The Red Sox came into Tuesday night’s game second to last in the American League in runs scored, totaling 24, while not having scored more than five in any one game. The problem? Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan gives his take:

“I don’t know if we’re pressing. I think we’re getting outside of what our strength is as a team. We were talking about it today. We’re swinging at a lot of pitcher’s pitches early in the count. They might be strikes, but they’re not really pitches we can drive. I think we went a period of time where we hit some balls hard with runners in scoring position and had nothing to show for it. But that transformed into kind of getting outside our strength which is being patient. I don’t mind getting a swing early in the count as long as it’s a pitch we can drive. But we’re getting a lot of weak outs on the first and second pitch. That’s been what we have been getting away from. 

“You’re down 1-0 or 2-0 and guys are trying to make it up in one swing of the bat. There’s a fine line between being aggressive and helping the pitcher out. That’s kind of what we’re doing now. We’re facing guys who really aren’t strikeout pitchers and it’s almost like we’re swinging at pitches where we don’t want to get behind in the count.

“We’ve fallen out of this before over the last two years. We did it last year. Actually both years we came out of the gate pretty similarly. We were in Oakland last year getting outside our strength. I think a lot of times you can give guys too much credit, opposing pitchers. Granted (Dallas) Braden threw a lot balls for strike one. But for me, you have to make him throw three of those. We’re not doing that. We’re letting him throw one quality pitch and getting outs.”

Perhaps the biggest culprit in the Red Sox’ lineup when it came to the early-season impatience had been J.D. Drew. Drew finished last season with a career-high 4.16 pitches per plate appearance. This year he was seeing only 2.95. David Ortiz is seeing a gaudy 4.73 pitches per plate appearance, but much of that can be chalked up to a bevy of off-speed pitch foul balls.