Sure, it’s nice that the Red Sox got back in the wins column on Wednesday, as Ceddanne Rafaela hit the shortest walk-off home run of the Statcast era to beat the Angels 11-9 and avoid being swept by the fourth place team in the AL West. That’s great!
But in reality, the team has lost 8 of their last 11 games, and are sitting at 30-34 on the season with a three-game series on tap with the Yankees (38-23) in the Bronx.
They’re 10 games back of first place in the AL East, and they’re 4 games back of an AL Wild Card spot. 17 of their 34 losses have come in one-score games, and their starting pitching has been unable to consistently work into the 6th inning. Their defensive score ranks 23rd in all of baseball. And offensively, only the Cardinals have left more men on base per game than Boston this season.
To say this team is underachieving is an understatement, especially when you consider the additions this past offseason of a true No. 1 ace in Garrett Crochet (5-4, 1.98 ERA), a bonafide MVP candidate in Alex Bregman (.299 BA, 11 HR and 35 RBI in 51 games), and a dominant closer in Aroldis Chapman (1.98 ERA, 0.96 WHIP). Three key areas were added to a roster that went 81-81 in 2024, who were knocking on the door of a postseason berth deep into the season.
While all three have been bright spots (outside of Bregman’s quad injury), the rest of the roster has been unable to consistently elevate.
Rafael Devers has turned it on as a designated hitter the last two months, but his unwillingness to play the field after Triston Casas was lost for the season has kept Boston from having ultimate roster flexibility, which would allow them to call up the best player in all of Minor League Baseball in Roman Anthony. While it’s not a guarantee Anthony would succeed from the jump, it would at the very least give a sleep-walking team a jolt of energy that it desperately needs.
While Devers has been a positive at the plate, his attitude towards putting on a glove has been a negative. It’s emblematic of the one-step-forward, one-step-backwards nature of this team.
Given all of that, on top of the fact that Boston is about to hit a stretch of 15 straight games against teams with winning records, it’s fair to wonder on June 6:
Should the Red Sox blow it up?
WEEI’s Christian Arcand said on Friday that if things go south at Yankee Stadium, it may be headed in that direction.
“You think this [weekend] is the end of days?” WEEI’s Adam Jones asked Arcand on Friday’s Jones and Keefe. “[You think] this is like the death rattle of the Red Sox season?”
“I kind of do,” said Arcand. “Because we're not talking about a whole season here, right? We're talking about till the trade deadline. And the trade deadline is at the end of July, which is in about six weeks from now, give or take. And I think if they fall out of it well before then, you're not going to be talking about adding at the deadline.
“You've seen reports of this. People are already circling the carcass with his team looking for Jarren Duran. Alex Bregman’s only here for a year. Chapman's probably going to be someone - he's having a great year - they're going to be looking at. Like, this is a shortened timeline. And I don't think that Red Sox fans fully appreciate that. It's like, ‘Well, you know, you want to save Crochet for August and September.’ August and September for this team may not matter if they can't get out of this nine-game stretch here.”
The nine-game stretch Arcand is referring to is this upcoming series in the Bronx, then back home to Fenway for a six-game homestand against the Rays (33-29) and Yankees.
From there, it’s a nine-game west coast road trip that begins with consecutive series against the Mariners (32-29) and Giants (35-28).
By the time this team has their rematch series with the Angels on June 23 in Anaheim, we might be looking at a completely lost season for Boston.
“Since you brought up Duran and even [Wilyer] Abreu, those are two names that Jeff Passan brought up, would you move either of those if you’re the Red Sox?” Jones asked Arcand.
“I wouldn’t do it today,” said Arcand. “I wouldn’t trade [Duran] today because I still think that you have time to try and fix this, and you have the talent on the team and all the tools to be able to do it.
“That's what's so frustrating. That's why this team's driving everybody nuts, because they all know how good they're supposed to be, and how good they can be, and what they should be, and everything else. So I think that until it's really ‘TNT time’ with this roster, I wouldn't trade anybody of note. But once that barrier gets crossed, and I think we could see that here in the next two weeks, then yeah, everything should be on the table.”
The Red Sox will attempt to start this tough stretch strong tonight with Walker Buehler (4-3, 4.44 ERA) taking the bump. Will Warren (3-3, 5.19 ERA) gets the start for the Yankees. First pitch is slated for 7:05 p.m. ET.
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