BOSTON — The floundering Red Sox got swept by the Blue Jays here this weekend at Fenway Park.
Their 8-4 loss to Toronto on Sunday marked their fifth straight defeat. They have lost nine of their past 10 games and 13 of their past 16 games.
The trade deadline is Aug. 2, just nine days away.
The Guardians visit Fenway Park for four games this week starting Monday. The Brewers then visit for three games Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Do the Red Sox feel urgency to turn it around this week or else the front office might decide to sell at the trade deadline?
“I buy at the grocery store and don’t sell too many things at home,” manager Alex Cora answered. “We’ve just got to play better. It doesn’t matter, like the trading deadline, whatever. We’re playing .500 baseball. We’re back to neutral. We’re back to where we were April 8 (Opening Day). The brand of baseball we’re playing is awful. We’re not catching the ball. We’re not putting good at-bats. We’re not throwing strikes. It’s bad. It’s really bad right now. But we’re talented. And we can turn it around quick. And it starts tomorrow. We’ve gotta show up tomorrow. We have to show up tomorrow and play good baseball.
“It starts with Nick (Pivetta) on the mound,” Cora added. “Good at-bats. Grind at-bats. Run the bases well. Play good defense. I think defensively we have taken a step back the last 14 days. We were really good defensively early on. We’ve got moving parts (roster turnover because of injuries) but you’ve got to slow it down. Catch the ball. Throw to the right base. Don’t panic out there. It seems like right now the game speeds up at one point of the game and it looks horrible.”
The Red Sox’s recent stretch of bad play has had a lot to do with injuries. Boston has top players, including Rafael Devers, Trevor Story, Chris Sale, Kiké Hernández, Rich Hill, Michael Wacha, Christian Arroyo and Matt Strahm on the IL. J.D. Martinez also missed the Blue Jays series because of back spasms.
The lineup Saturday and Sunday included Jeter Downs at third and Yolmer Sánchez at second base. Both have spent almost the entire season at Triple-A Worcester.
But this is a results-driven business no matter who is out there playing. And the Red Sox haven’t produced results in July. Boston (48-48) dropped to .500 for the first time since June 5. It was as many as 11 games over .500 with a 42-31 record June 26.
Cora’s team dropped to 12-29 (.293 winning percentage) against AL East teams. Boston is 0-11-1 in 12 series against teams in the division.
The Red Sox need to show something in the next seven days or else chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom will have great motive to trade players with expiring contracts.
Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, Nathan Eovaldi, Christian Vázquez, Hernández, Wacha, Hill and Strahm are all eligible for free agency after this season. Bogaerts, who has an opt out after 2022, has the ability to veto any trade.
Boston is 17 ½ games behind the first-place Yankees in the AL East and 3 ½ games behind for the final Wild Card spot.
“We’ve got guys playing different positions but at the end of the day, this is who we have and this is who we are,” Cora said. “I mentioned last year what we did. And one thing we did when we had the COVID situation, we caught the ball. We turned double plays. We were playing clean baseball and gave our pitchers chances to maneuver lineups and the offense to scratch up runs. And right now, we’re not doing that.”
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