He finally saw one he could handle and didn’t miss it.

With a 6-4 lead in the ninth, Junichi Tazawa blew the save as he allowed four runs in the inning on six hits, as the Royals beat the Red Sox 8-6.

In the fourth inning, Morales hit a ball up the middle which could have been an inning-ending double play, but second baseman Josh Rutledge booted the ball allowing it to go into center field.

A steady drizzle through most of the afternoon left the conditions less than ideal and Tazawa said he had some difficulty gripping the slippery baseball at times.

In the outfield, the Red Sox truly found the fountain of youth. At last, Yost turned to lefty Franklin Morales, who threw away a swinging bunt by Sandoval, which allowed a second run to score. His defense is Gold Glove-caliber and he runs the bases well, but it’s hard for a manager to keep a guy in the lineup when he’s hovering just over. After an enormous ninth-inning rally, they wound up winning by…two runs.

Batting eighth in the final inning, Moustakas knew if he came up, the Royals were likely doing something special.

“I just went and played it like it was going to be off the wall”, Bradley said. We have to give them credit.

Tazawa acknowledged that it’s an adjustment for him.

A bases loaded single by Eric Hosmer scored two runs to tie the game and then after a walk, Mike Moustakas hit a two-run double for the last two runs of the inning.

“They capitalized on all my mistakes today”. “Fouling off a lot of pitches and I was dealing with a slippery ball”.

“I think, ” offered Tazawa, “that the hitter are getting to the pitches that I left up in the strike zone”. Right-hander Chris Young (9-6) got one out and picked up the win in relief.

Bradley had two RBI doubles and a single for the Red Sox, who went 6-4 on a 10-game homestand – all under Lovullo, who took over for John Farrell on August. 14.

1 run, 2 hits, 0 errors, 1 left on.

“They hit some good pitches, ” suggested Lovullo.

Boston trailed 4-2, but scored twice in both the sixth and seventh.

Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Johnny Cueto delivers during…

But with two errors and 14 hits allowed Friday, the Royals’ problems ran deeper.

But Bradley redeemed himself when he threw out Infante at the plate as the Royals second baseman rounded third and, inexplicably, tried to stretch it into an inside-the-park job.

After Kendrys Morales walked, Moustakas came to bat. In his next at-bat, he powered an opposite-field home run over the Green Monster.

The 22-year-old rookie left-hander followed that up six days later by yielding one run in eight innings of a 9-1 win over Cleveland – his longest outing of the season.

Salvador Perez had two of the Royals’ six hits. The Red Sox are 22-28 as the underdog and have an overall money line of -1,758. OF Hanley Ramirez had the day off.

“We made one out, ” said Bradley of the play to start the ninth. “I said, ‘It’s not on you.’ It was just a great throw”. “He’s got a tremendous arm”.

Inexplicably, Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost failed to relieve Edinson Volquez until he had surrendered the lead in the seventh inning.

A light mist started falling early and remained for most of the game.

Kris Medlen will make his first Royals start. Boston had won four of the five meetings this season, and 10 of 12 since the start of 2014.