Red Sox Lose a Series For The First Time In 2015
The Red Sox just can’t seem to get everything rolling at the same time. When their offense is great, their pitching sucks. And when their pitching is great, their offense sucks.
In the series finale at the Mecca of Professional Baseball — which some of you might know as Tropicana Field — the Red Sox got six innings of one-run ball from Clay Buchholz, as he struck out a season-high 10 batters. It was the first time that a Red Sox starter had gone at least six innings since Buchholz did it his last time out.
In support of Buchholz, the Red Sox left seven runners on base, going 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. In total, the Red Sox went 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position for the entire series against Tampa Bay, and they’re 4 for their last 51 overall. They’re lucky they didn’t get swept, to be honest. The only thing that prevented that from happening is the fact that the Rays’ lineup is so inept.
The good news is that we know this Red Sox lineup is going to bust out of their slump, eventually. The players who are struggling, like Mookie Betts, Mike Napoli, David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia — we know they’re not going to be this bad all year. What we don’t know, for the most part, is what we’re going to get from these Red Sox starters on any given night. Right when we were about to crown Joe Kelly as the number one starter in the Red Sox rotation, he imploded against one of the worst lineups in baseball on Wednesday night. Then you have Buchholz, who has been on both ends of the spectrum, turning in either the best or the worst starts of his career every other time he takes the mound.
Once this lineup clicks, they’re not going to need “ace-like” performances. What they will need, though, is consistency from their starting pitchers, and this group has yet to prove that they’re capable of doing that this season.
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