Alex Cora Surprised By Tough Offensive Trend

BOSTON — The Red Sox had no problem scoring runs in the series opener against the division rival Baltimore Orioles as they put up a 12-spot in a win.

But while the Red Sox put together that breakout performance, a common thought ran through the team given their offensive struggles in the second half of the season.

“It got to the point (Monday) we were in the dugout kind of saying, ‘Alright, let’s save some for tomorrow’ kind of thing,” Triston Casas said. “Yesterday was a barrage, for sure.”

The Red Sox surely wished they could have had a few of those runs for Tuesday night’s game against the Orioles. Boston tried to scrape together an offense, but largely came up empty in a 5-3 loss at Fenway Park.

It’s an offensive performance that has become too common as of late for the Red Sox. They have scored three runs or less in 10 out of their last 13 games and have gone 2-8 in games when they have that type of production.

After hot offensive stretches in June and July, the offense going flat late in the season comes as a surprise to Red Sox manager Alex Cora, and he doesn’t think he’s alone.

“I think everybody is (surprised),” Cora said. “We’re an offensive club and at one point we were the best offense in baseball. It felt like whenever we faced a righty, we had a good chance of scoring a lot of runs. And we haven’t done that the last month, month-and-a-half.

The Red Sox only manufactured one run over six innings off Orioles right-hander Albert Suárez, who totaled a career-high eight strikeouts in the win. And they scored twice in the eighth inning, but one run was gifted to Boston thanks to a balk from Yennier Cano.

It felt like the Red Sox could carry the momentum of a big offensive night, in which Tyler O’Neill and Rob Refsnyder hit back-to-back homers twice, throughout the series with the Orioles. But Boston’s offense is nothing but inconsistent and that outburst is more of an outlier than the norm.

“I think we’re all slumping together,” Cora said. “If you take a look at it. When we were hot, everybody was hitting the ball all over the place. And it just happened that everybody is struggling at the same time.”

Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Red Sox-Orioles game:

— Kutter Crawford deserved a better fate as he’s now 0-5 in his last five starts. He recorded a quality start by tossing 6 1/3 innings in which he allowed three runs on seven hits while he walked one and struck out six. It was also the 30th start of the season for Crawford, who joined Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Seth Lugo as the only American League pitchers to notch that feat thus far this season.

“First full year starting that’s my goal is to try to stay healthy and try to make at least 30 starts and throw 170, 180 innings,” Crawford said. “So yeah, it’s a good feeling, but we still got a few more (starts) and two, three weeks left in the season, so still got to keep going.”

— Luis Guerrero, who made his MLB debut Sunday, had a lowlight by allowing two inherited runners to score in the top of the seventh. He evened out his showing by notching the first big league strikeouts of his career. He punched out both Coby Mayo and Jackson Holiday.

— Speaking of strikeouts, the Red Sox have done plenty of it this season. In fact, the Red Sox set a franchise record in strikeouts this season and have fanned more than 1,400 times, according to Boston Sports Info.

“It’s been the whole season,” Cora said. “It’s the personnel that we have, but we have good hitters. We’re not walking a lot lately and that’s a bad combination, a lot of strikeouts and no walks.”

— STANDINGS WATCH: The Red Sox didn’t get any help as the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins both won. Boston is now four games behind Minnesota for the third and final AL wild-card spot while Detroit is three games back.

— The Red Sox will hand the ball to Nick Pivetta in the rubber match of their three-game set with the Orioles on Wednesday. First pitch from Fenway Park is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.