Alex Speier

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Alex Speier

Isn’t it a bit early for the phenomenon of blown leads in the late innings to feel familiar? Evidently not. On Sunday, the Red Sox carried a 3-1 lead into the seventh inning but coughed it up, allowing four runs in the seventh and eighth on the way to a 5-4 defeat at the hands of the struggling Twins. The contest marked the third time in five games that the Sox led a game through six innings and then lost. “Tough week for the bullpen,” frowned manager Alex Cora. “They have good stuff.

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Alex Speier

The Red Sox reconfigured Rafael Devers’s job description once this year. Would they, and should they, do so again? With Triston Casas out for the season with a ruptured left patellar tendon, the Red Sox are deciding how to proceed at first base. On Saturday, the team called up versatile switch-hitting infielder Abraham Toro from Triple A Worcester as a complement to Romy Gonzalez, but acknowledged an ongoing search for options.

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Alex Speier

With widespread anticipation for the big league arrival of Roman Anthony, some have wondered whether the 20-year-old outfielder should see time at first base — a position where the Red Sox are thin — in order to open an additional pathway to the big leagues. It’s not going to happen. Why not? After all, future Gold Glove outfielder Cody Bellinger won National League Rookie of the Year honors as a 21-year-old in 2017 while spending the majority of his playing time at first base.

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Alex Speier

Yet size alone doesn’t explain the rapidly mushrooming hype surrounding Gonzales. Instead, it is the arrival of enormous in-game power during spring training and extended spring training contests — where Gonzales has hit multiple homers with exit velocities of 110 m.p.h., remarkable for a player his age — that is turning heads. What kind of raw power does Gonzales have on the 20 to 80 scouting scale? A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Alex Speier

TORONTO — For the second straight night, the Red Sox enjoyed a dominant start that seemingly set the team up to cruise to victory. And for the second straight night, a late-innings meltdown sent the team to a painful defeat. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s three-run homer off Sox reliever Justin Slaten in the bottom of the eighth inning transformed a 2-1 Red Sox advantage into a 4-2 loss.