Scuffling big boppers 'surprising' for Red Sox

BOSTON -- The opener finally worked to perfection for the Red Sox on Saturday night, with Zack Godley firing four shutout innings out of the gate.

The defense was immense, particularly when Kevin Pillar raced to the corner in right, crashed into the wall and clearly won the battle, holding on to the deep fly ball off the bat of Rowdy Tellez.

The offense? Completely subdued, which is the biggest reason Saturday went down as a 2-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park. Boston hitters went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.

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Rafael Devers and J.D. Martinez -- expected to be the big thumpers in the order -- have been almost unrecognizable with their current futility. The two sluggers combined to go 0-for-7 on Saturday, and are 0-for-15 in the first two games of this series.

Devers is hitting .170, with Martinez registering in at .212. They have a combined one homer and five RBIs.

“It’s obviously huge where they are in the lineup and what they mean to us,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “The thing is, sometimes you may want to give a guy a day off to try to get him going. But we know we have to play those guys to get them out of their little funk they’re in.

“So you keep putting them out there and hope it clicks and we get it going. But we certainly need those guys and we’re pitching great right now. So we need that offense to come through like we know they can. You look at the names down that lineup and it’s a tough lineup. And yet right now we’re just not swinging the bat.”

What makes that almost unfathomable is that the offense was viewed as the overwhelming strength of the team coming into the season. Eventually, it probably will. But patience is hard to come by in a 60-game season, of which the Red Sox are off to a 5-9 start.

“Yeah, it’s definitely surprising, if you just look at the back of the baseball cards of a lot of guys we have on this lineup. You know, you wouldn’t expect them to struggle,” Pillar said. “Guys don’t luck into multiple really good years of their career. It’s just, like I said, it’s unfortunate it’s happening early on, it’s unfortunate it’s happening to a lot of guys at the same time, but these guys work their butts off. We’ve got a great staff around them and it’s only a matter of time before it clicks."

Roenicke tried to spark the offense before the game by installing Alex Verdugo as the new leadoff hitter and dropping another key slumping player to the seventh spot in Andrew Benintendi (2-for-34), who had just one at-bat, grounding into a double play, before Pillar pinch-hit for him in the fourth inning.

“It’s still tough and I still didn’t like it,” Roenicke said. “I know it worked out where Pillar got two at-bats and played great defense and threw a guy out and made a great play at the wall, but I still didn’t like it. I actually would have rather not have done that. It’s kind of the same thing. We don’t score runs and I start doing things I would rather not do, so I guess it affects everybody.”

Verdugo, who belted three homers in the previous two games, managed just an infield hit in his debut at the top of the order.

Jackie Bradley Jr. is yet another player scuffling badly. The center fielder has one hit in his last 26 at-bats.

Something’s got to give soon, right?

“Regardless of whether it’s 60 games, 162 games, the added pressure, the added stress we put on ourselves is because it’s early in the year,” Pillar said. “I think they all have the utmost belief in themselves as do all of us. Like I said, it’s only a matter of time for these guys to find it. It just takes one swing.”

It would be good for the Red Sox if that one swing came, say, Sunday, when they play the rubber match of this three-game series against the Jays.

About that catch
Right field at Fenway Park is considered by just about anyone to be the toughest to play in baseball. But for the second straight night, a Red Sox newcomer made a standout play.

Pillar didn’t rob a home run like Verdugo did on Friday night. But he took extra bases away from Red Sox killer Tellez with a brilliant play in the seventh, at which point Boston was clinging to a 1-0 lead.

“It’s a difficult play, but it makes it even more difficult here just with the lack of foul territory,” Pillar said. “You know you’re getting close. I haven’t had a whole lot of opportunity. A ball like that is not hit very often in BP, where you can’t really recreate that off a fungo, so I just felt like I was getting close when I hit the warning track and took one last peek at the wall and you’ve got to make a decision. And in a tight game, you’ve got to be willing to hit the wall.”

Those who have followed Pillar’s career know that he is just about always willing to hit the wall.

“That just kind of goes back to my football mentality: Catch the ball. You’ve got to just be ready for a little contact and try to help this team win some games,” Pillar said.

It was a night in which the Red Sox filled the defensive highlight reel.

Pillar threw Travis Shaw out at the plate in the sixth, with Christian Vázquez making a terrific tag. The other gems included Benintendi (diving snare in the second inning to rob Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) and Mitch Moreland (robbed Shaw of a hit on a screamer down the line).