It was a quiet day for the Boston Red Sox offense as they fell to 8-12 on the season after a 4-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park. The Boston offense had its work cut out for it right from the jump with back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal on the mound for Detroit.

Skubal was his dominant self in the Detroit win, making it look easy against a Red Sox offense that has been prone to strikeouts through the first 20 games of the season. Overall, Skubal allowed just one run on four hits, striking out 10 Boston batters.

“He mixed up his pitches really well, he executed whenever he had to execute,” Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras said of Skubal.

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The Red Sox were not without chances against Skubal, though, threatening in the fifth inning. They loaded the bases with nobody out before Skubal escaped the jam, allowing just one run, thanks in part to a Connor Wong double-play ball.

Then, again, in the bottom of the sixth, Boston had runners on the corners and only one out with the heart of the order at the plate. Skubal struck out Contreras and Trevor Story before getting Wilyer Abreu to ground out to end the threat.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora pointed to the team chasing pitches out of the zone as the main culprit for the Red Sox failure to cash in on those opportunities, “We chased a lot today,” Cora said. “We gotta get him in the zone, we have to chip away with aces, you have to make sure when you have your chances to cash in and get it close enough… but a run here, a run there, and it’s a 4-3 game and you take your chances against the bullpen,” he continued.

Strikeouts and chasing pitches outside of the zone have been a problem for Boston all season. They entered Saturday afternoon’s game striking out at the tenth-highest rate in baseball, 23.5%. That was paired with the 11th-highest chase rate in the sport at 30.6%.

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Saturday was the ninth time in 20 games that the Red Sox offense struck out ten or more times in a game; they are 1-8 in those nine games.

Things won’t get much easier for the Sox as they look to guarantee themselves at least a split of this four-game set with Detroit on Sunday afternoon. They’ll be taking on the Tigers’ big-ticket free agent acquisition, starter Framber Valdez. Garrett Crochet will get the start for Boston. First pitch from Fenway Park set for 4:35 p.m. ET. The game was moved from 1:35 p.m. because of weather.