After watching their 1-0 lead turn into a grand slam-fueled 4-1 loss on Friday night, the Red Sox needed to turn the tables.

They were on top three times in Saturday’s game, but nothing they did – not Tyler O’Neill’s pair of late-inning go-ahead homers, nor Josh Winckowski’s incredible Houdini moment to escape bases-loaded – was enough to keep the Dodgers at bay. Former Red Sox utility-man Kiké Hernández came off the bench and provided the Dodgers with two clutch game-tying hits, and after three and a half hours, Will Smith’s walk-off in the bottom of the 11th sealed a 7-6 win for Los Angeles and handed Boston their second brutal loss in a row.

It was going to be an uphill climb from the start. The lefty-heavy Red Sox lineup has struggled against left-handers all season – now 12-16 against southpaw starters – and rookie Justin Wrobleski blanked them for 4.1 innings, allowing three hits and two walks, but incurring no damage. The lefty relied almost exclusively on his four-seam fastball (61%), and the Red Sox could wrap neither heads nor bats around the pitch, striking out five times on the pitch. (Boston is now 12-16 against left-handed starters.)

But the rookie southpaw wasn’t the true reason why the Red Sox failed to stake an early claim to the game. After out-hitting the Dodgers 9-4 and going 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Friday night, the Boston bats continued to falter when presented with run-scoring opportunities. Brayan Bello made one of his better starts of the season and gave his team ample time to put something together; they had a man in scoring position in each of the first four innings, and never capitalized.

In his first career start against the Dodgers, the Red Sox right-hander went six innings and allowed three earned runs on five hits, walked one, struck out seven, and induced a game-leading 17 swings & misses, all on just 82 pitches. His final line belies how dominant he looked over the first five frames. With the exception of Gavin Lux, who went deep for a 1-0 lead in the second and doubled in the fifth, Bello held the Dodgers lineup to one hit – a single by Freddie Freeman – through five.

Bello was only at 61 pitches after five, but when Los Angeles knocked him around and scored a pair in the sixth, Alex Cora decided to go to the bullpen in the seventh. (Bello’s performance did, however, extend the rotation’s streak of six-plus inning starts to seven in a row, their longest since June 2018.)

Much like Nick Pivetta’s dominant outing the night before, Bello’s strong showing would soon fade into the background of a protracted, painful extra-inning debacle.

Once Wrobleski exited, the Red Sox bats came alive, albeit in brief spurts. Jarren Duran continued to put the team on his back, reaching base in his first four plate appearances. Facing Yohan Ramírez with two on – Ceddanne Rafaela doubled, Rob Refsnyder singled – and one out in the fifth, the leadoff man ripped a two-run go-ahead double, then advanced to third on an error by shortstop Miguel Rojas.

Once again, however, the Red Sox needed more and couldn’t make it happen. Ramírez struck out O’Neill, then intentionally walked Rafael Devers to put runners on the corner, but Connor Wong’s groundout stranded the pair. The top of the sixth yielded another fruitless attempt; facing 2018 World Series champion Joe Kelly, Wilyer Abreu ripped a pinch-hit one-out double, and Dom Smith drew a walk, but Rafaela ground into a double play.

With Duran on base via walk in the seventh, O’Neill retook the lead on his first of two go-ahead two-run homers; at game’s end, they remained the only two members of the team with runs batted in.

It looked as though the bottom of the eighth would play out the way it had the way before. With the Red Sox clinging to a one-run lead, Josh Winckowski gave up back-to-back one-out singles to Freeman and Teoscar Hernández, then walked Andy Pages to load the bases. This time, however, there would be no go-ahead slam. Kenley Jansen stood in the visitor’s bullpen, ready to take on his longtime team, but Cora left Winckowski in to figure it out, and the risk yielded reward: Winckowski put two balls on Rojas, then forced him to dribble into a 1-2-3 inning-ending double play.

When the Red Sox again went 1-2-3 in the ninth, Jansen took the mound looking to close out a one-run game. But after over a decade of walking out to “California Love” and an adoring crowd, the ex-Dodgers closer was now the roadblock on the path to victory, not the light at the end of the tunnel.

Only it turned out, Jansen still was, albeit inadvertently. None other than a former Red Sock, Kiké Hernández, who handed the veteran closer his second blown save of the season (his first since April 16). The 415-foot blast, the first homer he’s allowed this season, tied the game.

After giving up a double to Chris Taylor and intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani, Jansen was able to get Freeman out to send the game to extras, where it was deja vu all over again in the top of the tenth. With Duran on second as the ghost-runner, O’Neill blasted his second go-ahead two-run homer of the game, giving Boston a 6-4 lead that could’ve been enough, had their bullpen been at full strength.

But without Chris Martin and Justin Slaten, who both went on the 15-day injured list before the All-Star break, it was Greg Weissert on the mound for the bottom of the tenth. The rookie was unable to put the game away. Andy Pages’ double had scored ghost-runner Freeman, to put the Dodgers within one. Down to their final out in the bottom of the 10th, Kiké Hernández – who’d entered the game 1-for-21 in July – singled to bring Pages around to re-tie it.

There would be no go-ahead heroics for the Red Sox in the top of the 11th, and no 12th at all. Romy Gonzalez began the inning on second base, and Blake Treinen began the frame by hitting Abreu with a pitch, but Dom Smith, Rafaela, and Masataka Yoshida, who pinch-hit for Refsnyder, went in order to strand both men.

With Weissert back out for the bottom of the 11th, his manager went for broke. Cavan Biggio’s sacrifice bunt moved ghost-runner Hernández to third, Weissert unintentionally walked Chris Taylor, then intentionally walked Ohtani to load the bases. The full-team mound meeting was in vain; Will Smith liner to left brought Hernández around to score the winning run.

“It was back-and-forth all game,” Will Smith told FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. “They never gave up, we never gave up.”

The Dodgers never gave up, but the Red Sox did. They led in hits for much of the contest, but wasted chance after chance, going 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position and leaving nine men on base.

The last time these teams went to extras in LA was Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, which the Dodgers won. But that 18-inning staring contest didn’t feel like a real loss for the Red Sox. Nathan Eovaldi’s heroic relief performance inspired and galvanized his teammates, and Boston came back to win the next two games to take the World Series.

On Saturday night, there was no such momentum or inspiration. After dropping their first two games coming out of the All-Star break, this Red Sox team – which is trying to convince its front office to buy at the July 30 trade deadline – is clinging to the third American League Wild Card.

There’s no margin for error.