Red Sox Believe There’s Clear Reason For Offensive Inconsistency

BOSTON — The Red Sox wrapped up their six-game homestand with a winning record, but “consistent” probably wouldn’t be the best way to describe their offensive performance.

It’s pretty hard to score half your runs across an entire homestand in one game, after all.

Boston was only able to plate one runner Thursday, leading to a series-ending loss against the San Francisco Giants. It was the type of afternoon that is bound to happen, even to one of the best offenses in baseball.

“It’s going to happen around our league,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora assured media following the game. “The pitching is some of the best I’ve ever seen. We talked about Oakland (having a bad record) to open the season, but they probably have the best bullpen in the big leagues.

“… It’s not easy, and there’s going to be games where we don’t score, but overall we’ve done a really good job. I know everyone is talking about the pitching staff, but take a look at the numbers offensively, and we’re one of the best offenses in the league.”

He isn’t lying.

The Red Sox rank sixth in average (.251), eighth in hits (267), seventh in home runs (36) and sixth in team OPS (.743) through 30 games, which are less games played than the vaunted Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies.

How does that play out on a game-to-game basis? Some nights, they’re going to thump the Chicago Cubs by putting 17 runs up on the board, and other nights, they won’t be able to hit the broad side of a barn.

“I think that’s baseball,” Tyler O’Neill, who plated Boston’s only run Thursday, said postgame. “We’re not going to go out and score five or six runs every game, though obviously, we’d like to. … We really battled this entire homestand, and we’ve done a good job of that.”

The Red Sox are scoring runs, and though they might not be as spread out as everyone would prefer, they’re still giving themselves a chance on most nights. Just wait until they aren’t reshuffling the lineup three times a week.

“It’s just a matter of time before we gel and really get going,” O’Neill said.