BOSTON -- What happened to friendly Fenway?

For the Red Sox, in what has been a recurring theme the last three seasons, they can’t find a home-field advantage.

After a flat 8-2 loss to the Mariners on Saturday afternoon, Boston dropped to 7-8 at home. Thanks to a strong first road trip (6-1), the 13-9 Sox are still leading the American League East by two games over the defending division (and AL) champion Rays.

But it feels like a missed opportunity. This 10-game homestand, the finale of which is slated for Sunday, was an opportunity for a hot-starting team to provide some more separation in the division.

Instead, the best Boston can do is a 5-5 homestand, which likely has the club looking forward to getting back on the road for two games at Citi Field Tuesday-Wednesday and then a four-game series against the Rangers in Arlington Thursday-Sunday.

“For us to win games, we have to play good baseball, solid baseball, and today we didn’t make contact, we didn’t make a few plays, we didn’t pitch,” manager Alex Cora said. “Overall, it is one of those you throw away and show up tomorrow, and have a better game plan if that’s what works. We have Eduardo [Rodriguez] on the mound and try to save the homestand, to be honest.”

In 2019, coming off a World Series championship, the Sox went 38-43 at home. Last season -- a disappointment across the board -- saw Boston go 11-20 at Fenway.

To achieve its aspirations of getting back to the postseason this season, it will be imperative for Cora’s team to start piling up some victories at home.

“We’ve been playing some good teams, too. These guys, they can pitch. We played the White Sox, we played the Rays, the first series [against the Orioles] obviously we were disappointed,” Cora said. “Of course we want to win series at home, of course we want to be better at home. Right now we’re playing [one game under] .500. So obviously that’s something we have to be better at.”

While the Red Sox have been in just about every game they’ve played, they seemed out of sorts from the start on Saturday.

“Yeah, that wasn’t our best game of the season,” Cora said.

Nathan Eovaldi, who opened the season with four strong starts, stumbled in the first two innings and the Sox were down, 4-0, by the time they stepped to the plate in the bottom of the second inning.

Facing Mariners righty Chris Flexen, Boston’s bats looked punchless for most of the day, mustering two hits -- both singles -- over the first six innings.

When a golden opportunity presented itself in the fourth -- runners at first and second, none out and the 4-5 hitters coming up -- the Sox didn’t cash in. Xander Bogaerts hit a shallow flyout to left and Rafael Devers hit into an inning-ending double play.

There were also some defensive miscues. Alex Verdugo drifted a bit on his route for what proved to be a two-run triple by Kyle Seager in the second and the normally sure-handed Xander Bogaerts missed a routine grounder that led to an unearned run in the fifth.

With fans back in the stands this season -- albeit at just 12 percent capacity at Fenway Park -- the Red Sox are determined to provide a better product than what they displayed on Saturday. For the most part, they have.

“We’re playing good ball,” Verdugo said. “I think we’ve had a few games obviously in this four-game stretch that have been kind of tough, but we’re a really good team. We’re in there to the end, we’re fighting, and at the end of the day, we’re going to keep on doing what we do. We’re going to keep working hard, show up every day, have our approach, have our plan, and we’re going to try to execute it.”

Eovaldi noted that 15 home games is way too early to call the team’s struggles at Fenway an alarming trend. There are another 66 games left on the home slate.

“Having our fans back in the park, it’s amazing,” Eovaldi said. “Having them come out there and supporting us and trying to get us going and everything is nice. For whatever reason, I don’t know, we just haven’t been able to string together as much success at home as we usually do. You know, chalk it up to the beginning of the season, come back tomorrow ready to go.”