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Red Sox getting plenty of chances with men on base, but production lacking
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- Red Sox getting plenty of chances with men on base, but production lacking
BOSTON — At the start of the weekend series, interim manager Chad Tracy was asked about the team's offensive struggles and the frustration it had caused.
Looking to put a positive spin on the team's familiar problems with runners in scoring position, Tracy noted that the team was getting its chances and now only had to do a better job cashing in.
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In short, he sounded as though the Red Sox were halfway home toward solving the issue.
Three games later, that take sounded hopelessly naive following a series that saw the Red Sox manage just seven runs against a team ranked dead last in pitching, the Houston Astros .
After splitting the first two games, the Red Sox offense saved its worst for last: on Sunday, they were 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position, stranding a season-high 13 in a 3-1, 10-inning loss to the Astros.
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Right down to the final out, the Red Sox failed to take advantage of their opportunities. The Astros scored twice in the top of the 10th before the Sox valiantly filled the bases with one out, only to have Ceddanne Rafaela hit into a game-ending double play.
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"A ton of opportunities, a ton," said Tracy. "A ton of at-bats with people on. A worst-case (scenario) could be you're not getting the opportunities. We're getting them. But we have to execute them. That's a winnable game, obviously, and we had a lot of chances for two-out hits, one-out hits, people on and just couldn't get it done."
Worse, there are no readily available solutions. Asked whether the troubles could be attributed to a failure to execute or merely players trying too hard, Tracy was uncertain.
"It's hard to say," he said. "Maybe with the way things are going, maybe a little bit of wanting so badly to get it done. That's probably the case. It's not necessarily the kind of thing you can go work on. We just have to execute.
"But yeah, you can feel moments where we're there and you need that big hit and when you don't get it, you kind of grip the bat a little tighter. But we're getting the shots, for sure."
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In 10 innings Sunday, the Red Sox stranded runners in every inning but the fourth. In four separate innings, they left multiple runners on base. The only run they managed came on a one-out solo homer from Jarren Duran in the fifth. Of the seven runs in the series, four came as a result of Duran homers.
"It's hard," said Willson Contreras . "We're trying. We're not being consistent at all, from Day One. We have to find a way to be more consistent and find a way to get better, for sure. I think it comes from within ourselves and putting our mind in a better spot and trying not to seek results, but work for it.
"This game is hard. Like, mentally hard, and if you fall into your own trap, it's going to be tough to get out of there. I'm trying to keep my cool for the team. I'm trying to help in any way I can."
Interestingly, when Contreras was asked if the team was perhaps pressing in the aftermath of the firings that took place last weekend, attempting to make the best of a fresh start, Contreras suggested something to the contrary.
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"It's different with Alex not here," said Contreras. "But after Cora got fired, the guys got loose a little more because I feel like the tension was gone...That's what I felt. That's my own opinion. When Alex wasn't in the dugout (anymore), the team was kinda like loose. But that doesn't matter. We have to play better. We have to find consistency. We have to get better, we have to be better."
The numbers suggest the team's ineptitude is unrelated to the overhaul of the staff. They were bad when Cora was the manager, and in the last five games, the Red Sox are a putrid 4-for-39 (.102) with RISP.
Contreras said it probably doesn't help that the lineup has a number of young players who don't have much experience in dealing with slumps, and minutes later, Marcelo Mayer seemed to take exception to that explanation.
"To me, that's just kind of an excuse: blame the young guys," said Mayer. "But at the end of the day, we're all playing baseball, we're all pros. We all know what we need to do. I don't think we're doing a good job with runners in scoring position. When you don't do that, you don't score runs.
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"We had a lot of opportunities. We want to win every series and that's one we thought we should have had. A lot of runners left on base. Just not good overall."
That, of course, is an understatement. Recognizing the problem isn't difficult. Correcting it, as the Red Sox are demonstrating, feels almost impossible.
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