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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 5, 2021 16:33:24 GMT -5
Chris Cotillo @chriscotillo · 49m Safe to say this is the most frustrated Alex Cora has been in 2021.
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Aug 5, 2021 18:58:13 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe · 6m Counting today (0 for 4), Sox are 6 x 52 (.115) with RISP the last 7 games and have scored 17 runs. It seems like at least a couple of writers have noticed that we stopped hitting. But it is a little worse than Pete let's on, since it actually 23 runs in 9 games (2.56/game).
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 6, 2021 2:20:50 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe · 6m Counting today (0 for 4), Sox are 6 x 52 (.115) with RISP the last 7 games and have scored 17 runs. It seems like at least a couple of writers have noticed that we stopped hitting. But it is a little worse than Pete let's on, since it actually 23 runs in 9 games (2.56/game).
cherry picking Joe? hitting has stopped pitching is awful un inspired play bad base running lack luster defense
did I miss anything?
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 6, 2021 2:52:51 GMT -5
Sox fall in Detroit: 'We have to turn the page' August 5th, 2021 Dawn Klemish
Dawn Klemish @sportsgal25
DETROIT -- The Red Sox are far from hitting the panic button after losing seven of their last eight games, but change is almost certainly looming on the horizon.
“I’m not saying we’re not trying,” manager Alex Cora said. “Probably, we’re trying harder, and that’s why it’s not happening. It’s just a matter of, we’re not playing good baseball right now.”
One game after a solid win in Detroit evened the series, Boston starter Martín Pérez was hit hard early and the offense did nothing to bail him out on Thursday during an 8-1 loss against the Tigers at Comerica Park.
The bad news is that Pérez’s outing hasn’t exactly been an anomaly among Boston’s starting pitching lately. The good news is that the relief corps has mostly held its own despite being pressed into service much earlier and more often than anyone would like, and Phillips Valdez was no exception in the series finale.
Pérez’s trouble was already apparent when Valdez began warming, having allowed a home run to start the game, followed by a triple to lead off the second inning and five well-struck hits his first time through the lineup. Pérez was given a chance to right his own ship, but the lefty followed up with a sac fly and a pair of singles that led to the Tigers taking a 2-0 lead. When Pérez hit Robbie Grossman on the upper arm with a cutter that got away, Cora signaled for Valdez.
“Sometimes, when you have a good group like what we have right now, this is a good [thing] to happen … [so we can] wake up and do what we’ve been doing early in the season,” said Pérez, who has allowed three or more runs in each of his past five starts. “We’re going to be fine.”
Valdez entered and responded with 2 2/3 perfect frames, his second-longest outing of the season, to take some momentum away from the hosts. As hard as the Tigers had hit Pérez -- the average exit velocity on the batted balls in play he allowed was 96.7 mph -- they couldn’t quite figure out Valdez, who tallied five groundouts, one popout and two punchouts.
If ever there was a time for the Red Sox to surge, it was while Pérez was on the bump. Boston’s dismal stretch with runners in scoring position continued to plague the club, however, as the Red Sox squandered their best chance after putting runners on second and third with one out in the fourth. Boston finished the three-game series 3-for-25 with runners in scoring position.
“We’ve got a lot of guys struggling. As a group though, I think it starts with our pitch selection,” hitting coach Tim Hyers said. “We’re a team that’s aggressive. We swing the bats, and I think recently, it’s caught up to us a little bit in expanding the zone. Chase percentage is obviously up; we’ve just got to get the ball back over the plate, grind out the at-bats, work counts and get our pitch to swing.”
In a perfect world, Boston’s bullpen phone would never ring in the second inning. Cora has even said more than once he’d be happy if his starters gave him five strong frames, but that hasn’t been the case too often lately, either.
With Boston’s No. 6 prospect, Tanner Houck, set to pitch in Game 2 of Saturday’s straight doubleheader in Toronto and Chris Sale’s return imminent, it’s worth wondering whether the Red Sox are looking to shake up the rotation and bounce Pérez or Garrett Richards -- or both -- into the bullpen. Both men are career starters, with just 75 relief appearances between them in 415 career games, but neither pitcher did much to help his case in Detroit, with Richards allowing three runs in four innings during Tuesday’s opener and Pérez getting hit hard, then pulled, in the second inning of the finale.
Is that the shakeup Boston will need to kick it back into gear? Cora confirmed that Richards will make his next scheduled start on Sunday and that no plans to change the rotation are in the works, but Sale pitching in what should be his final rehab outing on Saturday should begin to force the issue.
“We want to pitch better, we want to play better defense and we want to be better offensively,” Cora said. “And right now, I think, in all aspects of the game, we’re struggling, so … we have to turn the page.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 6, 2021 3:33:41 GMT -5
Tigers jump on Martín Pérez and rout Red Sox in series finale at Detroit By Julian McWilliams Globe Staff,Updated August 5, 2021, 4:25 p.m.
The American League East race is closing in on the Red Sox after they dropped their second series in a row Thursday afternoon in Detroit, this one completed by an 8-1 drubbing at the hands of the Tigers. The Sox are 1-5 in their last six as they head to Toronto for a four-game series over three days against the Blue Jays starting Friday night.
Red Sox lefthander Martín Pérez lasted just 1⅓ innings on Thursday, which matched his shortest start of the season. He allowed three runs on five hits.
The Red Sox scored their lone run in the eighth inning on an Alex Verdugo sacrifice fly. The Sox’ bats continued to struggle, particularly when the club needs production the most. In three games against the Tigers the Sox were just 3 for 25 with runners in scoring position. After the game, manager Alex Cora was candid in his assessment of his team’s performance.
“I can put it plain and simple for everybody,” he said. “I don’t think you guys have to ask many questions today. We didn’t pitch; we didn’t play good defense; we didn’t hit. It wasn’t a good effort today. And where we are right now, we’ve got to get better. That’s the bottom line.”
Pérez has struggled for more than two months now. In June and July, he posted a 5.63 ERA, with opponents hitting .332 with a whopping .955 OPS. If you separate the months, Pérez’s July was even worse, with a 6.26 ERA and opponents hitting .340 with a .999 OPS. In June, July, and now his first start in August, Pérez has a 7.03 ERA.
“If you’re not pitching well you can’t go deep into the game,” Pérez said. “They’ve been hitting me.”
Boston’s batters, meanwhile, continue to falter. In their last five games entering Thursday, the Sox scored 16 runs, batting .258 with 53 strikeouts in 193 plate appearance. On the surface, those numbers might not seem terribly concerning, but if you peel back the layers, you’ll find an offense that hasn’t found its footing.
Heading into the season, Cora indicated that he wanted the Sox to be better at situational hitting. He believed that in 2019 that is what plagued this club as it missed the playoffs just a year after winning the World Series. With a runner at third and fewer than two outs, Cora demanded the ball be put in play, increasing the likelihood of scoring that run.
But the Sox have failed to do that this year. Prior to Thursday, the Sox had batted just .236 (38 for 161) with a .615 OPS in that situation. Against lefthanders it was even worse (.178 with a .458 OPS).
“If you look at the numbers, it’s been hard,” Cora said. “We talk about it, but at the end of the day we have to do it on the field. And maybe we’re trying too hard. Maybe we had the wrong approach. Maybe we’re giving them the wrong information. We have to figure it out. This is a good offensive team. This is a team that gets energy from the offense. We know that. We have to take advantage of these situations.”
Despite their recent underwhelming play, the Red Sox are just 1½ games behind the first-place Rays in the division. As the dog days of summer have hit their peak in the Sox clubhouse, Cora is looking for a response from his club.
“It looks like right now we’re a step slower,” he said. “We’re not moving well. I know we’re in August and it’s a grind, but we have the opportunity to play in October. We put ourselves in this situation, and people can doubt us, or they can feel like this team can do it. But the bottom line is, we’ve got to show up every day and play better.”
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