Still at a loss to explain ’19 struggles

CLEVELAND — The Red Sox’ inability to mount any kind of a sustained run of excellence this season will go down as their trademark should the season wind up where it appears to be heading with a postseason whiff.

Monday night’s 6-5 loss was an especially timely kick in the pants about the team’s somewhat inexplicable plight.

When Xander Bogaerts doubled in the game-tying run in the ninth inning, the Red Sox dugout came alive.

Maybe this would be the night.

It wasn’t.

Marcus Walden gave up a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth, and the Red Sox were right back where they started.

And for a team that already had lost 58 times this season against only 62 wins, the 59th loss felt even more painful. For a team almost immune to pain a year ago, they are trying not to be numbed by it this year.

“It’s tough, man. I don’t know what to say,” a morose Bogaerts said. “We’ve got a lot of guys swinging it. Obviously I haven’t been doing much lately. For me to get that hit I think was pretty nice, but you feel like you help the team and then it’s just like you didn’t do enough. Tomorrow we’ve got to come back and try to win.”

The “go get ’em tomorrow” motto only gets players and teams going so much.

It’s tried and not particularly true with this bunch.

Not becoming demoralized is a trick the reigning world champions have to think about more and more these days.

“I wish I knew,” said Bogaerts about how to avoid getting down. “Try not to think about it as much. I know everyone in this room cares a lot. It’s really frustrating and annoying when the results aren’t the way you want them to be. Yeah, that’s it.”

Unity prevails. “We’re all together,” Bogaerts said. “I don’t think there’s any separation or any pointing fingers at anyone. It’s just like, ‘Oh man, it’s rough.’ It’s been like that for a little bit. It’s rough, man.”

J.D. Martinez made positivity a choice that had to be made.

“I think we just kind of continue to have fun, continue to try to keep the clubhouse loose,” Martinez said. “There’s two ways we could do it. We could hang our heads down and feel sorry for ourselves or we can just keep going out there every day and battling and having fun and enjoying it.”

As the Red Sox prepared to take on the Indians in last night’s second game of the series, the clubhouse was loose. Not uptight. They seemed to have put the loss behind them. Like they have before.