This version of the Red Sox (obviously) won't work

Sifting through the reality of spring training and then the first few real games of the season is always a dicey proposition. It was a reality we faced a year ago, when the Red Sox started 1-4, and it is being tested once again through the first four games of the 2026 season.

We know how it is supposed to work, and it’s not working that way.

Pitching. Defense. Better contact. Timely hitting.

Nope.

The Red Sox have now lost three straight after winning Opening Day, dropping an 8-1 decision to the Astros in Houston. This time around, the pitching was less-than-electric with starter Ranger Suarez giving up four runs over his 4 1/3 innings and Johan Oviedo filling things out by having an equally uninspiring outing. The hitting? That wasn’t helping Alex Cora’s club keep pace, either, with the Sox now having scored the fourth-fewest runs of any team in baseball. (As a side note, it’s amazing that Rafael Devers’ Giants have managed just four runs in four games.)

So, what is the thing that should present the biggest early-season red flag? Suarez deserves another look after his Red Sox debut. The same goes for Oviedo, and fellow newcomer Sonny Gray.

It’s probably unfair to suggest that these four games will be defining the lineup’s power potential, especially considering their three homers match what they had through four games a year ago. Let’s not forget how putrid that start was a year ago, with the Sox totaling a .201 batting average and .591 OPS with the most strikeouts in the majors.

But it is fair to put these late-March results under the microscope, given that the blueprint was always going to leave little room for error. The problem is that there have been too many missteps in executing the aforementioned game plan.

For starters, the Red Sox have just six hits in 32 at-bats with runners in scoring position, with two extra-base hits (both doubles) and 11 strikeouts. How? Why? It comes back to the problem they thought would be fixed - swinging, chasing, and missing too many times.

Through these four games, the Red Sox have the seventh-worst swing-and-miss percentage in baseball. Not helping matters is that they aren’t getting their pitch to hit, and are letting pitchers off the hook. For instance, this collection of hitters has swung at the first pitch the second-fewest times of any big league team. And while the Sox have gotten to the seventh-most three-ball counts of any club, they haven’t been able to capitalize nearly enough.

Will it turn? The history of some of the participants suggests it will.

Jarren Duran is swinging and missing at a 48.1 percent clip compared to his career-high of 29.1 percent last season. Willson Contreras is at 45.2 percent after totaling a 28.9 percent rate in 2025. And Ceddanne Rafaela’s swing-and-miss percentage of 41.4 is 15 percent higher than a year ago.

Then there is Caleb Durbin’s start, which has seen the third baseman start his Red Sox career 0-for-14, leading Cora to pinch-hit for Durbin with Masa Yoshida facing in a key seventh-inning moment with two runners aboard.

“In that situation, I’m not gonna go to the hotel with Masa on the bench, right?” Cora told reporters. “I mean, we’re gonna use the roster, maximize it. And it was a big situation for us and I felt the matchup was really good for us.”

Durbin is supposed to be part of the solutions to the Red Sox swing-and-miss problems, having whiffed on just 12.7 percent of his pitches in 2025. So far this year, it's double that. What the Sox were banking on was the dynamic supplied by Alex Bregman, who is swinging and missing just 13 percent so far with the Cubs.

Durbin will likely get better, as will the Red Sox. But that doesn't mean there aren't warning signs. Now it's the Red Sox's job to tear all of those down.