thursday

Rob Bradford

Why not Kyle Hart?

There probably aren't a lot of good retorts to that question, and that's why the 27-year-old will be making his major league debut Thursday against the Rays.

Hart isn't considered one of the Red Sox' top pitching prospects, having seemingly fought an uphill battle after being drafted in the 19th round in 2016. He was the 6-foot-5, soft-throwing lefty out of Indiana University who spent five years at the school after missing his junior season due to Tommy John surgery.

But here's the thing with Hart: He gets guys out.

In 77 minor-league appearances (71 starts) he has totaled a 3.13 ERA, having come off a half-season in Triple-A in 2019 in which he managed a 3.86 ERA in 15 starts. Prior to joining the last season, Hart made nine starts in Double-A Portland, finishing with a 2.49 ERA.

It was a success that has carried over to the alternate training camp at McCoy Stadium in recent weeks with Hart throwing 11 1/3 scoreless innings during his last two intrasquad games.

In fact, the only time Hart hasn't managed to siphon impressive results was during this year's Grapefruit League when his three spring training appearances ended with the lanky southpaw allowing five runs (3 homers) in six innings.

Now the Ohio native who received a signing bonus of $5,000 - (the pick after him received $100,000) - is getting the chance to prove the minor-league success can translate to the majors.

"I think he’s continued on with a lot of stuff he’s been working on the last couple years," said Red Sox pitching coach Dave Bush. "I’ve been around him quite a bit the last three or four years. For him, a lot of the adjustments are small – incremental adjustments in pitch mix and pitch shape, trying to understand exactly where his pitches play in the zone, how to mix pitches together, how to sequence things. So I don’t expect any particularly big changes with him, but as he’s done the last couple years, he’s just getting incrementally better at each of those small things to allow him to be successful at each step along the way. He’s been continuing to do that. No magic answers, no big changes. His command is going to be critical. It always is for him. The stuff is not going to light up a radar gun, but he’s got multiple pitches, he commands the ball to both sides of the plate. The better he is at that stuff the better he’ll be on the field."

"I think I can provide some value to this team right now," Hart said. “I can roll out of bed and throw 100 pitches, you know? Whether that’s a quality 100 pitches, that’s what I’m focused on. Can I give us five or six good innings, not just some ho-hum, five (or) six runs and 100 pitches? I want to make my pitches quality and really bring value to a team."

Andrew Benintendi placed on injured list with rib cage strain

Ryan Hannable

Andrew Benintendi's mistake on the base paths Tuesday cost him more than just an out.

The Red Sox outfielder was placed on the injured list before Wednesday's game against the Rays with a right rib cage strain. Right-hander Ryan Weber has been recalled to take his spot on the roster.

"It’s part of his ribs," manager Ron Roenicke said to reporters before the game, noting the injury occurred when he fell runnung the bases Tuesday. "So that fall, however he put out his arms and came down on that rib cage, he finished the game last night but he was hurt. He wasn’t going to hit if his time came up again."

Benintendi has started 12 of the Red Sox' 17 games this season, all in left field, and has batted leadoff eight times. In those games he is just 4-for-39 (.103) at the plate with four runs scored.

Roenicke said J.D. Martinez is an option to see more time in left field in Benintendi's place.

* NBC Sports Boston

Michael Chavis cares — Can we say the same about the rest of the Red Sox?

John Tomase

If there's one thing missing on the Red Sox right now, it's accountability.

J.D. Martinez complained so much about the lack of in-game video that manager Ron Roenicke basically issued him a cease-and-desist. Rafael Devers showed up to camp in subpar shape and is already injured. Andrew Benintendi is such a mess, his two hits on Tuesday raised his average above .100 for the first time since July.

The Red Sox looked listless in an 8-2 loss to the Rays that tumbled them further into last place. The bullpen imploded after another solid start from Martin Perez, allowing six runs in the seventh and walking four. The offense stranded six men, grounded into two double plays, and had a runner erased on the bases.

"It's a crazy game," Perez said. "Just turn the page and come back tomorrow."

The problem, of course, is that Red Sox are very quickly running out of tomorrows. Sunday's walkoff win over the Blue Jays gave them their first momentum of this truncated season, with three wins in four games, and then they battled to the last out in an 8-7 loss to the Rays on Monday.

Tuesday's defeat was a special kind of awful, though, dropping them to 6-11, good for dead last in the American League, five games behind the Yankees and 3.5 behind the Rays.

One player seems to understand what's happening, however, and the Red Sox should follow his lead. Infielder Michael Chavis, in the midst of a hot streak after an awful start, was one of the few standouts in defeat. He went 2 for 4 with a triple and an RBI while playing second base, but all he wanted to talk about when it was over was a play he didn't make.

The Rays had already scored twice when Yandy Diaz grounded one up the middle with runners on the corners. Chavis's momentum carried him well past the bag as he turned and made the ill-advised decision to try to nail Mike Zunino at the plate with a jump throw instead of taking the safe out at first.

His throw sailed up the line and never had a chance, anyway. As soon as Chavis let it go, he grabbed his head in his hands. The Rays scored three more runs to open an insurmountable 8-1 lead.

On his Zoom call with the media, Chavis fell on his sword to an absurd degree.

"I thought about the play before it was happening," he said. "I decided if it was hit to my right or left, and it was hit decently hard on the barrel, I knew (Zunino's) not the quickest guy.

"I knew if I could get there quick enough and made a good throw, I could have had him. The ball bounced a little bit higher than I planned on or thought it would. When I had to jump for it, it just took my momentum and then I had to do a jump throw, which is where it got messed up. I should have decided to go to first base at that point. That's on me. Pretty much lost the game for us, honestly. That's pretty tough."

Wait a minute, lost the game? An 8-1 game? Even if Chavis makes that play, the Rays lead 5-1. The Red Sox weren't coming back from any deficit.

"It kind of just took the wind out of us," Chavis insisted. "I felt like it was kind of a kick in the nuts, honestly, plain and simple. I felt like we were battling, we were having good at-bats. I felt like the vibe in the dugout, in the clubhouse and everything was really good. After that, I just, it sucks. You could see, I felt like the air was kind of taken out of us. Something like that, they put up six in that inning. Whether I make that play, I get the out at first, whether those become unearned runs or earned runs, that's on me.

"At the end of the day, I've got to at least get an out," Chavis added. "I messed that up."

What stands out about Chavis's admission is how unexpected it was, because we haven't heard a lot of it from the Red Sox this year. Instead, we've heard about no video, and late arrival times, and terrible pitching forcing the offense to score too much. Those complaints fit the general malaise swallowing the club like the great molasses flood.

So when Chavis took ownership of a mental mistake — one day after appearing genuinely thrilled for teammate Jonathan Arauz recording his first hit — it was jarring. Accountability shouldn't be a pleasant surprise, and yet here we are.

* BostonSportsJournal.com

Kyle Hart bucks the odds to make his major league debut Thursday

Sean McAdam

There are can’t-miss, blue-chip prospects in the game, who rocket through the minor leagues and arrive with just a year (or less) of pro ball.

They’re profiled in Baseball America, projected as likely Rookie of the Year candidates and seemingly headed for stardom.

Then there’s Kyle Hart.

Hart is none of those things. He didn’t get drafted until his senior year of college. He didn’t get placed on a 40-man roster for the first time until last winter. And when he makes his major league debut, starting for the Red Sox Thursday afternoon against the Tampa Bay Rays, he’ll be just three months shy of his 28th birthday.

All of which makes the long wait all the more worth it.

“I think that’s the beauty of the game,” said Hart. “I’ve been at every level of this game and I’ve seen every type of player — come up, make it, not make, somewhere in the middle, young guys, old guys, uber- talented guys, guys maybe with less talent, more grit. I’ve seen a lot of different types of players. I’m proud of the type of player that I am and the player that’s going to debut tomorrow (afternoon).”

Hart has never had anything handed to him. He was a 19th round pick out of the University of Indiana and has spent parts of the last five seasons in the minor leagues. When he went undrafted as a junior and returned for his senior year at Bloomington, he wondered whether a career in pro ball was within his reach.

“I still think pro ball is a difficult thing,” he joked. “I thought about it a long time and I talked to my parents, talked to my family. Ultimately, I wanted to give it a shot. I didn’t know how much I would love it. I didn’t know how much happiness it would bring me. I’m glad I chose to stick with it and keep playing and I’m grateful for every opportunity I’ve been given and certainly the one I’m being given now — the ultimate opportunity of pitching in the big leagues.”

There were times when the path was far from glamorous. Living in small towns, in crowded apartments and subsisting on fast food was not the way most college graduates spend their mid-20s.

“Those times you’re sleeping on an air mattress and not eating the food you want to eat,” he said, “all the while, you’re not living a normal life. You’re not able to do the activities that you see your friends doing. They’re starting families, they’re traveling the world, they’re padding their IRAs. They’re kind of living the life that you probably should be living.

“But those times are the ones that makes it all worth it because you can look back and say, ‘None of this was handed to me,’ and I earned every drop of it. Those times definitely make you appreciate the good days.”

Throughout his climb up the minor league ladder, Hart was always assigned one level lower than he expected. But that’s always provided motivation.

“I thought I should be at (Low A) Greenville, they started me at extended (spring training),” he said. “I thought I should be at (High A) Salem, they started me at Greenville. This year, I thought maybe I had a chance to start with the big league team, they started me at the alternate site. Honestly, I appreciated because that’s how every year has gone and every year I’ve kind of sought out success.”

Hart’s journey has been made longer by his lack of elite stuff. He doesn’t overpower hitters or register radar gun readings in the high 90s. He needs to stay out of the fat part of the plate. The lack of velocity has limited the amount of hype from the Prospect Industrial Complex, but Hart made what he has work.

Even when the news of his promotion to the big league came wrapped in a practical joke. On Tuesday, he went into Pawtucket manager Billy McMillon’s office, where he was also met by Red Sox director of player development Ben Crockett and pitching coach Paul Abbott.

“They told me that I was getting fined by Major League Baseball for not wearing my mask,” said Hart. “That’s kind of a real scenario that can happen and probably has happened. So I was a little worried at first, but then they told me, ‘You can go pay your fine at Fenway Park tomorrow.’ So, luckily, it was just a prank and they were pulling my leg.”

The one drawback for Hart’s debut will be that, in the throes of a pandemic, no fans are allowed, meaning Hart’s family won’t be inside the ballpark to share the moment with him.

“It totally is a disappointment,” he admitted. “It’s tough. I know it’s probably tougher for the people who supported you. They want to be here. But you have to go out and do your job. They’ll get their chance to watch, so we’re making the best of it.”

Hart’s brother, Ryan, decided he’s going to be as close as protocol allows. He traveled to Boston on Wednesday night and plans to watch the game from a bar in the Fenway neighborhood.

Inside the ballpark, however, Kyle will be all business.

“My mindset is. ‘They’re giving me an opportunity (Thursday); I need to go pitch to earn another one,’ ” said Hart. “That’s going to be my mindset as long as I play this game. And hopefully, you look back and you’ve got six, eight, 10 years in this league. But right now, I need to go out and earn every single start, every single night.”

BSJ Game Report: Rays 9, Red Sox 5 – Another drubbing at the hands of Tampa Bay

Sean McAdam

HEADLINES

Freaky defensive plays cost Sox: It was evident early on that this wasn’t going to be the Red Sox night. In the first inning, with the bases loaded and one out, Joey Wendle hit a ball to Michael Chavis at first. Chavis had a play at the plate on Brandon Lowe, but the ball was stuck in the web of his glove and Chavis couldn’t dislodge it and had to settle for the out at first as Lowe crossed the plate. Then, in the second inning, Austin Meadows hit a routine fly ball to right. Right fielder Kevin Pillar, however, lost the ball in the twilight, breaking back to the warning track instead of coming in. What should have been the third out instead allowed Meadows to reach, and wouldn’t you know it, Lowe then followed with a two-run homer to right. So, three of the four Tampa Bay runs scored on fluke plays and what should have been a relatively close game soon became a blowout.

Weber sharp in return: Ryan Weber, with three straight poor starts, was optioned to the alternate training site Saturday, but was brought back Wednesday when the Sox had a vacant roster spot. Weber took over for starter Zach Godley and tossed six innings of one-run ball, allowing five hits while fanning four and walking no one. Weber threw a couple of side sessions while in Pawtucket and focused on his cutter, which he threw more often and with more success. But Ron Roenicke attributed the improvement more to mental issues. “He looked so good in relief, maybe it’s better to have in long relief like that,” Roenicke said. “That’s the guy that we saw in spring training, that was commanding all of his pitches and had tremendous movement on his pitches. He certainly should gain some confidence.

Benintendi likely out for a while: When the Red Sox announced that Andrew Benintendi was going on the 10-day IL mid-afternoon with a right rib cage strain, Roenicke was hopeful that the 10 days would be enough and he would be back with the club relatively soon. But with additional testing done later in the day, Roenicke wasn’t nearly as optimistic after the game. “He did strain it, so he’s going to be a while,” said Roenicke. “It will probably be longer than the 10 days we talked about.” For the time being, the Sox would seem to be covered well enough in the outfield, with a number of infielders (Tzu-Wei Lin, Jose Peraza) capable of helping out, too. But with Benintendi collecting two hits Tuesday night, there was the feeling that he might have been ready to bust out of a slump that had dogged him through the first two and a half weeks of the season. Now, any progress he made with his swing and approach will be put on hold.

TURNING POINT

The Red Sox were shutout over the first seven innings of the game before snapping to life in the eighth. They strung together six straight hits, capped by Martinez’s grand slam before they made an out in the eighth and had the potential tying run on the on-deck circle. But Nick Anderson entered from the Tampa bullpen, quickly struck out Christian Vazquez and Chavis, and after a single to Alex Verdugo, got out of the jam by retiring Jackie Bradley Jr. on a groundout.

ONE UP

J.D. Martinez: For the second time in the last three games, Martinez went deep — and he did so with the bases loaded, hitting his seventh career grand slam in the eighth inning to pull the Sox to within three.

TWO DOWN

Zach Godley: Godley was coming off an impressive start Saturday, but couldn’t carry that over Wednesday. He gave up eight runs on 10 hits in just three-plus innings and yielded three long homers in the process.

Michael Chavis: Chavis had a single and , but really struggled at first base. In addition to having the ball caught in the web of his glove, he also ranged too far to his left and deflected a ball into the outfield, a ball that Jose Peraza could have handled.

QUOTE OF NOTE

“When things aren’t going well, you see some weird stuff happening.” Ron Roenicke.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

The Red Sox have now lost seven of their last eight series at Fenway. The five-run eighth inning was their second biggest inning of the season. Jonathan Arauz is now 3-for-4 with RISP. Zach Godley tied a career high with three homers allowed.

UP NEXT

The Sox and Rays finish out their four-game series with a 4:30 game, with LHP Kyle Hart (debut) vs. RHP Tyler Glasnow (0-1, 5.56)

* The Athletic

Fenway Park adds a humidor to store its — but will it mean fewer runs?

Jen McCaffrey

Deep inside Fenway Park, tucked behind the entrance to the Red Sox home clubhouse, is a humidor.

It’s not keeping championship cigars fresh for future celebration. Rather, it’s keeping baseballs ready for the next day’s use.

The Red Sox opted to take part in an MLB program ahead of this season that regulates game-used balls through the use of humidors. With baseball played in cities and climates across the country as diverse as Miami and Minneapolis, the idea of leveling the playing field — at least for baseballs — was initiated this offseason.

The use of humidors started in 2002, when the Colorado Rockies, seeking to normalize offensive output at their launching-pad ballpark, began using them to store game-used balls as a way to counteract the effect of the mile-high climate on the ball.

Denver’s dry climate means its average relative humidity sits around 30 percent whereas most of the rest of the country has a 50 to 60 percent humidity during the baseball season. Baseballs sitting in a normal storage closet in a dry climate dry out faster. In simple terms, drier baseballs can be hit harder and lead to more offense.

“What tends to happen when a baseball gets dried out is it shrinks a little bit because that moisture, anything that gets really wet with moisture will swell. When you take the moisture out, the baseball will get a tiny bit smaller and it will get a little bit lighter so it will weigh a little bit less,” explained Greg Rybarczyk, the Red Sox research and development director of education and process analysis.

“Well, when you dry out the baseball, the science is a little bit murky on that, but it seems like the baseballs will be a little bit bouncier when they’re drier. If you have a dry baseball in Denver, it’s a little bit lighter, a little bit smaller, sort of cuts through the air more easily, it gets a little more entry from the bat on a typical swing so all of those things would tend to make the ball go further.”

The installation of a humidor helped regulate some of the wild offensive numbers at Denver’s Coors Field. (The altitude in Denver also plays a factor in the park’s traditionally explosive offensive displays, of course.) In 2018 the Diamondbacks, playing in Phoenix’s oppressively dry climate, introduced a humidor as well.

Team HR AVG. OPS Denver 2001 (no humidor) 124 .331 .941

Denver 2002 (humidor) 97 .313 .871

Arizona 2017 (no humidor) 122 .274 .842

Arizona 2018 (humidor) 80 .242 .719

That led to MLB surveying its 30 clubs last year to see how and where teams stored their baseballs: What kind of storage closet? Where in the park? Is the storage closet in close proximity to a heating unit?

When the results came back, with Colorado and Arizona now using humidors to regulate their baseballs, Boston had the driest baseballs in the game.

“You have cold weather in April, May, October and during those months you’re running heating systems. Just like your house can dry out in the winter months, that’s kind of what leads to these baseballs being dry,” said Red Sox executive vice president and assistant general manager Zack Scott. “So they’ll actually travel farther in those months and in the summer, when it’s more humid, it’ll have a different effect and it suppresses things. It seems counterintuitive to how offense goes in those months.”

So the Red Sox did their own research, determined it wouldn’t drastically affect the offensive numbers, and perhaps might even help the pitching staff. But moreover, they saw it as a way to regulate their game-used balls.

“What you don’t want to happen is the unknown of certain batches of baseball depending on where they’ve been stored and how they’re distributed,” Scott said. “There are different batches in the same supply for the game and some may have different effects so our goal was to standardize that. I wouldn’t be surprised to see most teams go in that direction.”

So in March, the club installed its own humidor, a 5-by-6-foot box that holds upward of 1,500 baseballs. Balls have to be in the humidor for a minimum of two weeks before being introduced into the game. Clubhouse manager Tommy McLaughlin and equipment manager Pookie Jackson are in charge of rotating and restocking the humidor. They use about 18 dozen (216 balls, which come in 12-packs) per game and reload the humidor every five days or so.

It’s not a league-wide mandate yet from MLB. In fact, only a handful of teams use humidors, (The Ringer first reported the introduction of the humidor, and noted that the Mets’ Citi Field and the Mariners’ T- Mobile Park also feature them) but it could be something MLB requires of all teams to normalize the ball in the future.

“It’s not that we have such an extreme climate as Denver does, or even Phoenix,” Rybarczyk said. “We’re not anywhere like that in terms of extremities, but the appeal to us was that MLB said hey, we’re going to make this an option for teams to do it. And we looked at it and said I think it’d be a good idea to standardize the conditions of the baseball that we use throughout the season. So let’s do it.”

The effect over the course of the season for the Red Sox is expected to be minimal. When the humidor was delivered in March, they expected to be able to study the results after the season. But with a shortened year, not to mention one that started in July versus April, there’s simply not enough information to glean.

“We expect the overall change is going to be very small, if even measurable,” Rybarczyk said. “We don’t expect it to make a huge change in Boston, but we think the advantages of having the baseball always feel the same may be a benefit to our pitchers, to have a more consistent baseball that they can bring to the mound and pitch with and the hitters will be hitting the same baseball every day. We feel like that’s a good thing to have.”

Chris Sale expects to throw soon, still sees bright future with Red Sox

Jen McCaffrey

Chris Sale made his last major league start exactly one year ago Thursday.

The following week, he landed on the injured list with left elbow inflammation. An offseason of rehab and hard work turned into a hearty and hopeful return in spring training, only to be followed by an ominous shutdown, which ultimately resulted in Tommy John surgery on March 30.

As Sale approaches five months since that season-ending surgery (which happened to fall on his 31st birthday), he’s inching his way back. For all the milestones he’s amassed in his career, one that feels like it carries real weight is approaching. The lefty is set to start throwing for the first time since the surgery in two or three weeks, certainly by the first week of September.

“They basically told me they want me to get between four and five months out, they have it dialed in closer to that five-month mark,” Sale told The Athletic on Wednesday. “Then we just start going from there, slowly but surely, hit every step. We’ve only got one chance to do this and we want to do this the right way. Up until now, knock on wood, we’ve hit every checkmark and dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ’t.’ So it’s actually been a really good process.”

Sale has spent the last several months working out at JetBlue Park, about a 30-minute drive north from his home in Naples, Fla. The socially distant setup at the Red Sox spring training complex means Sale hasn’t experienced a typical rehab process, due to the situation and limited staff allowed. All equipment from the training and weight rooms has been moved outside.

“We’re not allowed full access to the building yet so we’re doing what we can with what we have,” Sale said.

Alongside physical therapist Kevin Avilla and strength trainer Kirby Retzer, Sale has toiled away at strengthening the minor and major muscles that have helped him through his 10-year career as a seven-time All-Star.

“Basically head to toe,” he said of his workout and rehab routine. “We have enough time to break everything down and really see where some weaknesses are and some things I need to get better at with my entire body, but specifically with my shoulder, elbow, forearm, wrist, grip strength. A lot of stuff like that, just typical rehab stuff. It’s a lot of shoulder program and forearm exercises. But I do see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Once he begins throwing, he’ll head to JetBlue Park five days a week, but that too will be a very slow progression. The initial hope was that Sale would be able to return to the mound for the Red Sox by early in the 2021 season, and that may still be the case. But he’s learned not to put a timetable on anything. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to jinx his so-far smooth process.

“For me, the best advice I’ve had came from Nate Eovaldi,” Sale said of his teammate, who’s had Tommy John surgery twice. “And that was don’t get too far ahead. I can’t look at March of next year. I can’t look at January of next year. He basically told me, ‘Set two-week goals.’ Every two weeks, every four weeks, set a goal and try to get that goal because if you look at this as nine-month, 10-month, 12-month, 15-month (recovery) or however long it is, it can eat you alive.

“I show up, I go through everything they have me go through and whatever they tell me (to) throw I’m going to throw. Whenever they tell me to get on a mound I’m going to get on a mound. I’m going to do everything I can to get out there as fast as possible. That’s who I am in nature.

“I miss it. I miss being a baseball player. I miss throwing. I miss pitching. I miss playing the games and competing and being around my teammates and traveling. It’s fun, I appreciate the time I’ve had here with my family, but I do have an obligation and that’s being a baseball player and I miss it. And I do love pitching so I’m doing everything I can to get my arm and my body ready to pitch at a high level with the expectation level that it was before all this crap happened.”

The Red Sox were already in for an uphill battle this season following the trade of Mookie Betts and to the Dodgers in February shortly after the club had dismissed as manager. Then Sale went down. And then Eduardo Rodriguez was shut down following a heart condition after contracting COVID-19.

The team has been scuffling in the midst of a stressful, shortened season and it’s been hard for Sale to watch from the sidelines.

“You feel it,” he said. “There’s multiple things. It’s tough because I’m not there and I should be. I should be helping this team win games. Plus on top of all the baseball stuff that I miss and that I’m not there going through the grind with these guys. That’s a tough pill to swallow too, on top of the fact that I know the protocols, all the safety precautions they’re having to go through is tough as well.”

Sale wanted to drive up to St. Petersburg to see the team when the Sox played the Rays last week, but with the team abiding by such strict protocols amid the pandemic, he was advised not to visit. He’d like to make a trip to Boston for a weekend to see his teammates, but thinks the same rules would apply.

The Sox entered Wednesday with the American League’s worst record.

“It’s tough what the guys have to go through,” he said. “This year is very, very different. It’s very difficult to try to maintain this and your family and all these things that go into it, staying away and trying to stay safe and all this stuff. Then you add the competition, the competitiveness it’s got to be a weird feeling not playing in front of fans and things like that.”

The time at home has been a nice bonus for Sale. If he were healthy this season, he doesn’t think he would have opted out, but he’s not sure. Even if he hasn’t had to make the choice, he understands the decision several players, including Price, have made to opt out.

Most nights, Sale watches the Red Sox alongside his 10-year-old son Rylan and, for as long as his attention span allows, his 3-year-old Brayson. Sale’s 9-month-old, Camden, gets him up around 5:30 or 6 a.m., though, so the late-night games can be tough.

It’s those moments with his sons, or the fact that he got to spend the other day with his wife on her birthday — a rarity over his 10-year career — that make being away from the team hurt a little less.

Sale is signed with the Red Sox through 2024 with a vesting option for the 2025 season. Although the team is in a rough stretch right now, he’s optimistic for the future and knows he’s an important piece.

“I think the challenges this year have been tough starting back in spring training with Chaim (Bloom) gets the (chief baseball officer) job and has to find a new manager and then gets hosed in the draft and all these other things,” he said. “But I will say you have to look at the positives. We have young guys and we have very talented players on the roster and good veteran leadership and good young talent. We have an unbelievable coaching staff and great player development, a great front office.

“I think we have a good thing in front of us.”

It might be hard to see that now in the midst of an awful season, but if Sale can return to form, that’s at least one piece of the puzzle back in place for the Red Sox.

*

Red Sox put Benintendi on injured list with rib cage strain

BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Red Sox placed outfielder Andrew Benintendi on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday with a right rib cage strain and recalled right-hander Ryan Weber from their alternate training site to take his spot on the roster.

Benintendi had started in left field for 12 of Boston's 17 games. He was 2 for 3 in Tuesday night's game against Tampa Bay, raising his average from .056 to .103.

Weber, 30, made the opening day roster this season for the first time in his career. He has made three starts, going 0-2 with a 9.90 ERA. He allowed two runs in three innings in Boston's 5-3 victory over Toronto on Friday.

Rays pounce on Red Sox, hold on for 8-5 win

BOSTON -- Blake Snell pitched five shutout innings and the Tampa Bay Rays backed him with a trio of 400-foot homers to beat the Boston Red Sox 9-5 on Wednesday night and earn their fifth straight victory.

Willy Adames, Brandon Lowe and Yoshi Tsutsugo all homered off Zack Godley, and Austin Meadows hit a solo shot in the ninth after Boston scored five in the eighth to cut into an eight-run lead.

Lowe had a single, homer and double in his first three at-bats but failed in his next two plate appearances to complete the cycle. He is hitting over .400 in his career at Fenway Park.

"He didn't want to be great today. Didn't want the triple," said an obviously amped up Snell, who began his postgame Zoom call by speed-greeting many of the pictured reporters by name. "Three knocks today, that's exciting stuff."

J.D. Martinez hit a grand slam to make it 8-5 as Boston's first six batters in the eighth hit safely off Aaron Slegers. But Nick Anderson came on and struck out the next two batters and then, after Alex Verdugo singled, got Jackie Bradley Jr. on a groundout to end the inning.

The Red Sox have lost three in a row and eight of their last 11, with one more against the Rays before heading into a four-game series at Yankee Stadium.

Kevin Pillar had four hits for Boston, but he also got thrown out trying to take second on a ball off the Green Monster and the Red Sox trailing 6-0.

Snell (1-0) allowed four hits and walked no one, striking out six to earn his first win of the season. The 2018 AL Cy Young winner, who struggled with injuries last year and hadn't lasted more than three innings yet this season, threw a season-high 70 pitches and left with an 8-0 lead.

"Looking forward to being a starting pitcher again and getting away from the opener role," Snell said. "I felt like Blake Snell. I finally feel healthy."

Manager Kevin Cash called it "another step in the right direction."

"Blake's got to feel good with this one," he said.

Godley (0-2) hadn't allowed a run in eight innings over two previous Fenway appearances. He was charged with eight runs on 10 hits and two walks, striking out three in three innings.

"The last outing threw up a bunch of zeroes," Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. "It's just hard to say what's going to happen from game to game."

IN THE WEB

Godley had some bad luck mixed in with a few pitches that he can't blame on anyone but himself.

Tampa Bay's first run scored when first baseman Michael Chavis cleanly fielded a bases-loaded grounder but the ball got stuck in the webbing of his glove, preventing him from doing anything but stepping on first. In the second, after Adames had already hit a 400-foot home run, Pillar lost a fly ball that would have been the third out in the twilight, and Brandon Lowe hit the next pitch 415 feet for a two-run homer.

Tsutsugo made it 6-0 with a 405-foot homer in the third, and then the Rays took an 8-0 lead in the fourth.

"When things aren't going well, you see some weird stuff happening," Roenicke said. "Things aren't going well, that's all there is to it. We're not getting breaks and weird things are happening."

TRAINER'S ROOM

Red Sox: Placed OF Andrew Benintendi on the injured list with a strained rib cage. He was injured when he fell down trying to go from first to third on a single in Tuesday night's game.

UP NEXT

Rays: RHP Tyler Glasnow (0-1) starts for Tampa Bay as it tries to sweep the four-game series.

Red Sox: Lefty Kyle Hart makes his major league debut in the 4:05 p.m. series finale.