TORONTO — The Boston Red Sox have had no shortage of meetings in the last week, and Saturday was no exception, players huddling behind clubhouse doors after a second straight one-sided loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Everything was said that had to be said, plain and simple," first baseman Mike Napoli said after the Sox lost 7-1 to the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon after losing 7-0 on Friday night. “We know what we have to do."

Veterans Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz were among the players who spoke at the meeting. Napoli, though an acknowledged club leader, did not.

Toronto's Edwin Encarnacion steals second base in the first inning as Boston's Dustin Pedroia prepares to make a tag Saturday. The Red Sox have been outscored 24-9 in the first inning this season. Getty Images/Tom Szczerbowski

“We got a good club," he said. “We’ve just got to go out there and take the bull by the horns, get it done. But we’ve got a good team. There are a lot of guys in here who can play the game of baseball, and they’re proven guys, and we know that we have to do better."

Napoli rejected the suggestion that because the Sox are only 30 games in, it’s too early to draw conclusions about the team’s 13-17 record and occupancy of last place in the AL East, where they have finished two of the last three seasons. The Sox have lost seven of their last eight games, and have been outscored 37-16 in that span. All of those losses have been to division rivals: three to the Yankees, two to the Rays and two more to the Jays.

“If we were in first place, would we be saying it was early?" Napoli said. “We want to win now. All these games count. We know what we have to do -- we have to start winning and play the game the way we know how and get it done. We know that. And we have some guys in here who will turn it around.

“Yeah, it’s probably [early], but it’s time to go.”

Pedroia acknowledged he was one of the players who addressed the team but offered no details.

“Yeah, a couple guys talked," he said. “That’s for our guys, not for anybody else."

Earlier this week, Pedroia chided the media for overreacting when it was still just the first week of May. But he acknowledged Saturday some frustration had set in.

“That’s part of it," he said. “If anybody thought we’d come out and just win every game that would probably take the fun out of everything. You find out a lot about yourself, your team, everybody when you go through tough times. We got to try to find a way to come together and play better. That’s the bottom line."

Meetings have occurred with regularity in the last week. After Monday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in Boston. Farrell called a team meeting. On Tuesday, he and general manager Ben Cherington met with majority owner John W. Henry. On Thursday, Farrell met with the pitchers to discuss the firing of pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Farrell said the team’s habit of falling behind early has been the prevalent “theme” of its first 30 games. Only 10 times in the first 30 games have the Sox scored first; they’re 8-2 in those games and 5-15 in games when they fall behind. They’ve only led after the first inning five times, and have trailed 10 times after the first.

During this recent stretch, the Sox have held the lead in only 7 of 72 innings.

“What it boils down to, when we’re able to score first, our record clearly indicates we’re a successful team," he said.

“That’s the storyline in 30 games so far. When we’re able to keep the opposing offense in check and give ourselves a chance to score first, we’re on the right side of things."

The Sox have scored in the first inning in only six of their first 30 games. With the Blue Jays scoring a run in the first Saturday, their opponents have scored runs 11 times in the first inning and have outscored the Sox in the first 24-9.

“There’s a lot of frustration," Farrell said. “We have to get back to an offense that’s going to be reliant and trusting of one another, not relying on one swing of the bat. Sometimes that’s why you see a popup in an RBI situation or pulling out and rolling over on a ground ball. We did it in the fifth inning. That has to become more the norm than one-dimensional."