That wasn’t how the homestand was supposed to go.
Three losses in five games to the Baltimore Orioles, a team with a payroll 1/5 the size, a bottom-five offense, a bottom-10 pitching staff and one player, Cedric Mullins, who had ever been on an All-Star team?
Yuck.
The Sox were lifeless in the series finale on Monday night, when they took a 10-0 loss on the chin and snapped their skid of four straight series wins. It was the Sox’ most lopsided shutout loss in a decade.
“They’ve got some solid hitters that hit the ball out of the ballpark,” manager Alex Cora said of an Orioles team that entered the series ranked 24th in MLB in home runs. “That was the whole series right there. We didn’t keep it in the ballpark. They did damage and that’s why they won the series.”
To lose three out of five against the last-place Orioles was ugly, it was disappointing and, depending which side of the fence you lean on, it was surprising.
But it shouldn’t have been.
Until the Red Sox find actual answers on the pitching side and discover more than Tanner Houck as a reliable relief option, extended winning streaks are going to be rare.
They won six in a row because their offense plated 54 runs in those six games, scoring at least five every night.
Then what happened? The Red Sox had the O’s and the Reds, arguably the two worst teams in baseball, waiting for them when they returned to a warm and sunny Fenway Park on Friday, scored six runs in the first two innings and then watched their bullpen blow a six-run lead entering the seventh inning.
“I think we learned the lesson Friday,” Cora said. “At this level, any team can score a lot. If you get going and you put up good at-bats, you can score three in one inning, four in the next one and obviously that’s a game that we have to finish from the mound.”
Watching the bullpen allow 10 runs in the final three innings on Friday was one of the worst moments of the season.
Given all the momentum the Sox had after scoring 33 runs in three games in Chicago and the energy in Fenway Park that felt back to October-levels for the first time all year, it was a catastrophic defeat.
“We had a lot of chances to keep rolling on Friday night and we didn’t,” Cora said.
Then on Saturday the Red Sox had another golden opportunity. Nathan Eovaldi threw his first career complete game in the first of two on the schedule. The bullpen was fully rested for the second game of the doubleheader. But rookie Josh Winckowski struggled in his MLB debut and the Sox split the twinbill, an embarrassment considering the huge advantage.
Nick Pivetta set the tone for a big win on Sunday, then Rich Hill put together his worst start in four years on Monday and once again the team looked lifeless as they were shutout on just four hits.
The five-game series ended with just two wins against the worst team in the American League. The Sox are 3-5 against the Orioles this season.
“Bottom line is we have to take care of what we have to take care of here in this clubhouse,” Hill said. “Whatever any other team is doing is not a concern of what’s happening with us.”
It’s like there are two different Red Sox teams, and it’s hard to tell which is going to show up. Confidence seems to waver easily at Fenway Park these days.
They looked ready to steamroll anyone in their path until the bullpen fell apart on Friday, and then everything looked difficult from there. They played clean games behind Eovaldi and Pivetta, but otherwise had plenty of sloppy moments and sluggish at-bats this weekend.
It has to be frustrating for Cora, who has worked hard to steady the ship after a six-week start to the season that resembled a Ferrari driving into a brick wall, putting it in reverse, then doing it again and again.
There was no reason an offense this talented needed to swing as aggressively and without discipline the way it did for the first six weeks. The pitching staff was going to be a question mark, that was a given. But once the offense got rolling, it covered the holes.
Two months through the season, they’re three games under .500 and 2-1/2 games from the cellar in the American League East.
The Sox aren’t as bad as they played Monday night. They aren’t as good as they looked in Chicago.
They’re somewhere in between, an awkward place to be for a franchise with several star players eligible to free agency and the trade deadline just two months away.
