(Photo credit: Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images)

The Boston Red Sox, in the thick of the American League playoff hunt, will look for a bounce-back performance from right-hander Lucas Giolito when they begin a three-game series against the visiting Miami Marlins on Friday.

Giolito entered his Saturday start at San Diego as one of the hottest starting pitchers in the major leagues. He was 7-1 with a 2.03 ERA in his previous 10 starts, but he ran into serious trouble in the fifth inning vs. the Padres.

Boston entered the bottom of the fifth with a 3-2 lead. San Diego's Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the inning with a single before Giolito retired the next two batters. Then Giolito walked four consecutive batters, two of which forced in runs to give San Diego a 4-3 advantage.

The Padres went on to win the game 5-4 in 10 innings. Although he didn't end up taking the loss, Giolito felt responsible for it.

'I know the way baseball works,' Giolito said. 'The 'L' doesn't go next to my name, but it should. That was really bad.

'I lost feel. Lost feel for my mechanics. I just couldn't make the adjustment. It's inexcusable. I truly believe that if I had just gotten out of that fifth inning, made the adjustment, then we would have won that game.'

After Giolito exited the mound, Boston's bullpen held the Padres to two hits and no earned runs in 4 1/3 innings.

'We've got to trust these guys to give us 100 (pitches), at least five innings,' Boston manager Alex Cora said. 'It just didn't work. He lost it. We were one pitch away, one out away from getting out of that inning.'

Giolito (8-2, 3.77 ERA) will be making his second career appearance against Miami on Friday. On June 11, 2023, he gave up a run on six hits, struck out eight and walked one in seven innings during a no-decision.

Miami is scheduled to start Sandy Alcantara (6-11, 6.55 ERA). The veteran right-hander is 1-1 with a 1.38 ERA in two career starts against the Red Sox. Through two starts this month, Alcantara is 0-2 with an 8.25 ERA.

The Marlins ended a four-game losing streak by winning 13-4 at Cleveland on Wednesday, but then they dropped a 9-4 decision to the Guardians on Thursday in the decisive contest of a three-game series.

'I think that we'll just come out there (in Boston) and look forward to getting a good start from Sandy (on Friday) and offensively just continue to mount innings, stress the opposition and defensively take care of the ball,' Miami manager Clayton McCullough said. 'There's not a whole lot else other than we have to try to win a few moments that we haven't won here in the last four or five days.'

Miami rookie Jakob Marsee began the Thursday contest hitting .436 with three home runs, 13 RBIs and six steals in his first 13 major league games, but he went 0-for-4 in the loss.

The Red Sox enter the weekend in second place in the American League East, five games behind the Toronto Blue Jays. Boston, sitting in the second of three AL wild-card positions, has 40 games remaining, 24 of which are against teams that are currently below .500.

--Field Level Media