Offense on back order
Lineup struggles continue
Shuffle up the Red Sox lineup a dozen times and the outcome probably won’t look much different.
There’s not much manager John Farrell can do right now.
The offense was mostly lifeless again last night, when over-aggressive baserunning by Mookie Betts cost the Red Sox a chance to take a late lead and Heath Hembree surrendered the go-ahead run in the eighth inning as the Sox fell to the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-3.
The Red Sox have scored just 12 runs and hit just .200 in five games since the AllStar break.
Asked how opposing teams are shutting down the team, center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. responded, “Shut down the Red Sox? We we were able to put together two wins coming back. Scored three runs a night. I don’t know about shut down. But we just haven’t been able to get more runs than the other team sometimes.”
Farrell had considered making a lineup change heading into this four-game series, saying over the weekend that “there’s a possibility of a little bit of different look, maybe try to jump start some things, shake things up a little bit.”
But when he wrote the names down yesterday afternoon, the order was the same.
What was Farrell going to do?
Betts, Dustin Pedroia and Xander Bogaerts are the easy choices for the top three hitters in the lineup. At one point it would’ve made sense to move Bradley up, but he’s 3-for-21 with 11 strikeouts since the All-Star break.
Maybe Mitch Moreland needs to sit down for a few games. He entered last night hitting .169 with a miniscule .528 OPS since he broke his toe on June 13. He was 1-for-4 with two strikeouts out of the cleanup spot.
“There’s definitely some thoughts about trying to shake things up a little bit,” Farrell said after the game. “Right now, Bogey’s been in a little bit of a stretch of games where he looks like he’s kind of lunging or jumping a little bit at the plate where the timing is not quite there. And you know, whether or not Mitch has been affected by the broken toe or it might have got him in a little bit of a different habit, that’s possible.”
Last time the Sox faced Jays ace Marcus Stroman, they lit him up for six runs on 11 hits. Current Red Sox batters entered the game with a .315 average against him. But they’re colder than a Westeros winter and it showed last night, as Stroman sliced his way through six shutout innings before they put any pressure on him.
Andrew Benintendi doubled to get a rally going in the seventh. Bradley then reached on an error, Christian Vazquez walked and Brock Holt drove in his first run since April 9 with a sacrifice fly to cut the Jays’ lead to 3-1.
Betts then pummeled a liner to left to score Bradley, and after Stroman came out of the game, Pedroia, who has an OPS near 1.000 since the end of June, smashed a double off the Green Monster to score Vazquez from second.
Any other day, Betts probably adheres to the stop sign that third base coach Brian Butterfield held for him. But representing the tying run, Betts couldn’t help but dream of home plate.
He was clearly thrown out on a smooth relay to end the inning.
“I kind of had it in my mind, ‘If he hits a double I was going to score,’” Betts said. “As I was running I didn’t even see Butter hold up the stop sign. Obviously if I see that I’m going to stop. That’s my fault for not looking up.”
Hembree then entered, walked the leadoff batter and gave up a pair of singles, including Steve Pearce’s eventual game-winner.
“Craig Kimbrel was not available (last night),” Farrell said. “Hembree was hot. We tied the score and ended the inning on the same play, so … we didn’t have time to get Matt Barnes into that inning.”
The Sox starting rotation hasn’t been a problem, and it certainly wasn’t one last night as Eduardo Rodriguez was activated from the disabled list and made his first start since June 2.
He threw 51⁄ innings, 3 struck out eight and walked four, while tossing 111 pitches.