Chad Tracy's Bullpen Mismanagement Did Red Sox No Favors In Wild Card Series

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Despite the mini-mutiny we saw in the locker room at the end of Game 2, Chad Tracy is the correct choice to lead the Boston Red Sox for the foreseeable future. He was able to get the team to find their identity and rattle off a massive win streak from the end of June through the beginning of August that invigorated a fan base that had very little to look forward to through much of the first half of the season. He will be in the Manager of the Year conversation and luckily for him, those votes have already been cast. Thus, his shortcomings in the Wild Card Round won’t work against him amongst the voters.

Before I dive too far into this, Chad Tracy is not on the hook for the offense’s poor performance in the series. Ultimately, the lineup’s inability to score runs was their downfall. Tracy can’t make the lineup hit, he’s not responsible for Roman Anthony’s incessant hand injury, or the small defensive lapses that allowed the Yankees to stay on base when innings should have been over. Where he shoulders the bulk of the blame though, is in his bullpen mismanagement for both games. He seemed to be managing scared.

We can start with Payton Tolle’s start in Game 1. He wasn’t quite fooling the Yankees’ lineup, only notching four strikeouts in the 4.2 innings he was on the bump, but he was pitching well and his velocity hadn’t begun to drop in the fifth. Tolle only threw 83 pitches before Tracy made the slow trek to the mound, motioned for Erik Miller, and asked Tolle for the ball with Ben Rice due up. Rice hits fastballs really well and struggles with sinkers. Sinkers are Miller’s speciality, but Miller has been struggling mightily throughout the month of September. In his last seven appearances alone, he recorded an 8.53 ERA over 6.1 innings while allowing six hits, six earned runs, seven walks, and seven strikeouts. Due to injuries in the bullpen, he was unable to be moved from his high-leverage role, but it was clear he was struggling and shouldn’t be trusted against the big bats of the Yankees.

Miller promptly left a sinker down the middle of the plate and Rice deposited it into the seats to fire up a restless crowd. Jake Bennett has pitched well against the Yankees this season and was just sitting in the bullpen, watching Miller deliver a meatball to Rice. Why not turn to the rookie if the decision was to follow up Tolle with another lefty?

The move to go to Greg Weissert, Wyatt Olds, and Alec Gamboa can be mostly explained away. Even Tracy himself admitted that he stayed away from the back end of his bullpen, and a returning Garrett Crochet, because a loss is a loss in the postseason. It doesn’t matter if it’s by two or nine, it counts just the same. He’s right, but the issue comes with how quick of a hook he had for Tolle. The hulking southpaw has the best stuff on the pitching staff and instead of letting him go at least five full innings (he’s gone into at least the sixth inning in 14 of his 26 starts), Tracy waved the white flag at about the halfway point of the game. That’s fine for a series in the middle of June in Seattle. It’s unacceptable for game one of the Wild Card Series against your biggest rival.

Arguably more egregious in that game, though, was the decision to bring Brayan Bello into a lose-lose situation in the eighth inning. He was brought in to try and induce an inning-ending double play and stop the bleeding for the Red Sox. Instead, he melted down and allowed a grand slam to Rice that put the game fully out of reach. Bello has struggled through parts of this season with his mental makeup and bringing him in in that situation, in the place he had the shortest leash of his career last year, only set him up for failure. Once again, where was Bennett? If a loss is a loss in the postseason, why not let Gamboa continue to wear it? Why risk Bello coming apart at the seams and setting him back after he worked so hard to reestablish himself as a reliever?

Game 2 started off better, at least from a pitching management standpoint. Tracy seemed content in letting Sonny Gray be Sonny Gray. He gave up his signature solo home run, but was pitching well through his 4.2 innings, when Tracy once again stepped out of the dugout, motioned for Miller, and asked for the ball from Gray. We all already know that Miller allowed two hits and runs crossed the plate, again. Then, in a last-ditch effort to save the series, Tracy turned to Crochet, who was the victim of terrible decision-making by Adley Rutschman. The skipper relented and went to Garrett Whitlock, who looked like he was just going through the motions, Gamboa for the second night in a row, and Aroldis Chapman because why not at that point.

Tracy’s poor management of his bullpen, and failure to trust his starters to go deep into games that they were well-equipped to go deep into, set the tone for this series. Throughout the season, Tracy was incredibly successful at pushing the right buttons with the bullpen. This time, it appears the moment got to him.

I fully believe in Chad Tracy—he's the right guy for this job, despite what some folks in the locker room had to say. Still, he is going to be kicking himself for quite a while when he reflects on how this season ended.