Red Sox Notes: Boston ‘Needs To Be Better’ With Bats After Shutout

The Boston Red Sox entered their five-game road trip with a legitimate test to prove their worth. For most of that span, Boston could not get the bats going.

That was the case on Wednesday night in a 5-0 loss to old friend Chris Sale and the Atlanta Braves.

The lefty held the Red Sox to just six hits in six innings while racking up 10 strikeouts. Over the two-game series in Atlanta, the Red Sox missed their chances to break through and left a combined 22 runners on base over 18 innings of play.

“We put some pressure on him and we didn’t cash in,” Alex Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “I think we went 0-for-whatever with runners in scoring position. We’ve seen that before. We need to be better. We have to. We didn’t hit throughout the road trip. You look into our offense and we fall into this trap where it’s really, really good because we score runs, but look at the shutouts. The percentage of games where we haven’t scored more than two runs. We gotta be better.”

The Red Sox scored more than two runs just once on the road trip, which led to their lone win in the series finale against the Minnesota Twins. Boston’s bats are capable. Finding consistency on a nightly basis remains a point of emphasis for Cora’s lineup.

“The story should be that offensively, we have to be better,” Cora added.

Here are more notes from Wednesday’s Red Sox-Braves game:

— Sale struck out 10 Red Sox hitters for the second time in his career, last doing so with the Chicago White Sox in 2014. He also struck out 10 hitters for the first time with the Braves.

— Boston fell to 1-4 on the road trip.

— The Red Sox fall to 9-5 all-time at Truist Park, dating back to the 2017 season.

— Chris Martin took the mound for the first time in a week and delivered his second-straight scoreless appearance for the Red Sox.

— Nick Pivetta made his first start for the Red Sox since April 3 after an injured list stint with a flexor strain. Pivetta allowed three home runs on the night in the loss, going four innings with seven hits and five earned runs allowed.

“The pitch to Ozuna wasn’t bad, the pitch to Arcia was better,” Cora said. “Obviously, for his first one, OK. It went from high-fiving in the dugout on a nice double play to down 4-0.”

“Sweeper was off,” Pivetta told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Cutter was good. Curveball was good. Fastball location was off today. … I’m in a big-league baseball game. I expect myself to be the same and go out there and produce the way I want to given what I have to do. Things happen, I would’ve liked to have done better. It is what it is.”

— The Red Sox return home to Fenway Park to begin a three-game series with the Washington Nationals on Friday night. First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m. ET. You can catch the game, plus 90 minutes of pregame coverage, on NESN.