Red Sox continue to struggle offensively

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TORONTO -- When the season began a week ago, much of the attention was focused on a suspect starting rotation and a reshuffled bullpen.
But six games into the season, it's been the offense -- of all things -- that has hurt the Red Sox.
In five of their losses to date, the Red Sox have scored three runs or fewer. Only once, in fact, have they scored more four runs in a game, and in that contest, the pitching was so bad that not even a dozen runs could buy a victory.
As a team, the Sox are hitting a woeful .236 and have just two homers.
On Wednesday, the Sox mustered just three hits -- all in the same inning (the third) when they scored their lone run. From the end of the third through the end of the eighth, they didn't have a single baserunner.
Even in the ninth, when Toronto lefty Ricky Romero faltered and walked the first two hitters of the inning, the Sox still couldn't produce a run, leaving the potential tying run in scoring position against closer Sergio Santos.
Part of the problem has been the lineup's inability to get any runs early in games. In six games, the Sox have scored a grand total of three runs before the sixth inning.
"It comes and goes," shrugged Kevin Youkilis, who was 0-for-4. "You're going to have streaks when you're tearing the cover off the ball and scoring a lot of runs and sometimes you're not."
"It will even out," vowed Dustin Pedroia. "I think early, you press and you want to get off to a great start and it takes you out of your approach."
Romero had five 1-2-3 innings in a row Wednesday and the Sox seemed to be making his job easier by being overly aggressive at the plate.
"We need to get back to the basics," said Pedroia. "Seeing the ball, having deep counts and trying to knock that starter out of the game. We need to start having better at-bats earlier in the game and score first to give our pitchers some breathing room. We haven't done that yet."
Manager Bobby Valentine bemoaned some tough luck, noting that the Sox had two hard-hit balls in the first inning alone caught on the warning track.
"I thought we hit a lot of balls really hard and had nothing to show for it," said Valentine. "We hit some balls right to Death Valley. I thought we swung the bats well, but just couldn't get it going because balls were right at people.
I think the offense is fine. We've got a lot of really good players who keep swinging the bats well. We're having good at-bats. It's not like we're walking back to the bench holding our bats. We're walking back in disbelief most of the time."

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