Brewers walk off again to complete sweep, hand Red Sox fifth straight loss

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on May 28, 2025

Published in Baseball

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It’s all starting to snowball on the Red Sox now.

Coming off a backbreaking extra-innings loss on Tuesday, the Red Sox badly needed a win to stop their recent slide. Instead Wednesday’s finale against the Milwaukee Brewers brought more of the same, as the Red Sox watched another early lead slip away before losing, 6-5 in 10 innings, to complete the three-game sweep.

Caleb Durbin came through with the game-winning sacrifice fly to give Milwaukee its second straight walk-off win.

The Red Sox (27-31) have now lost five straight games, their longest losing streak of the season, and have fallen a season-worst four games below .500.

With an off day Thursday, it’s beginning to feel like the Red Sox season is approaching a crossroads.

All year long the Red Sox have been plagued by inconsistent offense, inefficient pitching and inexplicable lapses on defense and on the base paths. The club fell victim to all of those Wednesday.

Offensively, Wednesday marked a step forward, though the overall trends are still poor. The Red Sox initially took a 1-0 lead in the second inning after Ceddanne Rafaela muscled a solo home run just over the wall, and in the bottom of the frame he made an incredible leaping grab against the wall to save a run.

But after the Brewers tied the game on a solo shot by Jake Bauers in the third, Rafaela nearly derailed a Red Sox rally in the following inning with a brutal baserunning gaffe. With two men on and one out Jarren Duran singled, but instead of loading the bases Rafaela attempted to go from first to third even though Connor Wong had been held up at third ahead of him. Duran advanced to second behind him, leaving Rafaela caught in no-man’s land for an easy out.

Fortunately for Boston, Rafael Devers came through with a two-run, two-out single anyway to put the Red Sox up 3-1.

The defensive lapse came in the bottom of the fifth and played a significant role in starting pitcher Brayan Bello once again failing to complete five innings. The Brewers got a leadoff walk from Bauers and moved him to second on a sacrifice bunt, but Brice Turang hit a sinking liner into left that should have been the second out of the inning. Duran dropped the ball, giving Milwaukee two men in scoring position with one out instead of just the man at second with two, and that proved costly when Jackson Chourio grounded out immediately afterwards.

What might have been an inning-ending rally-killer instead brought Bauers in to score, and that also marked the end of Bello’s day after 4 2/3 innings.

Bello has now failed to finish five innings in each of his last five starts, and through eight starts he’s managed only 40 innings total. On Wednesday he allowed two runs (one earned) on three hits and two walks, but also only had two strikeouts and needed 77 pitches to record 14 outs.

The Brewers took a 4-3 lead in the sixth on a two-run double by Caleb Durbin off Hunter Dobbins (two runs over three innings of relief) to complete the comeback, but this time the Red Sox had an answer when Wilyer Abreu hit his 13th home run of the season in the seventh to tie the score.

Though the Red Sox squandered a golden opportunity to pull ahead in the top of the ninth, leaving the bases loaded after Nick Sogard struck out looking to end the threat, the club was able to force extras and re-took the lead after Hamilton grounded out to score the ghost runner Trevor Story from third.

But scoring just one run as the road team in extras is always risky, and the Red Sox got burned again when Sal Frelick (4 for 5) beat Justin Slaten to the first base bag for an infield single to lead off the bottom of the 10th. That put the Red Sox in a serious hole, one the club made worse when Kristian Campbell threw away a ball at second trying to nail the lead runner at the plate on Isaac Collins’ infield grounder.

Then, with the score now tied at 5-5, a man at third and no outs, all Durbin needed was a fly ball to win the game. He sent one just deep enough, and with that Frelick came in to send the Brewers home happy again.