BOSTON -- For the second time in his past three starts, Boston Red Sox rookie left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez left the dazzle out of his repertoire, although that didn’t appear to be the case in the first three innings Thursday afternoon, when he set down all nine Baltimore Orioles he faced, striking out five.
But Rodriguez didn’t make it through the order the second time around, the Orioles knocking him out in a six-run fourth inning built on seven consecutive hits and Rodriguez’s throwing error. The Orioles went on to take the rubber game of this three-game set, 8-6, as the Sox began life without second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who went on the disabled list with a strained right hamstring.
The loss dropped the Sox nine games behind idle Tampa Bay, who will be awaiting Boston’s arrival in Tropicana Field for a three-game set beginning Friday night. The Rays will be looking to heap more misery on the Sox when they play their rivals in the AL East; the Sox are 11-23 in games within their own division.
Rodriguez overpowered the Orioles in the first three innings, striking out Chris Parmelee, Nolan Reimold, Chris Davis and J.J. Hardy on mid-90’s fastballs, then getting Ryan Flaherty to swing feebly at a slider for his fifth strikeout.
But Parmelee opened the fourth with a double and when Rodriguez threw low to first on Reimold's infield hit, scored Baltimore’s first run. Rodriguez, perhaps slow to regain his composure, fell behind Matt Wieters, 2-0, and Wieters launched his next pitch over the visitors’s bullpen to make it 3-1.
Two singles, J.J. Hardy’s two-run double, another single and Flaherty’s sacrifice fly ensued before manager John Farrell came to get Rodriguez.
The left-hander, 22, who had pitched so well in Kansas City on Friday night (6.1 IP, 6 H, 1 ER), offered a flashback to his last start here, June 14 against the Blue Jays, in which he was charged with nine runs in 4 2/3 innings.
The Sox tried to climb back, Alejandro de Aza hitting a three-run home run off Orioles starter Miguel Gonzalez in the bottom of the fourth and the Sox scoring twice more off Orioles reliever T.J. McFarland on Xander Bogaerts's RBI double and a wild pitch in the seventh.
But the Orioles tacked on a couple more runs against Sox relievers Tommy Layne and Jonathan Aro, making his big-league debut, and after Orioles closer Zach Britton gave up a bad-hop single to Jackie Bradley Jr. to open the ninth, he set down Mookie Betts, Brock Holt and Bogaerts in order for his 21st save.
Napoli off K rations: Mike Napoli ended a string of six straight strikeouts with a bloop double in the second and came around to score on singles by De Aza and Blake Swihart. Napoli singled and scored ahead of De Aza’s home run in the fourth and also was hit by a pitch.
Bradley snaps 0-for-30: Bradley, recalled for the third time this season from Pawtucket because of Hanley Ramirez's wrist injury, beat out an infield hit in his second at-bat, snapping an 0-for-30 streak that included his last 18 at-bats here in 2014. He also singled in the ninth, and from right field threw out David Lough attempting to score on Steve Pearce's flyball, ending the top of the ninth.
