BOSTON — Talk about being cut down to size.
The Red Sox’s clubhouse was filled with optimism last Sunday after Boston rallied from a four-run deficit in the eighth inning to complete a three-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics. This Sunday, after a dreadful 13-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park, the same clubhouse was nearly empty.
“Today, we got beat up,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said after Sunday’s loss, in which the Red Sox played horrendous defense behind rookie Eduardo Rodriguez. “But looking back at the energy inside the game, the energy is there. We didn’t handle every ball cleanly. That goes without saying.
“We kept clawing back into this,” Farrell added, clearly searching for positives. “We’re not in a good place right now as a team, but it’s not because we’re not giving effort. We’re not executing completely.”
Boston has lost six in a row since its series finale against Oakland, which many considered a potential turning point for the struggling team. The Red Sox then dropped three to the Orioles in Baltimore before returning home to be chopped into pieces by the buzz saw that is the Blue Jays, winners of 11 consecutive.
The Red Sox have struggled to gain their footing all season, especially against American League East opponents. Boston is 10-21 against divisional foes and 17-16 against all other teams. But the current six-game skid versus two AL East rivals is especially disheartening given the nature of the losses. The Sox keep finding new ways to crash and burn.
Take Sunday, for instance. The Red Sox played incredibly sloppy defense, particularly in the fourth and fifth innings, enabling the Blue Jays to open a 10-0 lead. From there, it was all over but the shouting, as some folks would say.
Then again, there was plenty of shouting from the Fenway Faithful, who moaned and groaned at each mishap, to the point where it almost was comical.
“We’re coming here and we’re working hard every day,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said, trying to make sense of Boston’s predicament. “It’s not a lack of effort or anything like that. It’s just things aren’t falling on our side right now.
“I don’t think angry. Maybe frustrated, disappointed, unhappy,” Bogaerts added when asked to describe the temperament of the Red Sox’s clubhouse amid the disappointing stretch. “Like I said (Saturday), no one expected us to be in this situation, but that’s the reality right now.”
Not only are the losses piling up. There also doesn’t appear to be a remedy in sight. The Red Sox have given no indication that radical changes are on the horizon, and it seems like the manager is running out of buttons to press with so many players underperforming.
The collective frustration, while tempered, is obvious.
“There’s an upset clubhouse,” Farrell said. “There’s a group of guys that are coming in every day with the thought that we’ve got a chance to get on a little bit of a run, a little bit of a winning streak, and yet it’s not taken place.
“There’s not guys coming in hanging their head before the day starts. There’s frustration when it doesn’t play out, for one reason or another in a given game. But this is a group that, like I said, has had success and yet we’re not experiencing it right now.”
Success. It seems like a foreign concept at this point.
One week ago, the Red Sox were trending upward. Now their season is in shambles.
Thumbnail photo via Gregory Fisher/USA TODAY Sports Images
