Rich Hill offers the inside story of the surprise Pirates
BALTIMORE - The Red Sox' 6-2 loss to the Orioles Wednesday was sort of a microcosm of where we have landed with this team after 26 games. Not good. Not terrible. Really hard to define.
In this case, you had Tanner Houck losing for the first time of the season, but pitching well enough (5 IP, 4 R) that Alex Cora didn't exactly come off as someone overly concerned with the 12th loss by a Sox starting pitcher in 20 decisions.
"I thought he was good," the Red Sox manager said of Houck. "Threw a lot of strikes. In that inning, they got that first hit, and then after that, they got some pitches in the zone and put the ball in play and had that rally, but I think overall, it was five good innings. He threw a lot of strikes, quality stuff. Some days are gonna be like that. The bottom part of the lineup did an outstanding job getting on base and scoring and put us in a bad spot."
OK. A good Orioles team with a lineup of tough outs just took two of three against the Red Sox, dropping Cora's club to 13-13. Glass half full? Glass half empty? Right now it seems simply like a nondescript container full of something or other.
The undeniable positive is that through these 19 games in 19 days, the Red Sox have emerged still in the kind of conversation that they desperately hoped for. They weathered what could be been debilitating storms while avoiding the kind of fate the 7-18 White Sox currently are living with.
The 19 games has seen the team and players emerge on the tail-end in far better lots in life than they had begun the stretch. Masa Yoshida, for instance, finished the run with an .886 OPS, joining Alex Verdugo, Reese McGuire, Rafael Devers and Jarren Duran as Sox players completing the almost three weeks with OPS' of .800 or better.
And another huge step in a positive direction the Red Sox probably weren't expecting has come from Duran, who has helped pick up the slack for the injured Adam Duvall while allowing Kiké Hernandez to move into the infield.
After two more hits in the series finale, Duran is now hitting .400 (14-for-35) with a 1.054 OPS, seven runs and 10 RBI. He has also added a dimension the Red Sox were starved for in actual speed on the basepaths.
Still, the Red Sox remain living life with a very real lack of definition.
Through these 19 games, the starting pitchers haven't exactly eased the fears born from the first few series, totaling a combined 5.89 ERA and .812 OPS against. The roller coaster offered by Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, Garrett Whitlock and, now, Houck haven't offered the kind of optimism that was always part of the 2023 blueprint.
There have been glimpses, but not as many will be needed.
And then there is the case of actually winning series against American League East teams. It took one day for the reverse the I-told-you-so's thanks to the O's, with the Red Sox now 29-57 against East teams with a run-differential of negative-131.
Maybe ... Possibly ... Perhaps.
The resilience of this group through more-the-than-the-usual April injury-related obstacles is something that has offered some benefit of the doubt heading into the last series of the month. But with the likes of another piece of A.L. East iron - Toronto - looming Monday, it's getting to be that time we start figuring out exactly what this team is all about.
Now you have one day to decipher exactly what the Red Sox have left you with to this point. Good luck with that.
"The fight, to be honest with you," said Cora when asked what impression his team has left on him to this point. "We’ve been down by seven early in the game and it doesn't matter. They just keep grinding, which is great. We’re not giving at-bats away. We keep putting pressure on the opposition. Even when there was a game that we were out of it, they got the closer up. That was earlier in the season. That's why you do, just like they did yesterday. We won the game, but Kenley (Jansen) had to pitch. That takes a toll for today. That's the mindset that they have. They don't get caught up in the ups and downs of this thing. We lost four to Tampa and we move on. That’s part of it. We lost three to Pittsburgh, and we move on. It’s still early to really tell you who we are, but like I always say, we’ve got a good baseball team but just have to be better."