MINNEAPOLIS — For six games, the Red Sox lineup hummed at near-perfect pitch. The alternating mix of power and humble at-bats in which players gladly flicked pitches to all fields reinvigorated the team through a six-game winning streak in which the Sox scored 50 runs, their most robust total for any stretch of a half-dozen games this year.
On Wednesday, against Twins ace Sonny Gray and ace reliever Jhoan Duran, the team featured the sort of at-bats that represented a continuation of that inspired form of play. The Sox forced Gray to labor through high pitch counts, and showed both power — a booming double by Rafael Devers off the fence in center in the first inning, a 447-foot Justin Turner homer in the third — as well as the mixture of walks and opposite-field hits to sustain constant pressure.
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Yet opportunities did not turn into runs. Though the Sox had 17 plate appearances with runners in scoring position — tied for their fifth most of the year — they went just 3 for 15 with those chances, resulting in a 5-4, 10-inning, walkoff loss to the Twins.
“We didn’t do much,” lamented manager Alex Cora. “We had a lot of opportunities and didn’t cash in.”
The team’s struggles with runners on base offered a reminder of the repeated reversals of the baseball calendar.
The Sox had hit an incredible .377/.476/.623 with runners in scoring position during their six-game winning streak — the sort of slash line that would please even Ted Williams. Those six games, meanwhile, represented a whiplash-inducing U-turn from the prior 12 contests, in which the Sox hit .191/.258/.273 with runners in scoring position while losing eight of 12.
Teams are never what they look like at their zeniths or nadirs.
“It’s the odds, right? You’re not going to be as hot as that,” said Cora. “But we came back against probably the best reliever in the big leagues in the eighth inning.”
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There were, of course, plays that the Sox would like to have back. With runners on the corners and no outs in the sixth inning of a 3-3 tie, the Sox endured a horrific sequence. Catcher Reese McGuire dropped to the ground in agony after fouling off a pitch, and immediately left the game with an oblique strain.
With pinch hitter Connor Wong at the plate against Twins reliever Brock Stewart, Christian Arroyo — mindful that Stewart had stepped off the rubber twice, almost completely ruling out another throw to first lest he risk a balk — took off for second. He was thrown out handily for the first out of the inning. Wong and Kiké Hernández then struck out to strand the runner on third.
In the seventh, Alex Verdugo was thrown out trying to stretch a one-out single into a double on a hit to right-center. Though the baserunning outs contributed to scoreless innings in each instance, Cora didn’t fault his players’ decision-making.
“It’s stuff that is going to happen in the game. We’re going to stay aggressive,” said Cora. “Obviously, we’ll talk to them about a few situations that we’ve got to put everything on the table and see the odds of the play, if it’s worth it, but the aggression, I don’t care. I’d rather see Dugie hustling to second than slowing down on the play.”
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Those were the sort of one-off moments that happen as part of a bad night. A somewhat more enduring concern was the ongoing ability of Twins pitchers to challenge Devers with fastballs. Though the Red Sox slugger smoked an RBI double on a Gray breaking ball, he struck out three times — twice on fastballs down the middle with runners in scoring position.
In June, Devers is 4 for 23 (.174) with 10 strikeouts against four-seam fastballs and 1 for 12 with three strikeouts against sinkers.
“It really comes down to timing, making sure he’s in a position to attack the fastball the right way,” said hitting coach Pete Fatse. “It’s stuff we’ve literally been talking about since I got here in 2020.
“Raffy’s the figurehead of this lineup, but anytime we’re able to produce and stretch your lineup and get that level of production [without Devers being locked in], to me, that’s a sustainable source of winning.”
The performance of the rest of the lineup has bought time for Devers to find his way — with his double to center perhaps a sign that he’s getting closer to doing so. Meanwhile, for the Sox, whose 5.1 runs per game rank sixth in the majors, there is an opportunity to quickly set aside the what-could-have-beens of a game that was divorced from the six that preceded it.
With first pitch Thursday scheduled for just after noon, and the need to engage in a healthy amount of hurried travel planning and roster shuffling (McGuire is likely to land on the injured list, with a non-roster catcher rushed to Minneapolis), the Sox had little time to chew on the taste of a game that got away.
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Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.