The Boston Red Sox have fallen into a cold (and costly) stretch recently, keeping them stagnant at the bottom of the barrel in the American League East.
Going up against the division rival Tampa Bay Rays, who are also the winningest team in Major League Baseball through 60 games, the Red Sox collapsed at an opportunity to split their four-game series at home, falling 4-1, to close out a seven-game homestand at 2-5 on Monday night.
This also placed the Red Sox at a dead-even 30-30 nearly halfway into the season. Speaking on behalf of Boston's clubhouse, manager Alex Cora offered his honest two cents on where the Red Sox are at and what they've shown in the recent weeks leading to their current position.
"We're playing .500 right now," Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage. "... We know what we have to do. Like I said yesterday: Are we great? No. Are we bad? No. This is where we at. When the season started, a while ago, we were 0-0 and now we're 30-30. So, 60 games under our belt and we still got plenty of them. So, keep getting better, we're gonna get healthy obviously but I think at the end of the day, like I said, the defensive part of it we have to improve."
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The Red Sox collected just six hits in the game, with two for extra bases, and failed to go nine innings without committing a single error yet again. Those anchors have grown to be constant the past few weeks as Boston has eighth errors in the last seven games, five coming against Tampa Bay in their latest series alone.
Shifting Kiké Hernández to the outfield proved to be effective, but the general issue is still in place for the Red Sox. With plenty of games left to be played as Cora mentioned, there's only one solution in order to get the pendulum to swing Boston's way moving forward.
"Play better baseball, man," Cora explained. "... Offensively we'll be fine. I think the approach is good and we get some guys that are gonna get going. If we stay with the approach then we're gonna be fine."
Boston now embarks on a six-game road trip, starting against the Cleveland Guardians and ending with the New York Yankees, as the Red Sox will try to diminish the widening gap between them and their playoff hopes.
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"Nobody said it was gonna be easy," Cora said.
Featured image via Brian Fluharty/USA TODAY Sports Images
