Coming up short
Struggling to hit HRs, Sox question the baseballs
The Red Sox offense needs to figure something out.
RED SOX NOTEBOOK
Whether it’s a dead baseball, bad luck, an over-aggressive approach at the plate or some combination of all three, the Sox have completed two straight road series against divisional rivals and hit just one home run.
They fell to the Blue Jays, 1-0, on Thursday afternoon and are just 2-5 on the road trip.
It completed another series loss for a Red Sox team that has no momentum and no clear identity. They’ve lost three straight series against the Jays, Rays and Jays again. They’re 3-7 in those 10 games and have fallen to 5 1/2 games back in the American League East before the calendar flips to May.
In the seven games on the road, they’ve hit .210 with 22 runs (3.1 runs per game).
Asked about his team’s lack of power, manager Alex Cora told reporters in Toronto, “I don’t know. Honestly. We will hit homers. That’s going to be part of it. We’re doing a better job swinging at pitches in the zone. We’re not chasing as much. With that, the home runs will come.”
The Sox have hit just 11 home runs in 20 games, tied for third-least in MLB.
“That’s around the league,” Cora said of power numbers being down. “We hit some balls hard. It is what it is. It’s the environment we play in. We’ve done a better job hitting the ball harder the last few days. When you hit the ball hard, the ball is going to start carrying.”
Rafael Devers (three) and Alex Verdugo (three) have six of the 11 home runs.
“Yeah, you start wondering when you see Christian Vázquez hitting that ball like he did and the ball stays in the ballpark, so you start wondering if there’s something different with the ball,” Devers told reporters. “When we played at Tampa, too, the ball isn’t going as far as it should or as it has in the past so I don’t know what’s up.”
Martinez, Bogaerts out of lineup
J.D. Martinez missed Thursday’s game with a left adductor strain that’s bothered him for the last week or so.
Cora said he’s hoping Martinez will play today, but it’s not clear.
“He felt it a little bit Wednesday,” Cora said. “You want to play station to station, but you have a chance to get to second. There was a groundball the other day, two days ago, he almost was safe at first. When you go in there and you’re in the competition and you want to do the best for the team, it’s hard to slow down.”
Without Martinez, the Sox used Travis Shaw as the designated hitter. He was 0-for-3 and is now 0-for-20 on the year.
Xander Bogaerts was also out of the Sox’ lineup as he got a routine day off. It was untimely, given Martinez was also out and the Sox had Garrett Whitlock on the mound.
“You guys know how I operate with this,” Cora said. “People might say, ‘he’s hot, he’s swinging it.’ All the running around for X amount of days, playing on the turf, moving around, playing the position that he plays, we talked about it over the weekend and we picked this day and we have to be disciplined.”
Bogaerts, who leads the American League with a .392 average, came off the bench to lead off in the eighth inning, but grounded out weakly.
It seemed as though he could’ve been used in the seventh inning, when the Sox had the tying run on third base and the struggling
Bobby Dalbec at the plate, but Bogaerts stayed seated and Dalbec flew out in foul territory to end the threat.
Kiké Hernandez was hitting cleanup, but was 1-for-4 to see his average hit .197.
Christian Arroyo dropped to .194, Jackie Bradley Jr. to .161, Dalbec to .154 and Vazquez to .209.
Houck to return today
The Sox will reportedly take a bus to Buffalo to avoid any possible COVID-19 related flight obstructions out of Canada, then fly to Baltimore for a three-game set against the last-place Orioles.
Rich Hill will start tonight and Tanner Houck, who missed the Toronto series due to his vaccination status, will likely piggyback.
“Tomorrow is about maximizing the roster,” Cora said. “Rich, he has his days so we can actually … people take piggyback to the extreme. But we can go X amount of outs with Rich and X amount of outs with Tanner throughout the game.
“I think it’s a good mix. In an era that people are mixing and matching right away, we’re going to load up with righties and then you can go with Tanner and then obviously with the three lefties we have in the bullpen later We can just take advantage in the game. We can flipflop. of the roster and obviously take advantage of the off-day on Monday.”