The Red Sox have been on a roll recently, but Friday night many of the club’s old bad habits reared their head once again.

Boston’s five-game win streak was snapped after the Red Sox lost Friday’s series opener to the Cincinnati Reds 5-2. The club surrendered three home runs, committed three errors in a single inning and could barely muster any consistent offense outside of two solo home runs of its own.

With temperatures ballooning to 91 degrees at first pitch, the ball was flying all night. Each of the first five runs of the game came on individual solo home runs, two coming courtesy of Reds designated hitter Jeimer Candelario, who broke the ice with a solo shot in the bottom of the first and added another in the bottom of the third.

In between Connor Wong tied the game at 1-1 in the top of the second, Cincinnati’s Jonathan India answered with a shot in the bottom of the second, and Jarren Duran went deep to tie the game again in the third before Candelario’s second blast put Cincinnati up 3-2.

The home runs continued a troubling trend for Red Sox starter Kutter Crawford, who has now allowed multiple home runs in three straight starts and at least one in nine of his last 10 dating back to May 1. Before that Crawford hadn’t allowed any home runs over his first six starts of the season.

But with no traffic on the bases those homers weren’t too damaging, and otherwise Crawford was mostly in control. The right-hander only allowed two hits and a walk other than the home runs over 6.1 innings, and he retired 10 straight batters between the third and sixth innings.

But then in the seventh things went sideways, as the Red Sox committed three errors and allowed the Reds to put the game away.

A leadoff error and a Luke Maile double put two men in scoring position with one out, prompting Cora to pull Crawford and go to left-hander Cam Booser to try and escape the jam. On Booser’s first pitch TJ Friedl laid down a bunt and Booser’s attempt to flip the ball to Wong at home sailed over the catcher’s head, allowing both Santiago Espinal and Maile to score to make it 5-2 Cincinnati.

Things could have snowballed even further after Devers pulled Bobby Dalbec off the bag with a poor throw on a routine grounder that should have ended the inning, but right-hander Brad Keller was able to leave the bases loaded by subsequently forcing a flyout to left.

Those two runs were both unearned, so Crawford still earned his third consecutive quality start. He finished with five runs (three earned) over 6.1 innings with five hits, two walks and seven strikeouts on 88 pitches.

“It was actually an interesting outing for Kutter, right? The homers and the traffic early on and after that he was dialed in,” said manager Alex Cora.

But while Crawford was good, Cincinnati starter Andrew Abbott was better.

The Reds left-hander enjoyed his best start of the year, striking out a season-high 10 Red Sox batters while allowing two runs on four hits and a walk. Outside of Wong and Duran’s homers Boston’s only baserunners came on a walk and two singles, which came in separate innings and none advanced past first base.

Abbott’s performance was particularly noteworthy considering that the 25-year-old really doesn’t strike many people out. He’d only struck out seven or more twice through his first 14 starts entering Friday and had 60 through 79 innings.

“He had a good fastball,” Cora said. “Seems like everything was hard up, the four-seamer had carry and we were late on it. But like I said, we were hanging in there, we had a bad inning defensively and that was it.”

Cincinnati’s bullpen was dominant as well, and collectively the Red Sox struck out 14 times, which is tied for the second most in a game this season.

Boston (40-36) will aim to bounce back Saturday when Nick Pivetta (4-4, 3.88) faces off against Cincinnati’s Frankie Montas (3-5, 4.62). First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 p.m.

Abreu set to return

Red Sox outfielder Wilyer Abreu rejoined the big league club in Cincinnati on Friday and Cora told reporters pregame that the rookie outfielder should be activated Saturday. Abreu has missed 16 games since spraining his right ankle after a freak fall down the dugout stairs late in Boston’s 8-4 loss against Detroit on June 2, but he looked great in his second rehab game Wednesday, hitting two home runs for the WooSox.

Abreu has been one of Boston’s top all-around performers this season, batting .272 with six home runs, 22 RBI, seven stolen bases and an .829 OPS.

Refsnyder sits with sore knee

Normally Rob Refsnyder always starts when a left-hander is on the mound, as the outfielder has historically crushed lefties and is batting .321 against them this season. But Refsnyder was conspicuously absent from Friday’s lineup despite the Reds starting lefty Andrew Abbott, and Cora explained Refsnyder is battling a sore right knee.

“Ref is a little bit banged up. He has right knee soreness so we decided to go this route (with the lineup),” Cora told reporters pregame, as transcribed by MassLive’s Christopher Smith.

Cora added that Refsnyder shouldn’t need to go on the IL but the club will play it safe in the coming days either way. The Red Sox are scheduled to face another lefty on Sunday when Cincinnati’s Nick Lodolo is in line to take the mound.