Wicket-keeper-batter Gareth Roderick scored his maiden half-century for Worcestershire as they went down by 98 runs on the final day of the LV=Insurance County Championship encounter with Derbyshire at New Road.
Roderick reached his half-century with a cover drive for four off Ben Aitchison from 126 balls with seven fours.
It was the latest in several important knocks from him recently, and he has also impressed behind the stumps.
Roderick shared in a seventh wicket partnership of 92 with Jack Haynes after Worcestershire had resumed on 108-5 in pursuit of a 289 target.
But the last five wickets went down for 26 runs once Haynes had been trapped lbw by Derbyshire all-rounder Anuj Dal and Worcestershire were dismissed for 190 in 64.1 overs.
Roderick remained unbeaten on 53, and there were other positives in the game.
Dillon Pennington finished with excellent match figures of 33-5-106-7 after a nine-wicket haul in the corresponding match in 2022, and his initial spell on the opening day saw the 23-year-old at his best.
There was also the pleasing site of Kashif Ali scoring a maiden half-century on his Championship debut before signing a two-year contract extension.
But Worcestershire were left to reflect on twice failing to press home their advantage after twice being in the ascendancy.
They reduced Derbyshire to 14-5 in their first innings and 92-5 in the second when leading by just 37.
It was a similar scenario to the previous home game against Glamorgan when they established a first innings lead of 132 but went down by three wickets.
Worcestershire will now turn their attention to the Royal London Cup for the next month before looking to add to their trio of Championship wins during the finale to the season in September.
Worcestershire Head Coach Alex Gidman said: “What is the emotion? Just bitterly disappointed, to be honest. We had a great position early in the game to put ourselves in a powerful position and let that slip, and we couldn’t drag it back.
“Fair play to Derbyshire. They got themselves back into the game and kept the foot down, and we couldn’t get that back at any stage.
“You can always ask for more, and 130 is still a pretty good effort to bowl them out in the first innings, but I don’t think that’s where we lost the game.
“A lack of hunger and dedication with the bat at times, maybe a little bit sub-conscious complacency slipped in, and before you knew it, Derbyshire were all over us and didn’t let us back in.
“Jack (Haynes) and Kashif (Ali) put on a great partnership in the first innings but to lose them both as quickly as we did at that period of the game (the first evening) was crucial.
“We’ve got to bear in mind that the batters have performed very well this year. We’ve got some outstanding numbers which have helped us out at times when perhaps we haven’t bowled as well.
“The difficulty has been in the last few games, with the exception of Middlesex, we haven’t bowled and batted well together.
“We’ve performed in all facets at different times of the season and in different times of the game, but in this particular match, we needed to marry it all up together, and we didn’t.
“It’s brought us down to earth with a large bang after the Middlesex game, but as a group, we’ve got to learn from it and really disappointed we didn’t learn as much as perhaps we should have from the Glamorgan game here.
“A similar position in the sense of complacency cost us then, and we’ve let the same characteristics slip in and impact this game. That’s probably the most disappointing thing.”
