The Red Sox defense hit an embarrassing new low in Sunday's loss to Rays

BOSTON -- The Red Sox defense has been bad for the first third of the season. Really bad. But on Sunday afternoon, Little Leaguers everywhere were left shaking their heads at just how dreadful Boston's defense is functioning. 

The Red Sox set a new defensive low on Sunday afternoon against the Tampa Bay Rays, treating the Fenway faithful to one of the more embarrassing plays in baseball this season. And it wasn't just bad throws and poor decisions that resulted in a Little League homer for the Rays; what really made manager Alex Cora upset about the series of unfortunate events was the number of Red Sox players who just stood around and watched it happen.

"We're not a good defensive team right now," Cora said after Sunday's 6-2 loss.

The display of defensive inadequacy happened in the top of the sixth, with the Rays already on top 4-2. Manuel Margot was on first base when Yandy Diaz chopped one to right field off Corey Kluber, sending Margot from first to third. Alex Verdugo was slow to get to the ball in right and when he finally got to it, fired a throw to second base. 

Seeing the Red Sox were in slow motion, Margot was given the green light to break for home from Rays third base coach Brady Williams. After receiving Verdugo's throw, Enmanuel Valdez fired the ball home, but it was waaaaaayyyyy outside and Margot scored easily. 

If only the Red Sox had just held onto the ball at that point, it wouldn't have been as bad. But the play really fell apart when Connor Wong tried to cut Diaz down at second.

The catcher's throw sailed into into center field, and unfortunately for Wong and the Red Sox, Jarren Duran decided to be a spectator for the play and didn't back up second base. It left a cavern in center that allowed Diaz to keep running, and running, and running.

"We were just watching like the rest of the 35,000 people here," Cora said.

By the time Verdugo finally fielded the ball, Diaz had made it all the way home -- standing up -- for the Little League homer. A single off Diaz's bat turned into a four-bagger thanks to Boston's defensive ineptitude. 

Woof. Earlier in the game, Tampa scored two runs when Masataka Yoshida misplayed a catchable ball in left field. The Rays would have scored a run off the play, but Yoshida's miscue put Tampa on top 3-1 at the time.

Sunday was the third time that the Red Sox have committed multiple errors in their last six games. Boston is tied for the second-most errors in baseball with 39 over the team's first 59 games.

Cora was not too pleased with what he saw Sunday -- or what he's seen all season from the Boston defense.

"We gotta keep preaching good defense, we gotta coach them. At the end, it's on me, you know," Cora said after Sunday's 6-2 loss. "I'm the manager of this club, and we've been sloppy. So, it's not about pointing fingers, right? The roster is the roster and we have to play better baseball. I'm the manager of this team and defensively we're not good."

Verdugo took the blame for the play, saying he had a bad read on the ball and made a bad throw to second to start the string of events. All that play really needed was two good throws to keep Margot at third and hold Diaz to a single. 

Instead, the Red Sox wildly threw the ball around the diamond, and then had no one backing up second base because Drran was busy chatting with Verdugo. In terms of what bothered Cora the most from Sunday's comedy of errors, he picked a little bit of everything.

"I've seen that play too many times the last two years," he said. "You've got to throw the ball to the right base, you've got to back up, you cannot become a spectator, right? You've got places to go in every play in baseball and they had a great baseball play."

Cora and his staff will now be hammering home the basics and fundamentals of defense, which is not something a major league staff should have to do with a bunch of major league players in early June. Maybe it's time to dust off a VRC and play some Tom Emanski tapes for these major leaguers.

Cora hopes that at some point soon, his team will start to look like a big league team in the field.

"When? I don't know," he said Sunday. "If it's tomorrow, it's 59 games too late. But we've got to keep going."