Red Sox 4, Rangers 7: RobRef shines as the Rangers sharpen their spurs

After showing off with their own Friday fireworks show in the series opener, the Red Sox could not replicate this explosion outside of one person in the lineup: No. 2 hitter Rob Refsnyder.

The certified Lefty Killer promptly hit his first home run of the night in his first at-bat of the game, quickly giving Boston a 1-0 lead as I watched from the action from Woody’s Wood-Fired Pizza in Golden, Colo. across the way from some dude wearing a Sea Dogs shirt. (Side note: if any of you are in or near Golden for any reason, you 100% should go to Woody’s and order the Fig-Gettaboutit!).

As RobRef gave Boston a quick lead, Tanner Houck made quick work of a Rangers lineup that struggled to keep up with the Sox’s early barrage in Friday’s opener, as he allowed only three men to reach base in three innings. Houck also collected seven strikeouts through nine outs, another impressive feat that didn’t give Texas much to work with as they tried to battle against the superhuman power of Rob Refsnyder.

So in the fourth inning, he decided to make it even tougher in his second at-bat of the game, as he went deep off the lefty Cody Bradford once more to double the lead and record the first multi-home run game of his career, just for good measure.

Watch out Scooter Gennett and J.D. Martinez, Ref is looking to become the latest to infiltrate the four-homer game club at any moment now. Raffy then decided that someone else not named Rob should contribute to the offense, as he socked a double to left field before Connor Wong drove him in with an RBI single. First baseman Connor Wong then showed off his speed just to really solidify his athletic record, stealing second two innings after making a diving stab in his first-ever start at first base.

But to be fair, he did warn us before tonight’s start about just what his plan would be as a newfound utility player.

Unfortunately, this is where the highlights for Boston ended, as Danny Jansen drew a walk to knock Bradford out of the game after 3.2 innings of work and Nick Sogard picked up his own free pass to load the bases. This left things up to Ceddanne Rafaela at the bottom of the order, who promptly struck out to strand everyone where they stood.

Apparently, the idea of a multi-run lead terrified Houck, as he grabbed two outs before allowing a single to Ezequiel Duran (who — side note — just makes me think of Ezequiel Tovar and Jarren Duran teaming up to create a single player, which is terrifying) and giving up a home run to No. 8 hitter Jonah Heim to get rid of that padding as quickly as possible. In fact, he decided he simply did not want to be ahead at all anymore, so he gave up a home run to No. 9 hitter Leody Taveras, to make it a 4-3 game just for good measure.

Houck settled down in the fifth after Boston got some traffic on the basepaths against our old friend Andrew Chafin, but had nothing to show for it. In the sixth, three straight groundouts made things easy for Josh Sborz, but Texas wasn’t taking it easy on Houck anymore. The starter stayed in the game to start the sixth but gave up a double, single and an RBI single to give the Rangers a 5-3 lead while failing to record a single out.

Brennan Bernadino entered, seeking to stem the bleeding while the inning could still be saved, but even with an assist from Rafaela — literally — allowed two more runs to score, putting Boston in a dangerous four-run deficit with only three innings to correct the course.

The Sox were able to add one run in the seventh thanks to some more extra-base heroics from none other than Rob Refsnyder, while Cooper Criswell entered the game and shut down the Rangers. But after leaving the bases juiced with yet another strikeout in the eighth, this time courtesy of Duran, and getting another opportunity thanks to Refsnyder’s fourth hit of the night, a leadoff single, in the ninth, Boston was unable to mount any sort of comeback that it looked at least feasibly capable of mounting.

Even Rafael Devers’ 386-foot, 98-mph flyout couldn’t get over the wall at Globe Life, truly proving the death of any attempt at a win.

After last night’s impressive relief outings from a couple of Craig Breslow’s newest additions, Cooper Criswell added two innings of solid work while Tanner Houck added another struggling start to the recently struggling tandem of himself and Kutter Crawford.

Boston’s offense didn’t necessarily go quiet after Friday’s 11-run showing — as it tallied 11 hits compared to Texas’ 13 — but was consistently unable to drive in runs, going 3-for-11 with RISP and stranding 10 men on base.

Three studs

Rob Refsnyder: Obviously our lefty king went 4-for-4 with three RBI while drawing a walk and scoring two runs of his own, which is certainly more than enough for my personal vote for player of the game.

Ceddanne Rafaela: Although he had an unfortunately-timed strikeout with the bases loaded, he was the only other Red Sox to have a multi-hit game and added on with a pretty impressive outfield assist to save a run in the disastrous sixth inning.

Cooper Criswell: After seeing his stunning outing at Coors Field live and in-person last week, Criswell — or as I like to call him, “the Crisp Man,” “Big Crisp,” or whichever variation comes to mind — is quickly becoming one of my favorite Red Sox bullpenners, and he certainly added to that with his two scoreless innings of work tonight.

Three duds

Romy Gonzalez: An 0-for-3 night with two strikeouts is certainly enough to land on this list when the first half of the lineup, outside of Refsnyder, completely failed to produce.

Jarren Duran: Duran added to Gonzalez’s woes, but gets a bit of a break for appearing to injure himself in the top of the third attempting to beat out a grounder before talking himself into staying in the game. But his 1-for-5 night with three strikeouts definitely hindered the glow he’s had of late at Globe Life Stadium.

Tanner Houck: An eight-hit, six-run outing is definitely not what we expect from Houck this season, but seems to be what we’ve been getting since the All-Star break. His season ERA went over 3.00 for the first time this season as the righty has allowed 21 earned runs in his last 30 innings.

But when he gets seven strikeouts in three innings and still throws sweepers that look like this, I’m a little less worried about his next start (though both he and Kutter have looked like they’re running on fumes lately).