Boston bats still MIA, waste Brayan Bello’s strong start in Anaheim

Put out an all-points bulletin for the Red Sox bats.

Dating back to Saturday night in San Diego, they’ve scored one run over their last 32 innings. Entering Sunday, they’d only been shut out once this season; they’ve now had two goose-egg games in three days.

To make matters worse, the cold spell coincided with a pair of strong starts by Tanner Houck (6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K) and Brayan Bello (7 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 2 HR) in the first and second games of the series in Anaheim, which is now officially lost.

Bello is on a streak of more-than-solid starts, and put together another on Tuesday. After giving up a combined eight earned runs over his first two starts, he extended his streak of starts with no more than a pair of earned runs to five. It was his first start of the season in which he didn’t issue a walk.

The righty’s 7-inning performance also extended the team’s impressive record of starters going five or more innings to 24 of their last 26 games, including 11 of their last 12., and he’s the fifth starter in their last six games to allow no more than two runs.

For the second night in a row, Mickey Moniak put the hurt on Red Sox pitching. After a go-ahead home run in the series opener, the 2016 first-overall draft pick led off Tuesday’s game with a 418-foot homer.

Bello limited the damage to Moniak’s solo shot, then got the Angels 1-2-3 in each of the subsequent three frames. Other than allowing another solo homer, this one to Matt Thaiss in the fifth, it was a quiet night for the righty, who celebrated his 24th birthday during his last start.

Unfortunately, it was also a quiet night for the Red Sox offense. The early 1-0 deficit proved to be more mountain than molehill for the visiting team, and Griffin Canning became just the 10th starter to go six or more innings against the usually-formidable Boston bats. They had a hit, a single by Enmanuel Valdez, and two walks in the first two innings, but squandered all three baserunners. Triston Casas’ 7th-inning hit proved to be their last one of the night.

It almost didn’t matter that Joely Rodríguez took over in the eighth and served up three hits, a walk, and a 2-run homer to Mike Trout; the Red Sox already had and would continue to go down without a fight.

It’s a baffling phenomenon that a team can hit and score so abundantly when a starting pitcher gives up five or six runs, but not when their arms are dealing. They’re 1-15 when scoring less than four runs, compared to 25-8 when scoring four or more.

After winning their first three games against the Angels this year, the season series is tied. They’ll try to avoid a sweep on Wednesday, then shuffle off to Arizona for holiday weekend.

But if the pitching and hitting can’t consistently combine forces, they may continue to be an above-.500 team, but they won’t get much farther than that.