BOSTON -- The deep freeze at Fenway Park the past three days has multiple meanings.
As evidenced by the amount of ski masks and parkas and winter gloves in the stands, it has been downright cold for this time of year, even by Boston standards.
Unfortunately for the Red Sox, their offense has been just as chilly.
While losing the first three of this four-game series against the Blue Jays, capped by Wednesday¡¯s 2-1 loss in 11 innings, Boston has mustered 1.3 runs per game with a batting line of .172/.215/.222. While going 17-for-99, the Sox have only five extra-base hits and 30 strikeouts for a strikeout rate of 28 percent and a walk rate of 5.6 percent.
Things have been even more dire with runners in scoring position (2-for-29).
This is the way baseball can go, especially early in the season.
In Game 2 of the doubleheader sweep of the Cardinals on Sunday night, the Sox scored 18 runs, fueled by monster performances by Alex Bregman and Rafael Devers.
What has happened since then?
¡°Obviously, I think they made some good pitches against us,¡± said Bregman. ¡°But obviously we haven't put together the same quality of at-bats and we look forward to [Thursday] and trying to do that.¡±
Encouragingly, Devers swung the bat well in Wednesday¡¯s loss, hammering two doubles against Kevin Gausman, who was otherwise dominant, punching out 10 over eight innings.
The bottom of the 10th inning served as a microcosm of Boston¡¯s recent struggles at the plate.
Triston Casas led off by moving the automatic runner to third on a groundout. A sacrifice fly by Trevor Story wouldn¡¯t have made for the most exciting of walk-off wins, but manager Alex Cora¡¯s club (6-7) gladly would have taken it.
But Story struck out, two of his misses coming on sliders well out of the strike zone against the nasty offerings of Jeff Hoffman.
With two outs, rookie Kristian Campbell had a chance to be the hero. After taking some ferocious cuts for foul balls early in the count, Hoffman seared a 96.9 mph heater by him for strike three.
In the 11th, the Jays did exactly what the Red Sox couldn¡¯t, moving the runner over and then scoring him when Bo Bichette hit a sacrifice fly to center.
The Red Sox had another chance to respond, but David Hamilton struck out, pinch-hitter Rob Refsndyer fouled out and Jarren Duran grounded out, as Campbell never left second base.
The Sox tried to get used to the elements from the jump on Wednesday as several hitters took batting practice in short sleeves.
¡°Yeah, there's no excuses,¡± said Bregman. ¡°Both teams have to do it. So we¡¯ve got to be better. It starts with me. I¡¯ve got to be better. I had a chance there with Raffy at second and he took great at-bats all day today. Had a chance there and grounded out to short. Got to come up with a big hit there.¡±
Tanner Houck pitched to a draw with Gausman with a different method, getting all but two of his outs on contact.
The righty doesn¡¯t have any concerns about his offense.
¡°I trust them wholeheartedly,¡± said Houck. ¡°I know that they work really hard and they show up and they put every ounce of their heart and soul into it. And that's all I can ever ask for. Things will turn around, very quickly.¡±
While Devers (.802 OPS) has rebounded nicely from his historically tough first five games, and Bregman, Campbell and red-hot Wilyer Abreu have made their contributions, the lineup should get going once others hit their stride.
In particular, Duran, Casas and Ceddanne Rafaela haven¡¯t been able to get much going at the plate.
¡°We just have to make adjustments,¡± said Cora. ¡°We have to as a group. I trust our players, I trust this group.¡±