Sean McAdam: Red Sox’ primary issue remains the same — not nearly enough offense

NEW YORK — In the visitor’s dugout before the series finale was to be played here Sunday, a reporter asked Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy about the luxury of having four quality starters as part of his team’s rotation.

“It starts with starting pitching,” said Tracy. “It’s a cliche, but it does. It starts with starting pitching. Most teams I think would tell you, at some point, if you’re going to run off a stretch of games where you win eight out of 10 — you’re not doing that with bad starting pitching. It won’t happen.

“But you have the ability to do that if you can string together a string of starts. We have good starting pitching, so at some point, we feel like that could happen and having that pitching is going to be a benefit to us.”

Well, in theory yes. The quartet of Sonny Gray, Payton Tolle, Connelly Early and Ranger Suarez is a solid one, and at the very least, has the ability to keep the Red Sox in games on an almost daily basis.

But in actuality, as the 2026 Red Sox are finding, quality starting pitching only gets you so far.

Since changing managers on April 26, the Red Sox went into Sunday with the best ERA (3.38) in the American League and the fifth-best in baseball.

And what has it gotten them? Not much. The Sox are 17-19 in that stretch after Sunday’s 6-1 loss to the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

The reason is obvious: the team’s anemic offensive showing. Sunday, they were held in check by New York starter Cam Schlittler and a host of relievers, limited to a single run.

“(Schlittler’s) awfully good,” said Tracy. “You kind of go in, knowing you’re going to have to grind…Expected the game to kind of go that way.”

In five games with the Yankees this season, the Red Sox have scored more than two runs exactly once.

Actually forget scoring zero or one run; Sunday marked the 35th time the Red Sox had scored fewer than four runs. In such contests, they’re a lowly 8-27.

A case could be made that Sunday’s loss could be laid at the feet of the Boston bullpen. True, the lineup managed just one run — thanks to a Willson Contreras RBI-double in the fifth — but that was enough to keep the Sox locked in a 1-1 tie with two outs in the bottom of the eighth.

Then, Justin Slaten and newcomer Joe La Sorsa came unglued, banged around for four hits — two of them multi-run homers — and a walk. Just like that, a taut pitcher’s duel became a blowout.

But a few runs here and there would have changed things dramatically. The Sox managed to get either the leadoff man or the second man in an inning on base four times while Schlittler was still in the game, but failed, again and again, to cash in. They were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.

“He was awesome,” said Tracy. “Didn’t walk a man, six strikeouts, in control of the game. He really threw the ball very well.”

Brilliant over his 6.1 innings, he wiggled out of a bases-loaded mess in the fourth and yielded just one run — the fifth time in his last seven outings that he had limited the opposition to a run or no runs. Tellingly, the Sox are just 2-3 in those five games.

Do Red Sox starters feel as though they need to be perfect under such circumstances?

“Every time we go out there, we’re facing a good team, good pitching,” said Suarez. “That’s part of the game. I know that every single hitter wants to go out there perform; today, that wasn’t the case. But I know that they go out and try to do their thing, just like I try to do my thing.”

Clearly, that plan isn’t working. The Red Sox remain dead last in homers and next-to-last in runs scored – with little hope for improvement any time soon.

Until that changes, having strong, reliable starting pitching will feel like having a great air conditioning system in a condemned house — a small comfort, but ultimately, not very helpful.

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