The Boston Red Sox Sunday, September 20, 2020 * The Boston Globe Error-prone Red Sox stumble again in shutout loss vs. Yankees Julian McWilliams The Red Sox have had a tumultuous season magnified by injuries, lackluster play, and the struggles of their better hitters such as J.D. Martinez. They have had to patch together a starting rotation and have had a void all season at the second base position and, typically, right field. Surprisingly, though, they hadn’t been shut out this year, holding the longest active streak in the majors at 68 games dating back to last season. That stood until Saturday. The Sox lost to the Yankees, 8-0, in convincing fashion behind a stellar performance by starter J.A. Happ. The Yankee lefthander threw eight shutout innings, striking out nine and allowing just four hits. This isn’t new for Happ. He holds a 13-4 career record against the Sox, posting a 2.79 ERA in 27 games. “We’ve had trouble with Happ,” Sox manager Ron Roenicke said afterward. “He moves the ball around well. He pitches inside well. He throws the changeup, throws his breaking ball. In the three years I’ve been here, we have not hit him very well. That was most of it. We didn’t have very many good at-bats.” The other part of it — actually, the biggest part of it — was the Sox' sloppy defense and mental lapses. The Red Sox entered the contest against having committed 37 errors on the season. It was second to only the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Sox also had a zero ultimate zone rating and zero defensive runs saved. On Saturday, they gave fill-in starter Chris Mazza zero help, committing three errors in addition to the mental blunders. It began in the top of the first inning after DJ LeMahieu reached second on a single through the right side of the infield. Mazza walked Aaron Judge, putting two runners on, and then issued a passed ball that advanced the runners to second and third. LeMahieu scored on a sacrifice fly by Gio Urshela. The Red Sox squandered a chance at getting LeMahieu out at the plate when first baseman Bobby Dalbec cut off Cesar Puello’s throw from right field. The Yankees wound up scoring two runs that inning for an early 2-0 lead. With a runner on first and one out in the fourth, the Sox had a chance at a double play when Mike Tauchman hit a grounder to shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who booted the ball, allowing Clint Frazier to advance to second. The next batter, Kyle Higashioka, shot a ball to right field, scoring Frazier to make it 30. The ball found Bogaerts again on Tyler Wade’s grounder to short. With a chance at a double play, Bogaerts opted to take it upon himself to step on the bag for the force out at second on Higashioka, but made an errant throw to first that allowed Wade to reach base and advance to second and Tauchman to score another unearned run, making it 4-0. In the eighth, Dalbec committed a baserunning blunder when he was on second and tried to take third on Michael Chavis’s grounder to short. Although he was called safe at third, it was not the correct baseball play. In the ninth, Urshela hit yet another sacrifice fly, but Luke Voit, who was on first, didn’t tag up. When Puello made the catch, he threw to first, doubling off Voit to end the inning. But because Dalbec didn’t hustle to the bag, which led the run to be counted despite it coming on the third out of the frame. Roenicke called the mistakes, particularly the baserunning gaffe, a learning experience. “Sometimes there’s a lot going on and you don’t react the right way,” Roenicke said. “The more [he] plays, the more he’ll get better at that.” Rafael Devers made a diving stab on a Voit line drive in the ninth, but committed his 11th error of the season when he airmailed the throw to first from his seat. Happ had a dominant evening, but the Sox' struggles defensively were glaring. “We played so well [Friday night] on defense,” Roenicke said. “Then today, we didn’t look like the same guys.” They haven’t all season. Red Sox mourn passing of long-time scout Gary Hughes, 79 Peter Abraham Gary Hughes, a professional scout with the Red Sox from 2012-19, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 79. Hughes spent 54 years in baseball with 11 organizations and was considered a leading talent evaluator after starting his career as a part-time scout in California. His first full-job was with the Yankees in 1978. “Gary Hughes was the quintessential baseball man,” commissioner Rob Manfred said. With the Red Sox, Hughes was a trusted advisor of Ben Cherington and Dave Dombrowski and did scouting work that aided two World Series champions while mentoring a number of young executives. Hughes, who earned five World Series rings in all, was a member of the Professional Baseball Scouts Hall of Fame. His son, Sam, is a Yankees scout. Another son, Michael, is the visiting clubhouse manager of the Marlins. Perhaps it’s time for the Red Sox to stop referring to the dominant Yankees as rivals Peter Abraham The Yankees, who are chasing down a playoff spot, rested several of their regulars against the Red Sox on Saturday night. That’s not something you’d normally expect when the two old rivals meet late in the season. But then, it’s not much of a rivalry these days. The lineup the Yankees stitched together beat the Red Sox, 8-0, because of course they did. The Yankees have won all nine meetings between the teams this season and 12 in a row dating back to 2019. That’s the longest streak in the series since the Yankees won 12 straight from 1952-53. Rivals? Maybe that’s a word that should be suspended for a while until the Sox earn it back. They’ve 5-23 against the Yankees the last two seasons and have been outscored by 58 runs. New York has averaged seven runs in those games. That’s not a rivalry, that’s giving up your lunch money before the bully asks for it. “Late last year when we got really rolling we had a couple of really good series against them,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It was a time they were starting to struggle a little bit. It’s a little bit of an aberration. You get a couple of series where they’re down and we’re really rolling.” "This year they’ve obviously had their struggles and dealing with some guys not being on their roster. Losing Mookie [Betts] and [Chris] Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez being down, it’s been a tough year. Probably a little bit more fluky that it’s been this lopsided. “I’ve been in so many heavyweight bouts with [the Red Sox] as a player and now as a manager. You know you’re always going to have your hands full.” Boone, whose late grandfather, Ray, was a long-time Red Sox scout, was being diplomatic. The Red Sox are headed for their fourth last-place finish in nine seasons. They’ve become a team of extreme highs and lows. The Yankees haven’t finished with a losing record since 1992 and this year will be the 22nd time in 26 years they’ll play in the postseason. They’re mastered the art of consistent competitiveness, building a farm system that churns out players and using their financial might to pick off free agents when needed. The Yankees have made some mistakes along the way — signing Jacoby Ellsbury being one. But their mistakes don’t lead to total collapses. The Yankees haven’t won the World Series since 2009 and the Red Sox have two championships since. But both of those titles were followed by disarray. The Red Sox are hoping Chaim Bloom can build an organization that will compete for a title every season. For now, they’re a team the Yankees have brushed aside. Sox manager Ron Roenicke was asked how tough it was to go through a stretch like that against the Yankees. “Streaks and stuff, they don’t matter to me,” he said after Friday’s 6-5 loss in 12 innings. “We played a really good ballgame, we had plenty of chances to win. The steaks, I don’t really even look at.” But Roenicke has been with the Sox long enough to understand what games against the Yankees mean, or should mean. The powerhouse 2018 Sox were 10-9 against the Yankees in the regular season before the teams split the first two games of the Division Series at Fenway Park. Aaron Judge strolled out of Fenway Park carrying a portable speaker blaring “New York, New York.” The Sox responded by belting the Yankees, 16-1, two days later then eliminated them in Game 4. Their celebration at Yankee Stadium that night was a loud one. The game is better when a Red Sox-Yankees game means something. We may not again experience the bitterness that led to Pedro Martinez tossing aside Don Zimmer or Jason Varitek giving Alex Rodriguez a taste of his glove. But it would be nice to see a little heat after two years of the Red Sox not putting up much of a fight. There was barely a heartbeat on Saturday.