MILWAUKEE -- Alex Cora made no bones about where the Red Sox stand as the season hits the Memorial Day checkpoint. Entering the day one game below .500, Boston’s manager noted bluntly, “We are what the record shows.”
But as the Red Sox lineup deals with the loss of Alex Bregman, the club’s second significant injury of the month, Cora stressed that Boston needed to put an increased focus on moving runners over to steer itself out of its current funk.
“Putting pressure [on] running the bases is going to help us,” Cora said before Monday’s series opener with the Brewers. “First and second, move guys over, contact plays, do all that stuff. ... It’s a different brand of baseball. It’s a different roster. We are who we are right now.”
The Red Sox put this new approach into play on Monday, giving themselves multiple opportunities to score against Milwaukee. Unfortunately, their struggles in converting those chances played a huge role in their 3-2 loss at American Family Field.
“Right now, we’re not putting a complete game together,” Cora said. “You look around, it’s just up and down. We haven’t been consistent offensively the last three days, and that’s the reason we haven’t scored too many.”
Boston’s inability to plate runs Monday was the latest instance of a recent trend plaguing the lineup since Bregman was placed on the IL Saturday with a strained right quad. The club went a combined 2-for-20 with runners in scoring position over the final three games of its weekend series against Baltimore, getting held to one run in each of the last two bouts.
Bregman’s absence -- along with continued struggles from shortstop Trevor Story and rookie Kristian Campbell -- has forced the Red Sox to get more aggressive with runners on base, focusing less on big hits and more on simply scratching runs across by any means necessary.
They had more than enough chances to do so on Monday.
Boston had one out with men at the corners in the second inning, but the threat was halted after a Story pop-up and a groundout from Abraham Toro. Down 1-0 in the seventh, Rob Refsnyder worked a pinch-hit walk to put two men on with one out, but Jarren Duran followed by grounding into an inning-ending double play. In the ninth, after Duran’s RBI single cut the deficit to 3-2, a Connor Wong flyout with the bases loaded sealed the loss.
Though Boston's at-bats progressively got better throughout the day, the team wasn’t in the mood to discuss silver linings.
“We still lost. I don’t really care about promise,” Refsnyder said. “There’s some good at-bats here and there, but we’re just not getting the job done.
“It’s not for a lack of effort, work ethic or game planning. It’s just … we’re not doing it. We suck right now. We’ve got to just be better.”
The Red Sox finished the day going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, stranding 10 men on base. The result saddled ace Garrett Crochet with a loss after he allowed two earned runs over 6 2/3 innings while notching his sixth career start with at least 11 K's.
But despite the fact the offense struggled with him on the mound, Crochet’s belief in Boston’s ability to put these troubles in the rear-view wasn’t shaken.
“Obviously runners in scoring position tonight was tough,” Crochet said. “But I think that we have a lot of faith in our offense [that], at any given moment, we’re going to break out and the rest of the season we’re going to forget about these first two months. Eventually, the ball is going to go our way.”
That the Red Sox were able to create so many chances on Monday certainly lends credence to that thought. Duran’s fourth multihit showing in the past five games, along with a dominant month at the plate from slugger Rafael Devers, offers even more promise for the days ahead.
Still, to snap out of this malaise for good, the club knows it can’t afford to focus on struggles adapting the offensive strategy to make up for the loss of Bregman.
“If we want to keep losing and make excuses, we can. But we’re all big leaguers,” Refsnyder said. “I think we’re better than that. We get here early, and we’ve got to just keep preparing and keep playing hard. I’m confident things are going to turn around.
“There’s a lot of talent here, and promise, but right now it’s just execution. We’ve just got to play better.”
Casey Drottar is an editorial producer at MLB.com.