“You look up and down the order and we had a tremendous amount of good at-bats,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “Maybe not at the right time when we needed it the most, but even some of those we didn’t come through with runners in scoring position were pretty good at-bats.”

The Astros had 21 baserunners in all, with 14 hits, six walks and one batter hit by a pitch. Houston had leadoff hitters on base in the second, third and seventh innings and couldn’t take advantage of it. No play was bigger than Correa hitting into a double play that came with a runner at first base and one out in the six and the Astros trailing, 5-4.

“We never got the big hit, but we put great at-bats together,” Correa said. “It was an interesting game, but we couldn’t come through when we needed to and obviously we lost the game. It’s time to go on the road now and try to win two series.”

Some credit also had to go to the Red Sox. Left-fielder Andrew Benintendi threw out Jose Altuve at the plate in the eighth to cut down the tying run, and Derek Fisher was thrown out at second trying to steal by catcher Christian Vazquez to end the game.

“They made some pitches when they needed to, but we put pressure on them all night and you do that over the course of a season, you’re doing the right thing,” Astros catcher Brian McCann said. “Tonight, I mean, tip your hat. They made some pitches when they had to and they got a couple of things when they had to.”

The Astros squandered another big chance in the seventh when Yuli Gurriel led off the inning with a double and was stranded after Alex Bregman struck out, Fisher grounded out and pinch-hitter Nori Aoki had a rare strikeout, against hard-throwing reliever Joe Kelly.

“We’re doing a number of things right, particularly from the mound and defensively,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said.