Energy shifts are a real thing in sports. Just ask the Red Sox, who were leading when they pulled starter Cooper Criswell after four perfect innings in Detroit on Sunday afternoon, and lost 4-1 to drop a crucial series with the Tigers.

Criswell struck out five in his meticulous quartet. It was a brilliant performance, and in the top of the fifth, the Boston bats rewarded their starter by taking a 1-0 lead on a trio of two-out singles by Romy Gonzalez, Nick Sogard, and Jarren Duran, for whom it was RBI No. 70 of the season.

It was the most in-rhythm he’d felt in a while, the right-hander told reporters. “(To) have four to five pitches working, I feel like that’s the first time I’ve had that in several outings, so it was nice for sure,” Criswell said.

He only needed 52 pitches to get through four frames, which suggested that the Red Sox might not need too many innings from their beleaguered bullpen. Since the break, Boston’s 6.31 bullpen ERA is the worst in the Majors by far, significantly worse than the No. 2 Chicago White Sox (5.51), who set a new franchise record on Sunday with their 107th loss of the season; they’re on pace to break the 1962 Mets’ record for most losses (120) in modern MLB history.

Yet when the bottom of the inning rolled around, it was Rich Hill on the mound for the second game in a row, instead. The bid for perfection evaporated immediately. In his third appearance of his 20th MLB season, Hill issued a leadoff walk to Kerry Carpenter on 12 pitches. After getting Jace Jung to strike out swinging, the 44-year-old lefty gave up a two-run homer to Spencer Torkelson. Hill hit Zach McKinstry with a pitch before getting Trey Sweeney to strike out looking.

“That’s the way we drew it up,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters. “We had a big pocket of lefties, and just the righty burned us.”

It speaks to how much teams rely on analytics that something as rare as a perfect-game bid wasn’t enough to move the Red Sox off their pregame strategy.

“Not really, no. He threw the ball well,” Cora said when asked if Criswell’s performance affected their plans. “Carpenter had been good against righties. We had the lead, so we went to a lefty. … Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Today, we got burned.”

After Hill had given up two runs and gotten two outs, Cora made another pitching change. Zack Kelly ended the inning by getting Dillon Dingler swinging, but he wouldn’t fare so well in the following frame; after Parker Meadows knocked a leadoff single, Riley Greene took Kelly deep on the next pitch.

The Red Sox wouldn’t score or lead again. They out-hit Detroit 6-3, but went 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left six on base. The lone run and all six hits, none of which were for extra bases, came against Brant Hurter, who threw five innings after opener Beau Brieske, who worked around a pair of walks in his 1.1 innings.

Stu Scheurwater’s work behind the dish only compounded the problem; Rob Refsnyder was a particular victim of the home-plate umpire’s several egregious missed calls, including a strikeout-looking to lead off the sixth, and kept him from a one-out walk in the eighth.

But umpiring isn’t the reason why the Red Sox offense is mired in a weeks-long slump. They’ve scored no more than four runs in 10 of their last 14 games – after scoring five or more runs in five of the previous six – and lost eight of those 10. Together with an unreliable bullpen, they’ve squandered several strong starts from a Red Sox rotation that owns a 3.33 ERA over their last 23 games, and a pristine 1.22 ERA over the last seven.

“Right now there’s not much going on, and it’s been going on for a while, so we just gotta regroup, reassess, and go from there tomorrow,” Cora said of the offense. “It’s not about hitting the ball hard, right? We’re not even doing that.”

Cora was optimistic about Rafael Devers’ day at the plate. After missing three consecutive games against the Blue Jays to rest his shoulder and serving as the designated hitter for the first two games in Detroit, the slugger was back at third base on Sunday. Devers’ two-out single in the fourth was the first hit of the game.

“He’s not chasing, so just a matter of time,” Cora said. “He worked on a few things mechanically yesterday, trying to stay inside the ball and going to left field. … We haven’t seen that in a while. Today he hit one, that’s a good sign.”

In a late summer full of frustrating losses, Sunday stands out from the pack: a loss brought about by analytics as much, if not more, than the human element.

“They know that I’ll take the ball whenever we feel like that’s enough,” Cora said, sounding frustrated.

His starter, however, didn’t seem thrilled.

“Obviously, you want to be out there, but I’m not gonna say anything against him,” Criswell said diplomatically. “Obviously, I would like to be out there, but when we scored that run, he told me that I was done for the day, so (I) just kind of shook his hand.”

The Red Sox are 70-67. Including the June 26 game they resumed (and lost) to the Blue Jays on Monday, they are 17-25 since the All-Star break. Forget the Wild Card race – they’re five games out in the loss column – just to finish the season with a winning record for the first time since 2021, the Sox must win at least 13 of their remaining 25 games.

Story shines in first rehab assignment

Trevor Story began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Worcester on Sunday, an enormous step in his journey back from the early-April shoulder injury and surgery that were considered season-ending until about a month ago.

“Honestly didn’t think that this was even a possibility, when we first heard the news of the injury,” Story told reporters after the game. “To be at this point is pretty special to me, my family and all the people that helped.”

Serving as the designated hitter, the veteran shortstop went 2-for-4 with a run and strikeout in the WooSox’s 11-6 win over the Toledo Mud Hens. Story is scheduled to play short when the WooSox open their next series, with a rare Monday game at the Rochester Red Wings.