Tigers 10, Red Sox 9

Back on May 9, the Red Sox lost, 2-1, to the Kansas City Royals in 10 innings and I refused to be snarky about the loss because they really made a great effort to win, even if they came up one run short. All the more so now, when the Red Sox battled back time and time again to beat the Tigers, only to come up one run short in 11 innings. 

Quick recap: the Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the first, but the Red Sox tied it up in the second. The Tigers took a 2-1 lead in the third, but an Alex Bregman home run tied it up again in the top of the fourth. The Tigers took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the inning, but the Sox made it a 4-3 game in the fifth. The Tigers jumped ahead to a 6-4 lead in the sixth with three runs, but a two-run David Hamilton homer in the eighth tied it all back up and the game went into extra innings.

In the top of the 10th, Boston took a one-gun lead, 7-6, but the Tigers came back and tied the game up for the fourth time in the bottom of the inning. Seeing that a one-run lead wasn't enough, the Sox took a two-run lead in the top of the 11th with a Kristian Campbell homer. 9-7, Boston. But then reliever Greg Weissert  gave up a heartbreak, three-run, walk-off homer to the Tigers' Javier Báez and that was it for the game.

They say the number of lead changes is a good indicator of how exciting a game is. If you count moving into a tie as a lead change, this game had a dozen lead changes over 11 innings.

So yeah, it sucks that we took a loss, but you have to love Boston's (both teams, to be honest) never-say-die, gritty determination. 

Boston drops to .500 (22-22), three back from New York. On Wednesday (6:40 pm), the Red Sox will try to avoid getting swept for the first time this season in game three of this road series in Detroit.