Weak-Hitting Red Sox, Having Lost 7 Of Last 9, Visit Orioles For Weekend

To call the Red Sox lineup that Alex Cora wrote up on Thursday to face Toronto's Alek Manoah "weak" would be an understatement.

Boston's 4-9 hitters were (with current averages):

Kiké Hernandez     .197
Jackie Bradley     .161
Christian Arroyo   .194
Bobby Dalbec       .154
Travis Shaw        .000 [0-for-19]
Christian Vázquez  .209

Trevor Story was at the top of the lineup, where he has batted .207 over seven games (.224 overall).

Not surprisingly, the Red Sox were held to only four hits and lost 1-0.

Boston (8-12, 5.5 GB) now has lost seven of their last nine games. The Red Sox are hitting .210 and scoring 3.1 runs per game on this current road trip (through seven games). Overall this season, they have been held to two or fewer runs in almost half of their games (9 of 20).

The team has also gone six games without hitting a home run. Their most recent dong came last Friday. The Red Sox had not gone six consecutive games without a homer since April 11-16, 2001.

Rich Hill gets the ball tonight in Baltimore against the Orioles (6-13, 7 GB), a team the Red Sox would  dearly love to stay above in the AL East. They'll need to get a few bats going (at the very least) to do that.