The Red Sox lost again.
They are 13-21, 10 games back of the first-place Yankees and three out of a wild card.
These are the facts. Everything else is sifting through what we think is reality.
Just ask “Douglas,” whose Fenway Park proposal to “Sarah” Sunday afternoon didn’t go quite as planned, ending with a “Let’s talk about it” punctuation. Best laid plans, right?
After the Red Sox’s 2-1, 10-inning loss to the Astros, we were left with more room for interpretation. Sure, there was the mystery of how long starting pitcher Ranger Suarez’s balky hamstring would keep him out. And there was the mystery of how a team could go 3-for-28 with runners in scoring position, as the Sox did in their three games against the Astros.
But as the American League East’s last-place team boarded the plane for Detroit, the juiciest quandaries regarding the direction of this team were raised by a few postgame quotes. The first game from a player perceived as one of the veteran guiding lights, Willson Contreras.
“But I feel like the guys are, after (Alex) Cora got fired, the guys got loose a little more, because I feel like the tension was gone," he said. “But it's really hard when you go up to bat and if you look at the scoreboard, your numbers are not there."
When pressed on why such looseness might have magically appeared, Contreras responded, "That’s a good question. I don’t know. I haven’t dug into that too deeply, but that’s what I felt. That’s my own opinion. When Alex wasn’t in the dugout, the team was like [exhale noise], like loose. But it doesn’t matter. We have to play better. We have to find consistency. We have to get better. We have to be better."
The no-doubt-it fact within Contreras' statement is that the Red Sox do have to be better. The part about being "loose"? Well, this is where the conversation and debate push aside the obvious.
While some would suggest that the Red Sox playing freer and easier will pave the way for better results, another view of the situation is easy to identify.
Take 2022, for instance. That team offered the blueprint for digging out of this sort of hole. And nowhere in the equation was the feeling of unbuttoning the top button. That team was also 13-21, going to win 29 of its next 39 games. Why? Proven players started playing to their abilities. The key word there is "proven." They knew what it took and it would take.
Xander Bogaerts. J.D. Martinez. Rafael Devers. Christian Vazquez. Trevor Story. They all took off, understanding how to ride the ebbs and flows of a season while also respecting some sense of urgency. You know who else got all that? The manager at the time, Alex Cora, along with his coaches.
This group? It has become a guessing game regarding how this might turn around.
Maybe Contreras' theory that the team will be better off without the accountability put in place before the coaching staff turnover is spot-on. Even with the Red Sox scoring just seven runs for the three games against one of the majors' worst pitching staffs, Roman Anthony did look like he is on the verge of breaking out, going 5-for-12 with two walks. The same applies to Jarren Duran, who hit a pair of home runs in the series.
But let's be real.
No matter what kind of altered vibe the Red Sox might be feeling in the dugout or clubhouse, the true solution to the problem is the same equation the 2022 team locked into.
In this case, it is solving the problems that everybody can see is roadblocking any real run. At the top of the list is hitting the ball over the fence.
Even with Duran's homer Sunday, the Red Sox have the fewest home runs in their home ballpark of any team in the big leagues (tied with the Rangers at 7). They haven't hit an opposite-field home run since April 1. And there have been just eight games in which any of their homers have come with runners on base, without a position player on the mound.
Take what the Red Sox did compared to what the Blue Jays did over the weekend. Over that span, the Sox finished with 27 hits, eighth-best in MLB. The Jays were right in front of them at No. 7 with 31. The difference? Toronto scored 21 runs compared to the Red Sox's seven. Spoiler: Those seven Jays homers went a long way.
Then there was Conteras's assertion that some of the problem stemmed from the younger players figuring things out as the early season unfolded. To which Marcelo Mayer told MassLive.com, "I mean, to me, that's just kind of an excuse for young guys. But at the end of the day, we're all playing baseball, we're all pros. We know what we need to do. I don't think we're doing a good job of hitting with runners in scoring position. When you don't do that, you don't score runs. So we haven't been doing that. So I think we need to pick it up in that aspect."
In reality, both are probably right.
But this is the issue: The Red Sox need to simply define who is directing traffic and which roads they should take.
Until they do, there will be a lot of guessing, hoping, and analyzing. When you have the second-fewest wins in big league baseball, that's not a great place to be.
