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BOSTON — With the lack of yet another late-inning comeback for the Red Sox on Saturday, their recent flaw became more glaring.
In Boston’s 7-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park, Nick Pivetta got rocked for four home runs, including a 468-foot missile over everything in center by Bo Bichette. Other sons of former Major Leaguers also joined Toronto’s power brigade, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (No. 20 on the season) and Cavan Biggio.
While homers actually hadn’t been an issue at all for Boston’s rotation — Pivetta snapped a streak of 46 straight games in which no Sox starter gave up more than one home run — subpar performances have become a trend of late.
Over the last eight games, no Boston starter has pitched six innings. In that span, the rotation has an 8.36 ERA, giving up 60 hits and 35 earned runs over 37 2/3 innings.
“It’s part of the season,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We were unable to hold them today, but overall if you think about it, it’s been a bad stretch. But I still have confidence, the same way when I came in this year going into Spring Training. I believe in these guys and these guys are going to give us quality innings, keep us in games and we’re going to do our thing offensively.”
The relentless offense and a red-hot bullpen had masked the recent slump by the starters, but there was no hiding it on Saturday, as Toronto, led by starter Steven Matz, held Boston to five hits.
“It’s one week,” said Pivetta. “At the end of the day, we’ve held together really, really strong and put some really good starts in. There’s no room for panic here. There’s no room for making a big deal out of it. It’s baseball. It’s how it goes. It’s how you adjust to it and how you move forward.”
Until recently, the rotation had been one of the biggest reasons for Boston’s early-season success.
Cora and Pivetta both think it’s just a matter of time before that is the case again for a team that is 39-26 and two games back in the American League East.
“It’s only one time through the rotation, right? I still believe the stuff is good,” Cora said. “Teams are going to make adjustments. You’re going to go through ups and downs. If you take away the week and you go by individuals, they have one bad start [each] during the season, so we’ll take that. It just happened that everything is happening at the same time. Obviously we make a big deal out of it. The stuff is still the same, it’s just execution. We should be OK.”
Fatigue might be an issue. Saturday was the 13th straight day the Red Sox played, and seven of those games were against the relentless lineup boasted by the Houston Astros.
Boston will have to power its way through the next four days until finally getting an off-day on Thursday, and then another on June 21.
The toughest part in this stretch for Cora is that he’s had to rely heavily on his high-leverage relievers. The only silver lining in Saturday’s one-sided defeat is that he got to rest most of his bullpen.
“I do believe we should be reset by tomorrow, everybody in full force, and we have four more games in this stretch. Four, that’s it,” Cora said. “Tomorrow we got Martín [Pérez], [he will] give us a good start, give it to the bullpen and do our thing.”
The Red Sox have a veteran catcher in Christian Vázquez who will work hard to minimize the lull the rotation is in.
“It’s ups and downs,” Vázquez said. “This is a march, it’s not a sprint. There’s going to be tough moments in the rotation, good moments in the rotation, and we’re working on it. That’s the beauty of this game. You make adjustments and get better. This is baseball.”
Kiké appears OK after scare
In the bottom of the seventh inning, there was a hush at Fenway when Kiké Hernández got smacked on the left side of his batting helmet on a 95.8-mph fastball by Jays righty Anthony Castro. Fortunately, the extended ear flap on Hernández’s helmet seemed to take most, if not all, of the hit.
Hernández was able to play the remainder of the game.
“I mean, I jumped right away,” said Cora. “It just hit him in the C flap that he wears, so luckily he wears it. It just hit him there. They have to check on him right now, just to make sure he’s OK. He was OK afterward. Obviously nobody likes to get hit there. He was upset about it, but not like, ‘They were throwing at me.’ You don’t like to be hit there. [Trainer] Brad [Pearson] just stopped by, they’re going to check on him. He should be OK.”