Elise Amendola/AP



The Red Sox needed 12 innings to pull out a 4-3 win over the Reds at Fenway Park Tuesday night. Grady Sizemore’s single off the wall in left-center scored David Ortiz with no outs in the 12th for the walk-off win.

It was the Sox’ second walk-off win of the season, improving their record in extra innings to 2-2.

But the Sox had ample opportunity to get it done before then.



They entered the 12th a frustrating 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position, leaving 13 runners on base. They had runners on base in every inning but the second, sixth, and 10th. The Sox scored two runs in the third but missed an opportunity to tack on more, leaving the bases loaded when Xander Bogaerts popped out and A.J. Pierzynski hit into a fielder’s choice to end the inning. They had runners at the corners with two outs in the ninth but couldn’t push a run across as Mike Napoli grounded out to end the inning.

Bogaerts and Pierzynski combined to go 0-for-10 with five strikeouts and were responsible for leaving a total of 12 runners on base.

The Sox are now hitting .219 this season with runners in scoring position, going 65-for-297, and have left an average of 7.85 runners on base per game.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of time. If you put enough runners on base, eventually they will score.

“I don’t know that we were concerned about it coming back to haunt us,” said manager John Farrell. “Because even when we haven’t cashed in, the one thing that this group does is they don’t let a previous at-bat or an inning have a carry-over effect.

“We continue to get multiple guys on in proceeding innings or following innings, and that was the case again tonight. We’d like to think at some point this will turn and we’ll get some of those base hits to score some runs and give us a little breathing room.”