The Red Sox have been molding their roster since mid-February and are now 21 games into the season. What is their offensive identity?
It should be an easy question to answer by now. The Dodgers and Yankees hit for power; the Brewers and Rays play small ball. Most good teams have traits that define how they play.
The Sox don’t hit for power or average. They don’t draw many walks or steal many bases. They don’t have a set lineup beyond Roman Anthony usually hitting first and Willson Contreras hitting cleanup.
They strike out too often and are roughly league average with runners in scoring position. They have the fewest home runs in the American League, only 13.
Their identity, if it can be called one, is to scratch out three or four runs and hope their pitchers give up only two or three.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow called that a pivot to run prevention back in January when the Sox failed to further improve their lineup with another big bat.
It’s looking more like a wrong turn at this point.
Most days, Alex Cora walks a thinner tightrope than the Flying Wallendas. It played out again on Sunday in a 6-2 loss against the Tigers at soggy Fenway Park.
An encouraging start for Garrett Crochet turned ugly when he allowed four runs with two outs in the fifth inning, three on a home run by Dillon Dingler. He didn’t return for the sixth.
The 8-13 Sox are 8-0 when their starter completes six innings, 0-13 when he does not. That’s not coincidence; that’s who they are.
“Right now the numbers show our DNA, right?” Cora said. “We pitch, we win; we don’t, we lose.”
Crochet has allowed 15 earned runs over 6⅔ innings in his last two starts and is 2-3 with a 7.88 ERA overall.
But the lefthander averaged just under 96 miles per hour with his fastball on Sunday, topped out at 97.5 m.p.h., and struck out eight on a rainy 45-degree day. He was in a 1-1 duel with Framber Valdez before five batters in a row reached.
So Crochet isn’t injured, he’s been irritatingly inconsistent.
“I was dominating until I wasn’t,” he said. “I got banged around pretty good.”
Crochet took every question afterward, then sat with pitching coach Andrew Bailey and teammates Greg Weissert and Garrett Whitlock to go over what went wrong.
“I’m surprised that I’m letting the team down at the level that I am right now and continuing to make the bullpen guys get worn out,” he said. “I think the little things right now are just compounding.”
Run support is part of it, too. Sox pitchers have little margin for error. Can it get better? What kind of offensive team could the Sox become?
“The one we talked about in the offseason,” Cora said, “Hit the ball all over the place and run the bases well. We will hit homers. There are guys, they’re going to hit 20. Somebody hitting 45? Probably not. But we can beat you in different ways.
“We have proven that already, so we just have to make sure we’re more patient in certain aspects.”
The Sox haven’t had anybody hit 45 homers since David Ortiz belted 54 in 2006. At this point, it would be a surprise if any two players combined to.
The Sox also overstated the quality of their rotation. Crochet is an ace, his recent woes aside. Connelly Early offers considerable promise and Ranger Suarez is reliable. But Sonny Gray has been a league-average starter for a few years now, and Brayan Bello hasn’t shown he can be trusted.
There is no hitter in Triple-A who would meaningfully change the lineup. It’s also unlikely a significant trade is made in April or May.
If there are any answers, they have to come from within the clubhouse.
“There’s definitely frustration on an individual level and a group level,” Crochet said. “Everyone’s working hard and has the right preparation going into each game.”
The good news? The Sox have only four more losses than the first-place Yankees with 141 games to play.
“Didn’t see this start coming, that’s for sure,” shortstop Trevor Story said. “That’s baseball. We feel our process is good; we feel like the people that we have are good. It’s just a matter of time … it can turn quick.”
That turn has to come soon. There were boos when Crochet came off the mound after the fifth inning. Those are only going to get louder unless something changes.
Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him on Bluesky at peteabeglobe.bsky.social.