Pep Talks Aplenty As Red Sox Fall To Lowly Rays
BOSTON (CBS) -- When you lose to a team that had just lost 11 straight, it's time for a pep talk.
Now the question is, will that pep talk do anything for the scuffling Boston Red Sox?
Manager John Farrell, who finds himself on the hot seat with a 9-15 showing in June so far, held a team meeting following Boston's embarrassing 13-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night. It wasn't just for that one game, but for a recent trend the Red Sox have fallen into. After crushing the hopes of opponents with monster first innings early in the season, the Red Sox now find themselves on the other side of that equation. Farrell has watched his team get outscored 22-0 in the first inning over the last 15 games, creating holes that are insurmountable even for Boston's strong -- but now struggling -- offense.
Eduardo Rodriguez was tagged for nine runs in just 2 2/3 innings Monday night, and Boston never got closer than six runs in the loss. A frustrated Farrell had seen enough after his team's latest defeat, their third straight and sixth in the last eight games, and decided it was time to send a message.
"We're capable of more," Farrell told reporters after the game. "We need to get better, and we had a chance to share that here after the game tonight. You know what? We collectively have to get better. To continue to fall behind as much as we are of late, we're more talented than that."
Farrell wasn't the only one to deliver a few animated words on Monday night. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia got in Rodriguez's face during a third-inning mound visit, an exchange he downplayed after the loss.
"What did I say to Eddie? Do you honestly think I'm going to tell you that? I was talking to him about baseball," said Pedroia. "I talk to all my teammates, every day. That's about it."
https://vine.co/v/5uxZldhxT2b
While they didn't really do much in the end, Farrell appreciated his mini-manager delivering those words of wisdom.
"We have the capability of executing pitches at a higher rate. We can't continue to expect our offense to climb out of holes, as we've been," he said. "We've got to set the tone and lead the way from the mound more than we are."
Hopefully the message sent by both Farrell and Pedroia are heard loud and clear throughout the clubhouse, by both their struggling starting pitchers and their suddenly human offense that is suffering from the holes created by that 6.28 ERA in the first inning.
