Some loaded questions
Sox can’t capitalize in clutch situations
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The best offense in baseball was at it again yesterday.
And by at it, we mean still struggling to come through with the bases loaded.
The Sox filled the sacks twice in the sixth inning against the Rays but came away with only one run as their failure to convert in the most lucrative situation led them to a disappointing 2-1 loss at Tropicana Field.
The Rays offense, which had scored 55 runs in seven games leading into the series, was held to just nine runs during these four games, but the Red Sox won only two.
Despite the club’s 7-4 record during a grueling four-city road trip, Sox hitting coach Chili Davis was flustered by the woes with the bases loaded. His hitters are batting just .216 with 75 RBI in 128 plate appearances with the bases juiced this season. They have four homers and three doubles and have grounded into 10 double plays, including one by Jackie Bradley Jr. in the fateful sixth yesterday.
The league average in that spot is .262.
“It’s not a good thing, first of all,” Davis said. “That’s not a stat I want to see with our offense. It’s addressed. It’ll continue to be addressed. We’ve got some young hitters on the team that probably want to do things in a hurry. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’ll be addressed.”
Drew Pomeranz struck out a career-high 11 in sixplus innings, but two hits in the seventh inning cost him the decisive run. With the score tied at 1, he allowed a leadoff double to Steven Souza Jr. before giving up an RBI double to Mikie Mahtook, who had been in an 0-for-34 stretch and hadn’t gotten a hit since Aug. 9.
“I just left a curveball up,” Pomeranz said.
The Sox scored only 49 runs in the 11-game trip and were instead led by their starting pitching, which threw 682⁄ innings with a 3 2.62 ERA.
“Our starting rotation has done a great job,” Pomeranz said. “Little things here and there, little bad luck for us sometimes, has made the difference in games, but we’re playing well, and we’ve had a good road trip, so we’re going to go back home and have a good homestand.”
Baserunning was a big issue yesterday. Trying to claw back in the seventh, Chris Young drew a leadoff walk and was then picked off first.
Two batters later, Travis Shaw doubled. He was eventually stranded when Bryan Holaday struck out.
“He saw something and felt like he had a chance to gain 90 feet,” Farrell said of Young. “Unfortunately he was thrown out on the play.”
In the eighth, Dustin Pedroia hit a leadoff single, but Xander Bogaerts hit into a double play. Mookie Betts hit a two-out single down the left field line and tried turning it into a double, but Mahtook threw him out with a strike from the corner.
The Red Sox scored their only run in the sixth inning, but they should have had more. Holaday and Pedroia singled, and Bogaerts walked to load the bases with nobody out. Betts hit a sacrifice fly to put the Sox up 1-0, and Hanley Ramirez drew a walk to again load the bases, but Bradley’s twinkilling ended the threat.
“In that situation,” Davis said, “I think the key is just slowing everything down and just trusting that, ‘I can look in an area for a pitch based mostly on pitch height rather than pitch type and something I can drive to the outfield.’ But you can’t be in a rush to come through in that situation.
“I don’t want them standing up there taking, I’m not saying that, but you can’t be too much in a hurry to swing because the pitcher is the guy in the trouble. And he’s going to try to weasel his way out in any way he can, which a lot of times is trying to exploit your aggressiveness early.”
David Ortiz, who was held out of the lineup for routine rest, pinch-hit for Young with two outs in the ninth and struck out.