It has become depressing for just about everybody involved.
What was. What could have been. What is.
All of it has hovered over the Red Sox's conversation this season, with Sunday just highlighting a few of the key figures in the conversation.
The Red Sox lost to the Mariners, 3-1, to drop back to six games out of the final wild card spot. They have still won three straight just twice all season (the last time coming more than a month ago), never claiming as many as four straight.
Meanwhile, social media timelines were filled with the clip of Rafael Devers making a production out of being pinch-run for, offering a reminder of the kind of vibes that led Sox's former lineup centerpiece out of town.
Then there are some of the players who were once thought to be part of the long-term solution. Mookie Betts is hitting .218 with a .674 OPS. Alex Bregman's OPS still hasn't crept over .700 all season. And Xander Bogaerts' OPS is .654 (although he did have two hits Sunday).
Face of the franchise. MVP candidates. Consistent game-changers. The search continues.
Devers, of course, was supposed to be the piece of the puzzle the Red Sox could build around with players like Willson Contreras for years to come. It was a dynamic that worked so perfectly with players like David Ortiz and then J.D. Martinez. And even though the Giants are 71-96 in games Devers has played since acquiring the slugger last June, it shouldn't be lost on anyone that he still owns the 16th-best OPS in MLB since 2021 (better than Betts).
With none of the drama or chaos that surfaced last season, Devers still would have been the perfect elixir. It goes without saying, this Red Sox team desperately needs the player they were banking on this guy to be.
As disappointing as Devers' tenure with the Giants has been for San Francisco, he has still hit 31 homers since joining his new team with a .773 OPS. (They are numbers that would undeniably be better if still playing at Fenway, considering just six of the homers have been to the opposite field at Oracle Park.) Over that span, the Red Sox have totaled the second-fewest homers in baseball.
Roman Anthony was potentially going to be the solution, and still very well may be.
For a while, it was Triston Casas.
Wilyer Abreu has shown signs, landing with almost the exact same OPS as Devers during the span since last year's big trade, with 12 fewer home runs.
Pete Alonso? Kyle Schwarber? Nope.
But there still hasn't been THAT guy. The one that opponents are consistently thinking about well before the spot in the lineup even arrives. Remember what that felt like?
In this day and age of baseball, those kinds of hitters usually can be found in the batting order's top two spots, which is why Anthony was placed in the leadoff position to begin the season. This season, the Red Sox's leadoff hitters have the second-to-last OPS of all MLB teams. At No. 2, they are 25th. They are the lowest and third-lowest, respectively, of any Red Sox team since 1988.
Perhaps it could have worked if the best-case scenarios involving Anthony and Trevor Story had worked out. But they haven't, and the Red Sox are still living life without the top-of-the-order alpha pretty much every contending team possesses.
For now ... dare to dream.
