Red Sox 4, Orioles 5: Koji blows it in the tenth

The Red Sox were three outs away from a series win in Baltimore, but an ineffective Koji Uehara not only gave up the lead in the tenth inning, but the game as well, surrendering two runs and the 5-4 win to the Orioles.

That the game even lasted that long is honestly something of a miracle. Justin Masterson came out in the first and just had nothing. The Orioles jumped on him with a pair of doubles to leadoff the game, leading in turn to a pair of runs. They would continue producing hard-hit balls off Masterson in the second and third, but with a little bit of luck and defense, Masterson kept additional runs off the board. Boston's offense had gotten him back into a tie in the meantime, with Mike Napoli homering in the second with Hanley Ramirez on base to make it 2-2. Hanley would nearly score again in the fourth, but was thrown out at the plate by Alejandro De Aza to end the inning.

Masterson seemed to rally in the fourth, striking out a pair of batters in his first 1-2-3 inning, but that would strangely prove a prelude to his biggest mistake of the night. In the fifth, a first pitch slider to Jimmy Paredes left the Sox trailing once more as Baltimore's DH hit a solo shot to right.

By all rights, that should have been the shot that sealed the deal. The Red Sox were held scoreless through the end of the eighth, even as Masterson became the first Boston starter to finish the seventh in a good while. But with the bases loaded and one down in the ninth, the Red Sox once again got lucky. Pablo Sandoval looked overmatched against Southpaw Zach Britton. In the end, he managed only to tap a ground ball to third, where Manny Machado should have been able to step on third and fire to first. But that throw was errant, letting Dustin Pedroia score to force, after a second scoreless inning from Matt Barnes, a tenth inning.

And at first, that tenth inning went very well. Xander Bogaerts took the first pitch of the inning into the stands for a solo shot to left, putting the Red Sox ahead 4-3, and leaving them in need of just three outs from Koji Uehara to end it.

They wouldn't get two. Instead, coming off a sketchy outing on Friday night, Uehara surrendered a leadoff triple to Adam Jones. At that point, the blame might have fallen on Allen Craig, who misplayed the ball tremendously to allow Jones to reach third. But after a sacrifice fly tied the game, Uehara let his outfielder off the hook by putting a ball on a tee for David Lough to crush over the right field wall to end the game entirely.