The first two weeks of the season have been a roller coaster for the Red Sox offense, which has careened between ice cold and red hot with little in between.
Coming into Thursday having scored just four runs through the team’s first three games against the Toronto Blue Jays, Red Sox manager Alex Cora expressed frustration about his offense’s lack of consistency.
“The Rangers are pitching well, these guys are pitching well, it happens, but like I said, we have to make adjustments,” Cora said. “It really doesn’t matter who they are, it’s who we are, and we have to be better than this.”
Since scoring 18 runs in Sunday’s finale against the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston managed only two runs in Monday’s opener and one run each in Tuesday and Wednesday’s losses. Over that stretch the club collectively went 2 for 29 with runners in scoring position while striking out 30 times.
Even factoring in the offense’s more productive stretches, the Red Sox have still struck out a lot. The club’s 126 strikeouts entering Thursday were the most in baseball, a trend that Cora said needs to change.
“At one point you’ve got to spread out and put the ball in play, that’s the bottom line,” Cora said. “You can take the strikeouts, I get it, but there are certain situations we have to move the ball forward and we cannot fall into this pattern of striking out 12 times, 10 times, 12 times, because we’re better than that and everyone knows it.”
Overall Boston’s offensive numbers don’t look bad relative to the rest of the league. The Red Sox ranked sixth in runs scored (67), second in doubles (29), fifth in stolen bases (16) and ninth in OPS (.727). But Cora said those totals sometimes obscure the lack of consistency, an issue he says now goes back years.
“The last two years honestly if you look at the overall numbers, oh yeah, top three, top four offense in the big leagues, but it’s very inconsistent,” Cora said. “We have to be more consistent and I truly believe this group can be a consistently good group.”
Cora said he’s largely ok with how his club has played otherwise. He said the starting pitchers have performed well and the bullpen has held up even amid a demanding early season schedule that will see the Red Sox play 20 games in 21 days. Defensively there have been some breakdowns recently, but he doesn’t see those issues as reason for concern.
“I think we’ve been good, we’re turning double plays, which is very important, that’s something I’ve always said is a game changer, a momentum changer,” Cora said. “If we keep doing that we’re going to be solid. Yeah we had a tough one this week at Fenway but I truly believe we’re a lot better than this.”
The key for the Red Sox, he said, will be hitting to their capabilities, and not just in short bursts a couple of times per week.