Pedroia: 'We're frustrated, everybody is'

MIAMI -- After the Red Sox suffered their seventh loss in their last eight games -- a 4-1 loss to the Marlins Monday night at Marlins Park -- Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia attempted to explain his team's mindset.

"We're frustrated, everybody is," Pedroia said. "We want to win. We've got guys that care and we expect to do something special. We're going to continue to work and try to be a great team."

With the loss, the Red Sox fall to three games under .500 (29-32) for the first time since May 16.

Doing the Sox in during the series-opener was a combination of starter Josh Beckett allowing four runs in the first two innings, and a Red Sox offense that came into Monday night hitting just .221 with the majors' second-worst OPS .618 in its previous seven contests.

"Well, we don’t have a lot of options on the lineup," said Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine, whose team finished with five hits (3 from Scott Posednik) during its latest loss. "We’re trying to just get guys in motion once in a while. We did that when we had opportunities tonight. You know, we needed that homer – we needed that bloop. One of the two. And we’ll get it."

Some optimism after the game was derived from the performance of Beckett, who retired 15 of his final 16 batters after suffering some early struggles. Beckett was unavailable for comment following the game, but catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia explained the gradual improvement from the Sox' starter as the game progressed.

"With that roof open, the ball was actually moving a lot," Saltalamacchia said. "He had a real good sinker going. Even when he was trying to throw a four-seamer it was running. The cutter into [Logan] Morrison didn’t get in and he hit it pretty well (for a double off the right field wall). Other than that they got some weak singles. We got [Jose] Reyes with two strikes, threw a pretty decent curveball down, he stayed with it and hit it for a triple. That’s really all they did all night.

"Obviously it put us behind. With our offense, we should be able to come back and score some runs. Josh is a good pitcher. He threw the ball well tonight and kept us off-balance. We’ve just got to come back and battle tomorrow."

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