Mastrodonato: Alex Verdugo’s awful day reminder that Red Sox don’t have a true center fielder

One might want to forget about the game the Red Sox lost on Monday, when they had a 7-1 lead over the Rays with Chris Sale on the mound, then slowly bled out on their way to an 11-10 loss in extra innings.

But forgetting isn’t the answer.

“Days like this hurt,” Sale said afterwards. “There’s no getting around it. You know, it’s a gut-punch. We lost a game we should have won — easily, honestly. I mean, we had a 7-1 lead. We’ve got to have that one… Obviously an ugly, ugly loss in the grand scheme of things.”

The Red Sox played atrocious defense on Monday.

“I think we have been inconsistent the whole season,” manager Alex Cora said. “We know that. When we’re catching the ball we win games. When we’re inconsistent, it’s tough.”

The No. 1 offender was Alex Verdugo, who looks out of place in center field, where he’s been forced to play because of imperfect roster construction.

In the first inning, Verdugo gave chase to a towering fly ball by Wander Franco. But he mistimed his leap at the center-field wall and the ball sailed just to the side of his glove as it dropped down for a triple. Franco eventually came around to score.

That’s one run given away by questionable defense.

Then in the fourth inning, when the Sox had a 7-1 lead, the Rays connected on three straight singles to load the bases with two outs. Nelson Cruz hit a routine fly ball to center field and Verdugo camped under it, crouched low to the ground and stabbed his glove at it. But the ball bounced off his glove, three runs scored and Cruz came all around to score on a terrible relay throw by Taylor Motter.

Make that five runs given away defensively.

Verdugo did not talk to reporters after the game, but right fielder Hunter Renfroe answered questions about the four-run mistake on Verdugo’s behalf.

“The sun ball obviously hurt us a lot,” Renfroe said, explaining that the sun was in Verdugo’s eyes. “I’ve told y’all before, the big ball of fire in the sky is undefeated. You can’t fight it and win. It happened to Dugie there.”

In the ninth inning, the Sox really embarrassed themselves.

A struggling Adam Ottavino allowed a deep shot by Austin Meadows that was similar to the one hit by Franco in the first inning. This time, Verdugo appeared to time his leap better, but the ball was just out of his reach and bounced off the wall and back toward the infield.

Left fielder J.D. Martinez was nowhere to be found and Renfroe had taken up position on Verdugo’s right side, in case the ball bounced off the wall toward right field.

All the way from shortstop, Jose Iglesias was the first to retrieve the ball, but by that time it was too late. Meadows scored on an inside-the-park home run to tie the game in the ninth and send it to extras.

“The corner outfielders, they have got to go there,” Cora said. “Iglesias went out there because of his instincts, but balls to center field, everybody has to crash there and they didn’t.”

To make matters worse, Christian Vazquez popped up a bunt attempt in the bottom of the ninth as the Sox failed to score, eventually losing in extras.

It looked like a spring training game in September. The Sox failed to do all the little things.

Teams that have more talent than everyone else can afford to forget about the little things. The Sox can’t.

“We didn’t help ourselves,” Sale said.

The COVID-19 outbreak hasn’t helped matters either, but even when the Sox are fully healthy their best offensive alignment might be with Verdugo in center field. And that’s looking like it could be a problem.

Renfroe is proving to be the everyday choice in right field, even against right-handers.

And with a pair of designated hitters in Martinez and Kyle Schwarber, the Sox have been playing one of them in left field.

That leaves Verdugo in center and Kiké Hernandez at second base, unless the Sox want to take the red-hot Bobby Dalbec out of the lineup and let Schwarber play first base instead, but that doesn’t seem optimal.

What remains is a defense that has arguably below-average defenders at five positions: left field, center field, third base, shortstop and first base.

“We can talk about people playing out of position or needing people here, but it doesn’t matter,” Cora said. “You have to win those games.”

The reality is that they’ll need to win games despite their defense, not because of it.

They aren’t going to get any better anytime soon. Xander Bogaerts coming back will help the offense, but he isn’t a Gold Glove shortstop. Christian Arroyo can play second base well, but his presence in the lineup likely means Verdugo or Dalbec won’t be playing, and that’s not ideal either.

This is what the Red Sox are working with.

Either Cora is going to eventually choose quality defense and sacrifice a little bit on offense, or the Sox will have to out-slug the opposition while knowing they might lose games like the one on Monday.