Sonny Gray's Red Sox Debut Was Loaded With Miscues, But His Future In Boston Should Be Better

Sonny Gray’s first start of the 2026 season arguably looks worse on paper than it did if you were tuned into the game. He struggled, but there were flashes that showed his ceiling is still high enough to be considered a number two or three option for the Boston Red Sox.

He tossed four innings posting a 6.75 ERA, six hits, one home run, one walk, five strikes, and a 1.75 WHIP. It was a shorter outing than anyone would have liked, and the first inning was an absolute slog to watch, but he settled down through the rest of the game. Much like Garrett Crochet’s start prior to Gray’s, there was a lot of interest in his pitch mix after he came out of the game.

In typical Gray fashion, he showed seven different pitches against the Reds. He relied heavily on his sinker, throwing it 31% of the time, followed by his curveball at 19%, sweeper at 15%, four-seam fastball and cutter at 14% each, changeup at 6%, and finally a slider at 1% usage.

Going back to 2024, Gray was a four-seam dominant pitcher who worked in a sinker and cutter as secondary options. The Cardinals had him start using his four-seam less and less in 2025 because it was getting hit fairly hard (as his velocity waned with age), and that seemed to be a recipe for success. The plan in Boston seems to be much of the same, as he’s now featuring his sinker as his primary pitch and relying on his elite level sweeper to be his out-pitch. Looking at the heat maps, it's clear that Gray has a specific plan of attack in mind for each of his offerings.

The issue in this first start was simple: In the first inning, Gray wasn’t locating anything for strikes and it burned him. In the first inning, he threw 35 pitches with only 19 of them going for strikes. While the Reds aren’t world-beaters by any means, any team worth their salt will take advantage of a pitcher who digs a hole that deep for himself early in the game. It doesn’t matter if your sweeper is elite; when nothing else is filling up the zone, the opposition has no reason to swing at anything offered. Defensive miscues, including one from Gray himself when he tried to tag a runner at home with the ball but promptly dropped it, didn’t help his cause either. Once Gray settled in the second inning, he landed 32 strikes out of his final 45 pitches. That’s the Gray we expected when Craig Breslow traded for him.

Now, Gray gets the home opener on April 3, against a Padres team that packs a bit of a punch. He’s going to try and quell the rapidly growing sound of the fanbase who is unhappy with the sluggish start to the season with, hopefully, a dominant performance for the home crowd. That’s a lot to ask of someone who just joined the organization in December, but Gray is a proven veteran with amply experience leading a rotation. If he keeps relying on his sinker and sweeper, he has the potential to be a solid anchor for this rotation.

The Red Sox need a boost in the worst way as they enter the home opener on Friday, sitting at just 1-5. The team has looked largely anemic in every facet of the game. Having Sonny Gray come out at Fenway Park and shut down a star-driven Padres lineup would go a long way towards showing just what this team is capable of in 2026.