Tuesday was another night to forget for the Boston Red Sox in Houston, as the Astros once again trounced the Red Sox by a final score of 9-2, extending their losing streak to four. While the loss itself was disheartening and put the Red Sox at 1-4 overall, the game was also marked by a very rare occurrence. 

In the bottom of the fifth inning, as the Astros were piling onto their lead, home plate umpire Mark Wegner lost track of the count.

The Red Sox finally scored a run against ace Hunter Brown in the top of the fifth inning, and then starter Brayan Bello needed a shutdown inning to keep the momentum. However, as manager Alex Cora said postgame, he "ran out of gas." Bello left a sinker out over the plate that Yordan Alvarez launched into the right field stands to get the Houston lead back to three at 4-1.

After a walk and a pair of hits, Houston would extend their lead to 5-1 when outfielder Cam Smith stepped to the plate with a man on first and third. 

Smith swung and missed at Bello's first offering. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Joey Loperfido took off from first base as Smith once again offered at the Bello cutter. Chaos ensued as the Connor Wong throw down to second base skipped away from Marcelo Mayer, allowing Christian Walker to score. With the count now 0-2, Smith would proceed to swing and miss at a Bello sweeper down and away, seemingly striking out, ending the inning. However, Wegner signaled the strike and announced the count as 1-2, and nobody on the Red Sox side said a word about the umpire error. Bello would go on to walk Smith, despite throwing him just three balls, marking the end of his outing.

Wegner met with The Athletic's Chandler Rome after the game, saying, "I didn’t know what happened until I came in here and apparently I somehow didn’t count the second swinging one because I said the count was 1-2. It was actually strike three. Had anybody caught it, we can always go and call replay and check the count. I’ve never done that before. I’m not happy about it. Just made a mistake.”

The Red Sox media asked both Cora and Bello about that strikeout that wasn't. Cora offered little explanation, saying only, "I don't even know what to say about that." While Bello offered a little more insight into what transpired, "I asked him because I thought the first pitch was a strike, then I thought that he swung at the second pitch," he said through a translator. Bello explained that Wegner made it clear the count was 1-1.  

Notably, neither Cora nor Bello was able to explain how nobody on the Red Sox side was aware of the count to ask for a replay review. 

The Red Sox and Astros will be back in action at 2:10 p.m. ET as Garrett Crochet pitches against Mike Burrows.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

Remember to join our RED SOX on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Red Sox fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!