For years, the Red Sox hoped and prayed for the return of vintage Chris Sale, the ferocious monster of a starting pitcher who for years struck fear in the hearts of veteran and rookie batters alike.

On Wednesday night in Atlanta, they got their wish, only too little, too late.

In his first start against Boston since June 2016, the veteran left-hander put on a true Chris Sale clinic and the Braves won, 5-0. Over six shutout innings, he held the Red Sox to six hits, one walk, induced 20 swings and misses, and set new season highs with 10 strikeouts — nine of which came on his slider — and 103 pitches, 69 for strikes.

Sale, 35, was in rare form from the jump, beginning the contest by striking out Jarren Duran on three pitches. He got the leadoff man the same way in the top of the third, too.

Connor Wong ripped a double off Sale in the first and a single in the third, but found himself stranded on base each time, as the Red Sox’s struggles to drive in runs continued. Boston went 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base, bringing their LOB total to 21 over the two-game series; they entered the day second only to the Yankees on the AL leaderboard in leaving man on base.

“We didn’t cash in,” a frustrated Alex Cora told reporters. “I think we went 0-for-whatever with men in scoring position. He was good, and we’ve seen that before, but we need to be better. We have to.”

Wong’s first-inning two-bagger would turn out to be the lineup’s only extra-base hit of the contest, and he was the only man in the lineup with multiple hits. Tyler O’Neill drew their only walk. Duran and Wilyer Abreu each struck out three times.

After praising his team for playing “good baseball” throughout their recent low-scoring losses, the Red Sox manager took a more serious, frustrated tone when discussing the offense on Wednesday night.

“We didn’t hit throughout the road trip,” Cora said. “You start looking at our offense, and we fall into this trap that, it looks really really good because we score runs, but I mean, look at the shutouts and the percentage of games that we haven’t score more than two runs. We gotta be better.”

Sunday’s 9-2 victory over the Twins notwithstanding, the Red Sox offense is in cold spell of arctic proportions. Despite entering the day with an MLB-leading 10 players with at least 10 RBIs and boasting an offense that ranks in the top five in the AL in nearly every offensive category — including second in slugging and doubles, third in OPS and fifth in hits — it’s a feast-or-famine operation propped up by grandiose victories. Boston is 2-13 when they score less than four runs and 0-14 when trailing after six innings. They’re 7-12 when they don’t homer, and dating back to April 28, they’ve only homered twice over their last eight games. Over their first seven games of the month, they’ve averaged three runs per contest and struck out 73 times.

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