Things need to change, and they need to change quickly if the Red Sox want to avoid becoming sellers at the trade deadline.
Entering Tuesday night’s game in Colorado, the Red Sox have just 35 games remaining before MLB’s Aug. 3 trade deadline. They currently sit 7.0 games back of a Wild Card spot and are tied with the Giants and Rockies for the fewest wins in MLB.
The possibility of selling is something the clubhouse is very much aware of.
It’s a difficult spot for interim manager Chad Tracy, who, in his first MLB managerial opportunity, is tasked with trying to turn around a roster that has struggled to find consistency while keeping the clubhouse engaged as the deadline approaches.
So what do those conversations look like? And how is Tracy keeping his team engaged as the season continues to slip away?
The interim manager joined WEEI’s Rich and Ked with Ted Johnson to discuss (full interview below).
“I think you just keep encouraging them,” Tracy said. “You touch base with guys and let them know, ‘I’m right there with you.’ Anything you can do, and I think we’ve done that, is making sure that they know you are in the trenches with them, and you are feeling the same things they are, and you just keep pushing them. That’s all. I think our veteran guys have handled that noise well with their own comments. I don’t think any of them answer the questions, and they get back to work.
Nobody is making that a distraction amongst what has to happen here on a day-to-day basis. From our standpoint, we have a job to do. We’ve got to come in tomorrow, we’ve got to get ourselves in order, do our advance work, who are we facing — get ready to play the game and try to go out and win a baseball game. That is the focus on a daily basis.”
If the Red Sox are going to climb back into the race, what needs to happen?
“It’s not easy because in your mind, you know, looking at it, that it’s going to take some type of stretch to get you started, and then a run of consistency for a period of time,” Tracy said. “That being said, there would be other seasons where you would look at our record and where we’re at in the American League right now, and you’d be like, ‘Oh my god, they are 15 games out.’ And because the American League hasn’t performed well, it’s not an outrageous thing to think about. Way less outrageous to think about right now than it would be in other seasons.
But we’re in a day-to-day mindset right now. It has to be that way. We have a lot to get squared away. It should be about going out there and winning today. And after you do that, you’ve got to go out and try to win tomorrow and have a winning road trip. Like, that’s a start. So, you can’t get too far ahead of yourself, but you can at least look at it and say, if there was a year to come back from where we’re at right now and make something happen, this would be the year to do it, just based on what’s happening around us.”
To Tracy’s point, nine of the 15 teams in the American League have a losing record. Only three — the Yankees, Rays, and Mariners — have a positive run differential.
Still, the Red Sox, sitting with the worst record in the AL, would have to jump every other team in the race. A tall ask, even in a league that has left the door open.
