Red Sox's troubles at Fenway continue after late rally fizzles

BOSTON – Once again, the Red Sox tried to turn their Fenway fizzle into sizzle with a late-inning comeback.

And for the third straight game, they fell short in that quest.

Each one feels tougher than the last one, both for a 22-31 team and its rabid fanbase.

The stunning hometown blues continued for the Red Sox, as a 7-6 defeat to the Braves on Tuesday night dropped their Fenway record to 8-17, including 0-4 on this six-game homestand. Boston is the only team in the Majors yet to reach double-digit victories at home.

“It's a loss, but at least we're fighting,” said infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “The fight's been great. We just haven't been able to win. So yeah, I mean, it was a good fight, but it wasn't good enough.

Yet again, there was the tease that this night was going to end in a walk-off pile. Facing a closer in Raisel Iglesias who has converted 27 consecutive saves going back to July 28 of last season, the Sox, trailing by three entering that final frame, put the righty on the ropes.

It was Kiner-Falefa who came through with a seeing-eye, two-run single that made it a one-run game. Jarren Duran came up next and belted a single that put the tying and winning runs on base. But the rally went no further, and a familiar groan came over the crowd of 34,126 rather than that deafening roar that accompanied past Red Sox teams who made Fenway a horror show for visiting relievers on the ropes.

At a time when it would be easy to be discouraged, Duran offered optimism.

“It would be so easy for us to just give up and roll over and be like, ‘the game's over, we're losing, whatever.’ But one of these times, we're gonna put together what we do in the ninth the whole game, and we're gonna go on a run, and it's gonna be sick,” said Duran.

The difference of this homestand from previous ones is that the offense is showing much more fight. But the pitching, so dominant at home and on the road for much of May, has fallen off on this homestand.

On Friday night, the Sox built leads of 4-0 and 6-3, only to lose, 8-6. On Saturday, they had the bases loaded with two outs in the ninth, but Duran struck out looking on a close 3-2 pitch to close out a 4-2 deficit. Sunday was the toughest in what wound up a sweep against the Twins. Kiner-Falefa launched one high and deep to left for what likely would have been a walk-off, three-run homer on a normal weather day.

Instead, the rainy conditions caused the ball to die at the end and hit off the Monster. Connor Wong, attempting to score the tying run on the play, was instead tagged out at the plate in a 6-5 loss.

Naturally, Kiner-Falefa’s homer did come on Tuesday’s perfect weather night, but it was a solo shot in the seventh that pulled Boston to within a run before the Braves tacked on two more in the eighth.

It was a night that started with promise. Not only was the game-time temperature 82 degrees, breaking a string of dreary weather for Sox home games, but Duran and Ceddanne Rafaela got things off to a flying start, belting back-to-back homers against Spencer Strider to open the bottom of the first.

It was the first time the Sox started a first inning with back-to-back homers since Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia pulled it off in Baltimore nearly a decade ago (May 31, 2016).

“I thought that kick started it, we hit some balls out of the yard,” said Tracy. “[Strider] kind of shifted gears there. Strider kind of uses his fastball a lot. He kind of mixed more off-speed as he went along and kind of settled in there a bit.”

The opposite happened for Sox starter Ranger Suarez who took that 2-0 lead into the fifth, only to issue a two-out walk to Mauricio Dubón that preceded a game-tying, two-run shot to right by Matt Olson.

“Yeah, you never want to walk anybody with two outs, especially there, and the home run came after that,” Suarez said.

In the sixth inning, when the Sox loaded the bases with nobody out, the only run that scored in that promising frame was a double-play grounder off the bat of Mickey Gasper.

That’s just how it has gone for the Sox in their home park: Bursts of hope that ultimately fall short.