Article: Red Sox Week in Review: Four Steps Back, Two Steps Forward

[Maddie Landis]

Weekly Snapshot:

• Record Last Week 2-4 (Overall 28-32)
• Runs Scored Last Week: 16
• Runs Surrendered Last Week: 21

Standings:

• 4th in the AL East
• 8.5 GB 1st Place
• 4.0 WCGB

Scores:

• Game 56 (5/26) | BOS 2, MIL 3
• Game 57 (5/27 | BOS 1, MIL 5
• Game 58 (5/28) | BOS  5, MIL 6
• Game 59 (5/30) | BOS 5, ATL 1
• Game 60 (5/31) | BOS 0, ATL 5
• Game 61 (6/1) | BOS 3, ATL 1

Transactions:

• 6/01/25: Placed Justin Slaten on the 15-day injured list (right shoulder inflammation)
• 6/01/25: Designated Blake Sabol for assignment
• 6/01/25: Optioned Nick Sogard to Triple-A Worcester
• 6/01/25: Recalled Luis Guerrero from Triple-A Worcester
• 5/26/25: Signed Allan Griman to a minor league contract
• 5/27/25: Traded Sean Newcomb to the Athletics for cash considerations
• 5/27/25: Optioned Zach Penrod to Triple-A Worcester
• 5/27/25: Optioned Zack Kelly to Triple-A Worcester
• 5/27/25: Activated Zach Penrod from the 60-day injured list
• 5/27/25: Signed Jorge Juan to a minor league contract
• 5/27/25: Sent Chris Murphy on a rehab assignment to Single-A Greenville
• 5/27/25: Activated Richard Fitts from the 15-day injured list
• 5/30/25: Recalled Nick Burdi from Triple-A Worcester
• 5/30/25: Placed Liam Hendriks on the 15-day injured list (right shoulder inflammation)

TL;DR Breakdown/Highlights

Brewers series: The Brewers series was simply embarrassing. The Red Sox blew three leads in a row, and they were playing sloppy baseball across the board. After the first game, Rob Refsnyder provided some blunt commentary on the team’s performance.

Hendriks blew the second game in the 10th inning, yielding a walk-off grand slam to Christian Yelich.

With the bases loaded in the final game of the series, Ceddanne Rafaela committed a terrible baserunning mistake. The team might have won the game if not for the error. In the 10th inning, Kristian Campbell made a bad throw to home that helped turn a single into a double.

Let it be noted that the Brewers are on a hot streak. They just swept the Phillies, who held the best record in the National League at the start of the series. Perhaps it only takes a sweep of the Red Sox to make good teams look like the Rockies.

Braves series: On Friday night, Marcelo Mayer made a nice play at third and finally celebrated his first win with the team.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Trevor Story carried the team’s offense in Atlanta. He homered on Friday night and scored the team’s only three runs in Sunday’s game. Historically, he’s played well against the Braves. Since 2016, Story holds the highest wRC+ (191) split against the Braves as a shortstop with over 50 plate appearances.

The Red Sox return home for a three-game series against the Angels before playing the Yankees for the first time this season in the Bronx. Note: the Saturday (Fox) and Sunday (ESPN) games will be broadcast on national television. I can’t wait to hear John Smoltz and Eduardo Pérez glaze the Yankees on two consecutive nights! 

Random Stats:

5/26 – 6/1 Slash Lines

• Good weeks:
  • Ceddanne Rafaela: .438/.438/.688, 218 wRC+
  • Abraham Toro: .313/.313/.375, 120 wRC+
  • Kristan Campbell: .267/.313/.267, 62 wRC+
    • Campbell’s slugging percentage is obviously low. However, he recorded four hits in the past week, which is a good sign for him. Xander Bogaerts also performed poorly for a month in his rookie year.

• Bad weeks:
  • Carlos Narváez: .176/.222/.235, 21 wRC+
  • Jarren Duran: .174/.208/.217, 11 wRC+
  • David Hamilton: .000/.000/.000, -100 wRC+
    • Why is David Hamilton still getting playing time?

 

• Saturday's game was the first shutout for the Red Sox this season. For a team that's three games under .500, it's impressive that they hadn't been shut out beforehand. 
• The Red Sox bullpen has pitched 222.1 innings, the fourth most in baseball. Meanwhile, their starters have pitched 316.0 innings, placing them in the top third of the league. This is a little surprising, given that their starters usually don’t pitch past the fifth inning.
• Garrett Crochet currently leads pitchers with seven 100+ pitch games.
• Jarren Duran has the lowest on-base percentage (.322) among leadoff hitters with 200+ plate appearances.
• Connor Wong still hasn’t recorded an RBI or a home run.
• Between Lucas Giolito, Liam Hendriks, and Patrick Sandoval, the Red Sox have spent a total of $66.75 million on oft-injured, middling pitchers. (Sandoval still has yet to pitch a game in a Red Sox uniform, so I’m reserving judgment on him for now.)

Website Highlights

• The Red Sox Are Awful In One-Run Games. How Can They Fix It? by Daniel Fox
• A Deep-Dive Into The Red Sox's Offensive Struggles Reveals Obvious Solutions by Daniel Fox
• Blaze Jordan's Hot Start Is Creating An Interesting Conversation In Red Sox Organization by Nick John
  • Blaze Jordan was promoted to Worcester as I was writing this piece!
• Rob Refsnyder's "We Suck" Comments Are Correct, But Red Sox Need A Different Leader by Alex Mayes

Looking Ahead:

June 2nd – Los Angeles Angels (Anderson) at Red Sox (Fitts) – 7:10 pm EDT
June 3rd – Los Angeles Angels (Kikuchi) at Red Sox (Bello) – 7:10 pm EDT
June 4th – Los Angeles Angels (Soriano) at Red Sox (Giolito) – 1:35 pm EDT
June 6th – Red Sox at Yankees – 7:05 pm EDT
June 7th – Red Sox at Yankees – 7:35 pm EDT (Fox coverage)
June 8th – Red Sox at Yankees – 6:30 pm EDT (ESPN coverage)

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[Bellhorn04]

I'm intrigued that the bullpen has the fourth most innings while the starters are in the top third. 

I assume some of this is from having played the most games, plus some small differences being involved.

[TedYazPapiMookie]

Duran hasn't clicked yet this season.  Two mediocre months so far.  Lets hope June revives Duran.  

The problem with pointing out Duran's slow start is that you are inferring maybe we should use someone else at leadoff.  Look in the cupboard, it's bare.  Between Mookie and Duran we had a long line of failures at leadoff.  We have so many other issues that lead-off man doesn't hit the top 20 list.

The number one issue for me is too many bench guys logging too many games.  Cora has no idea how to manage.  If you want to keep your bench fresh when you are below .500, you have a huge whole in your philosophy as a manager.  Get the 2026 starters on the field daily and play them as if you are in a pennant race (which we are not) so they get accustomed to a normal competitive season.  Since 2018 Cora has grossly over played his bench when the team was both good and bad and thank goodness the 2018 was so good they overcame his mistake.  Since then, they have achieved nothing with his philosophy of playing guys that remind him of himself.  Put your best 9 out there and give them a day off each month, worst case 2 games.  This will tell you who has stamina and who is ready to play 150 games a year and whether they can hold up to the grind in August.  It does this team no good to see guys like Hamilton making Campbell sit.  He's a bad back-up at best and he's taking valuable time from Campbell.  You can go down the rest of the bench and say the same thing.  Let Narvaez, Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Story (until Bregman returns), Duran, Rafaela, Abreu/Refsnyder and Devers play daily with minimal substitutions.  This team is playing for a Division Title in 2026 and needs to prepare.  Without Bregman, this team is not playoff competitive so focus on developing the team not trying to make the last wildcard spot.  It's not going to happen. 

The team is 29-32 and there are 24 games at least until Bregman returns.  There are two "easy" series in June vs LAA and two against the Yankees, the rest are against TB, SF, TOR and SEA.  All teams that we are likely not to sweep so the month appears to be another .500 type month so that puts us at 41-44 going into July.  That leaves 77 games in July, Aug and Sep with Bregman hopefully.  Those 25 series are comprised of 12 vs guaranteed playoff teams, 8 versus likely playoff teams and 5 versus bad teams.  If the WC3 spot takes 90 wins then Boston will need to go 49-28 versus all these outstanding teams to make the last playoff spot.  It could happen but it's very unlikely.  So stop playing the scrubs and start planning for 2026 and make some deadline deals that move Yoshida and Story so there will be some payroll available in 2026 to patch any remaining holes.  

In 2026, a really good team would have a platoon pairing of Abreu/Refsnyder as their fourth outfielders.  That's the kind of quality depth this team needs.  We haven't had it since DD ran the show and we haven't competed since then.  Breslow needs to get Cora to play his future team or be gone.  Breslow knows the GM window in Boston is 3 years and even success won't guarantee a job.  2026 is year 3.