Through all the explanations, excuses and analysis, J.D. Martinez finally offered the most succinct synopsis from these Red Sox to date.
"Yeah, it sucks," he said after the Red Sox' latest loss, an 11-5 drubbing at the hands of the Yankees Saturday night. "It’s definitely not fun. It’s not fun going out there and getting your head beat in every day."
But while it may not be fun it is undoubtedly the Red Sox' lot in life. No Red Sox' team has gotten their head beat in like this.
For the first time in franchise history, they allowed eight or more runs in a sixth consecutive game. It is now one shy of a major-league record.
For fans, anger has been replaced by apathy with just a little sympathy mixed in.
A guy like Ron Roenicke is doing what he can, as was evident in the pregame meeting he called with the pitchers prior to the latest debacle.
"I had a conversation with them today, I just gathered them together and trying to ease some of the, I don’t know if you call it stress, or what you call it," Roenicke said after his team was saddled with its 15th loss (6-15), most in the majors. "But just tried to ease their minds a little bit and try to free them up and to not press, and just being themselves and making pitches. It’s no different here than in the minor leagues. Our taxi squad, when you make quality pitches, you get people out, so it’s just trying to repeat those pitches and anyway, it’s just tough when you send Nate out there and he gets hit and just, it’s hard."
Good intentions. Bad results.
Nathan Eovaldi is another example.
You aren't going to find a pitcher who is more respected than the righty, possessing the type of approach, stuff, and, let's be honest, contract that has made the Red Sox feel like they have some sort of go-to-guy every fifth day. But the Eovaldi era has instead become just another part of this uneasiness.
In five starts this season he has an ERA of 5.93. Since signing his four-year, $68 million deal the 30-year-old has a combined ERA of 5.97 in 17 starts, carrying a record of 3-3. Saturday night didn't help matters, allowing eight runs in 5 1/3 innings, including three home runs.
Eovaldi is a stand-up guy, but the Red Sox need more than that right now (and going forward). They need somebody to stand and deliver.
"It’s both sides of the ball. It’s pitching, it’s hitting, it’s defense. It seems like when it rains it pours," he said. "Right now, we’re all kind of going through it. We’ve got to find a way to get back, have fun playing the game, go out there, try to focus on the little things we did right tonight, build off of that, and get back out there tomorrow ready to go."
"There's no doubt this is a hard season and not just for us, for the players obviously and they're trying to reproduce the good year they had last year or the year before and they have a lot of hurdles with everything that's going," Roenicke said. "When you’re not playing well or they’re not producing, it’s got a lot of challenges because you can’t do things the same way you’re used to and I don’t want to make that as an excuse because there’s a lot of guys in the league who are doing great and pitchers that are really throwing well. But it presents different challenges, no question about it."
Different challenges? Sure.
When it comes to hitting, the collective OPS in Major League Baseball has dropped from .758 to .731. The batting average's dip includes a drop from .252 to .240. But how are three guys (Charlie Blackmon, Donovan Solano and D.J. LeMahieu) all hitting over .400? As for pitching, how can 10 big-league teams possess ERA for their starts of under 4.00 when the Red Sox sit there with a 3-12 record and 6.95 ERA?
There are lots of reasons. Martinez, for example, passed along a few of his own after notching a pair of hits Saturday night.
"Terrible," he said when asked about his swing. "Want to get more technical? My hips are sliding. I’m drifting uphill. Can’t stay on my backside, so I loop the barrel. I have to make decisions further out front. So, there you go. ... It’s like what I said. If you want to get technical, whenever your hips slide, you have to make decisions more out in front. Whenever you have to make decisions more out in front, you don’t recognize pitches."
Fair. But while almost every one of these struggling Red Sox players possesses some sort of similar reasoning, by and large, it is what it is, and what it is is flat-out ugly. The kind of ugly no other team in baseball -- all living this uncomfortable 2020 life -- has been wearing.
It's a results business, and business has never been worse.
"It’s not always going to be easy and some of these guys have been so successful and now they’re struggling that sometimes a little setback and a little challenge is what they may need in five years or wherever that turns up," Roenicke said. "So I think in the long run, we all get through this, if they can get back and start producing the way that they would like to, I’m hoping that in the long run, these challenges will make these guys a lot stronger."