BOSTON -- The words came spitting out of Dustin Pedroia while his interrogator was still in mid-question Wednesday night, some backdoor inquiry about why the Red Sox have failed so miserably to produce a hit when most needed.

"It's 28 games over 162, that s--- will change," Pedroia said, dialing up the defiant meter. "Yeah, yeah. You guys look at one-game seasons. We look at 162 [games]. The guys who are s--- right now with runners in scoring position, that s--- will change. Fact. So there's your answer. Thanks."

Um, you're welcome.

With runners in scoring position this spring, Dustin Pedroia is 3-for-26 with seven strikeouts. AP Photo/Elise Amendola

But the fact remains, the Sox just completed a 3-6 homestand that included a a three-game sweep by the Yankees, followed by two losses in three games to the Rays, a span of six games in which the Sox managed a grand total of four hits in 45 opportunities with runners in scoring position. In both losses to the Rays, they were 1-for-12 with RISP, which helps explain how they scored just one run Monday night despite collecting five extra-base hits, and lost again, 5-3, Wednesday night even though they loaded the bases in the eighth and had the tying runs on base in the ninth.

Pedroia is right, of course. Those outside the Sox clubhouse, fans and media, react with Scandinavian gloom whenever the team founders, be it Mother's Day or Labor Day. The Sox, meanwhile, look at these early-season losses almost like paper cuts -- they sting, they're aggravating, they may even draw a little blood, but in the grand scheme of things, no one ever succumbed from paper cuts.

They can leave you in a pretty foul mood, though, as evidenced by Pedroia, who went down swinging against Rays closer Brad Boxberger for the second out of the ninth.

Pedroia had delivered a run in the third inning with a sacrifice fly after saving a run with a diving stop in the top of the same inning, and with a sixth-inning single made it a dozen straight games in which he has reached base safely with either a walk or hit. But with runners in scoring position, as has been duly noted on more than one occasion this spring, the Red Sox second baseman has been self-described fertilizer, 3-for-26 with seven strikeouts.

What makes him think that will change? Well, there is this: Coming into 2015, he has a .289 average with RISP.

Besides, it has been a collective failure. The Sox are batting .209 with RISP, the worst average in the American League and the 28th worst in baseball.

"Everyone wants to do good," said Mike Napoli, who kept the Sox rally alive in the eighth by fighting back from an 0-and-2 hole to line a full-count single, but had rolled out with a runner on second in the sixth.

"We're not going out there trying not to do good. Maybe we just need to back off a little, stop trying so hard. I don't know. We just need to get the job done.

"We haven't. It's there in front of us. We're living it. Just got to go out there and get the job done."