There's nothing wrong with the Boston Red Sox offense, but the same can't be said about the team's pitching. The Red Sox enter Friday's game against the visiting Houston Astros starving for a strong effort on the mound. Boston is averaging an MLB-best 6.
5 runs per contest in 18 games since the All-Star break but ranks only ahead of the Chicago White Sox (6.22) with a team ERA of 5.96 during that span.
Boston's starting pitchers had a 9.20 ERA during a six-game road trip that ended with an 8-4 loss to Kansas City on Wednesday. Although the Red Sox posted a 4-2 record during that trip, their starters pitched 29 1/3 innings in those six games.
"It doesn't sit well with our pitching group," Red Sox pitching coach Andrew Bailey told MassLive.com . "And I'm pretty sure I can speak for the pitchers in there, we don't want to have so many games where the offense has to dig us out of holes or have comebacks and then have to score again.
"We just have to keep grinding away. We're doing as much as we can on the information side of things to make sure that we're executing our pitches when we need to, getting into counts that we need to and limiting walks as best as possible. We're finding a lot of barrels right now and we have to find ways to adapt around that.
" The Red Sox announced Wednesday that Nick Pivetta will skip his next turn in the rotation because of arm fatigue. They are scheduled to start All-Star right-hander Tanner Houck (8-8, 3.09 ERA) in Friday's three-game series opener.