Article: One Month In, The Red Sox Are As Good As They Are Bad

[Alex Mayes]

Defining who exactly the 2025 Red Sox are is a bit of a challenge so far, but the negatives outweigh the positives. 

We’re over one month into the season now, typically a time when teams begin to show their true colors. So far, the Red Sox could define themselves a few different ways, The team that leads the American League in stolen bases. The team with the most three-run home runs in the majors. The team that struggles to score runs past the sixth inning. The team that can’t close games. The team with the most blown saves. You likely have your own phrase to define how the season has gone so far too. With so many available options, it’s fair to wonder just who the Red Sox actually are this season.

The Red Sox are young

The average age of the Red Sox roster is slightly deceiving. It comes in at just about 29 years old, but is pretty heavily influenced by Justin Wilson, Aroldis Chapman, and Rob Refsnyder who are 37, 37, and 34, respectivelly. None of the starting outfielders are older than 28, Alex Bregman and Trevor Story are 31 and 32, respectively, while the rest of the infield is 28 or younger, both catchers are 28 or younger, and the entire starting rotation is 30 or younger. Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer are expected to make their big league debuts sometime this season, and they are 20 and 22. There’s a youth movement in Boston that should set the team up for seasons to come, but with that young movement comes inexperience. These young players have to learn to win at the big league level. It takes time to get there, but the expectation in 2025 was that the Red Sox would be far better than they have been the previous three seasons. Luckily, the entire American League is middling and right there with Boston, so there isn’t much reason to panic yet. However, the youth movement needs to get going quickly.

The Red Sox are wasting quality starts

Boston leads the league in quality starts with 16. How many wins do they have on the season? 18. If we break that quality start total down by pitcher we start to see a trend. Garrett Crochet has four quality starts, one win. Walker Buehler has three quality starts, four wins. Tanner Houck has three quality starts, no wins. Brayan Bello has two quality starts, two wins. Richard Fitts has two quality starts, no wins. Lucas Giolito has one quality start, no wins. If we compare that to the blown saves total for the bullpen, we see what’s happening. Justin Wilson has three blown saves, Garrett Whitlock has two, Zack Kelly has one, Greg Weissert has one, and Justin Slaten has one. Relievers are coming into games with a chance to close them out and they are blowing leads, sometimes in short order. The bullpen was a constant discussion all offseason and it looks like more reinforcements are needed.

The Red Sox are world beaters... in the first three innings­­

As of May 5, the Red Sox have scored 179 runs in total. Through the first three innings they’ve scored 79, or 45%, of those runs. In innings four through six, they've scored 45 (25%) of their runs. In innings seven through nine, they're at 51 (29%) runs. Scoring less later in games isn’t a new thing in baseball. You’re typically seeing specialty relievers who throw upper 90s with consistency or pitchers that feature absolute filthy breaking balls. Those pitchers are typically harder to hit than a starter who has to mix at least three pitches into his repertoire. However, when you’re dealing with a bullpen that struggles to maintain even six-run leads, the offense needs to be productive throughout the entire game.

The Red Sox are a comedy of errors

The Red Sox lead the Major League in errors with 30. This, unfortunately, isn’t a new thing for the team. There was hope that Trevor Story being healthy and signing Alex Bregman to play third would help to alleviate the problem, but, so far, they are first and second on the team in errors. Bregman leads the charge with five, Story close behind him at four. Surprisingly, Jarren Duran own three errors on the season already as well. As fans, we expected all three of them to be sure-handed and likely be in contention for Gold Gloves at their positions but through the early part of the season, they’ve proven to be liabilities on defense. It doesn’t help that Alex Cora continues to give David Hamilton looks at shortstop and second base when he’s struggling to make basic defensive plays. He technically only has one error on the season, but watching most of his starts will show you that he’s benefitting from balls in play being scored as hits when he should have been given errors instead. The defense has to get better—leading the league in errors is effectively giving games away, especially when you can point to one or two miscues in a game that resulted in runs scoring.

Honestly, there are quite a few other ways to define the Red Sox, and not all of them are negative. If this team wants to live up to its potential, some major concerns must be addressed in short order. The American League is wide open this season, and there’s no reason for the Red Sox to be hovering around .500 again. Massive upgrades have been made to the starting rotation, and the offense has shown incredible firepower in spurts. Eventually, the elite starting pitching and offensive prowess needs to line up for a run of games so the Red Sox can start to pull away from the rest of the league in win totals. The bullpen is still a giant question mark, but hopefully some reinforcements are coming to town sooner than later.

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[Malcolm White]

Beyond frustrating.

They have a DH who doesn't whiff like his mates, but he can't play cuz he can't throw? Even though there's no chance he'll play in the field?

A DH who's chillin' while Abraham Toro plays 1B. One AAA kid with ore RBIs than games, a great glove, while Story struggles at the plate and in the field. Another AAA kid with a leadoff man's walk rate and a good glove, while the current leadoff man isn't walking much and makes misplays. And a CF who still can't hit.  Too  many LH relievers (!), not enough effective RH relivers. Two lefty mashers without positions.

They look like the Land of Misfit Toys, and yet they could be so much better.  "We've got to be better" isn't a strategy. I'm starting to wonder about Cora.....