McAdam: Things going downhill quickly for struggling Red Sox

As recently as Sunday afternoon, there seemed to be some reason for at least a degree of optimism regarding the Red Sox.

They had finished a long road trip with a win in St. Petersburg and returned home to take two-of-three from the Toronto/Buffalo Blue Jays. They got decent pitching performances, some timely hitting and appeared to have stabilized things following a brutal two-week stretch.

Now, just a few days later, that run of four games are looking more and more like a mirage, or at the very least, some sort of aberration.

Sure, they can fool you in spurts, as they did for the first six innings Tuesday night. Martin Perez, who has emerged as a dependable starter in the early going, kept the Sox in the thick of it until he left with two outs in the sixth. Austin Brice cleaned up with a man on base, getting the final out of the inning.

But in the seventh, something shifted in a hurry. Brice retired the first hitter, but none of the next five, and suddenly, the inning felt like an avalanche, with the Sox unable to stop the torrent of runs hurtling toward them, piling up one after another.

In the meantime, the offense which had gamely produced seven runs on Monday, was silenced, managing just one run through the first seven innings. For a period from the fourth through the seventh, the Sox never sent more than three hitters to the plate in any one inning.

Except for brief stretches this year, the Red Sox have made it obvious that they're not in the same class as either the Yankees (0-3) or the Rays (1-3). That much had appeared apparent on paper before this strange season got underway, but it's played out in painfully obvious fashion in the first three weeks.



Accordingly, the Red Sox find themselves in that spot shared by bad teams everywhere. When they hit, they don't pitch. When they pitch, they don't hit. And sometimes, when they pitch well for a while -- as was the case with Perez Tuesday -- they can't keep it going long enough to wrangle a win.

"When you're going bad, that's how it goes,'' conceded Ron Roenicke. "You just don't seem to click up on both sides, or your defense lets you down or something happens. We've got to figure this out. We've got a tough pitcher (Blake Snell) we're facing (Wednesday), figure out a way to beat him and hopefully we get a well-pitched game from (Zach) Godley and then try to figure things out to where we can get on a little bit of roll.

"We know we're playing some tough teams, so we know if we play this way, we're not going to win many games. That's hard. We've got to figure out a way to pitch well and to time it up with a good offense.''

Just as the Red Sox had utilized the opener Monday night, the Rays did so Tuesday and never was the gap between the two teams more evident. While the Sox looked like they were conducting a casting call for major league pitchers in their effort, the Rays expertly shuffled one quality arm after another to the mound.

The fact that their opener, Andrew Kittredge, had to leave the game two batters in with an apparent elbow injury didn't deter them in the least. Rays manager Kevin Cash simply began the reliever brigade a little earlier than scheduled and never missed a beat.

Then again, the Rays have had far more practice, having introduced the concept of the opener two years ago. This is second nature to them by now. But experience aside, the key distinction is having enough quality, hard-throwing pitchers with which to operate. The Red Sox haven't amassed that stockpile.

On Thursday, the Red Sox will dip down to their alternate training site in Pawtucket and promote Kyle Hart, a 27-year-old lefty, who will make his major league debut in the final game of the series. Hart will be, in the 19th game of the season, the ninth different pitcher to start a game for the Red Sox in 2020.

Two of those nine have already been optioned off the major league roster. Undoubtedly, more will follow.

And it's not as if the offense has picked up the slack. In most major categories, the Sox are decidedly middle-of-the-pack in the league and have been unable to get the top half of the order  -- Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez and  Xander Bogaerts -- hot at the same time.

It will not get easier anytime soon. After two more with the Rays, the Sox will travel to New York for a four-game, wraparound series with the Yankees. Following Snell are Tyler Glasnow and then Gerrit Cole. In their first series with the Rays and Yankees, the Sox managed to avoid all three of those pitchers. This time around, they won't be so lucky.

And suddenly, what was supposed to be a short season has the prospect of feeling like a very long one.