Last week, the Boston Red Sox were nearly swept at home in a four-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays.
It felt as if things couldn’t get much worse.
With a trip to Chicago to face the White Sox, who had lost eight straight at that point, the Red Sox figured they’d right the ship after a momentary slip at home. Instead, two ugly losses followed before Garrett Crochet’s gem on Sunday stopped the bleeding.
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Rather than build off the momentum Crochet created, the Red Sox continued to dig themselves into a deeper hole on Monday night in one of their worst games in recent memory, a 16-1 loss against the Tampa Bay Rays at Steinbrenner Field.
“It seemed like there was a team that was prepared for the other one and one that wasn’t prepared, and that goes top to the bottom. That wasn’t a good night for us,” manager Alex Cora told NESN in Tampa. “I’ll take the blame because it seemed like our team wasn’t ready to go.”
From the first pitch of the game when he allowed a leadoff homer, starter Tanner Houck struggled. He set a franchise record for the shortest start with the most runs allowed, giving up 11 earned runs while recording just seven outs.
The bottom of the third inning alone lasted almost 30 minutes as the Rays pummeled Houck and then reliever Michael Fulmer, making his first appearance in the majors since 2023 elbow surgery. Tampa Bay put up eight hits and nine runs as 14 batters came to the plate in the third.
Balls clanged off the glove of sure-handed defenders such as Trevor Story, Alex Bregman and David Hamilton, as the Red Sox appeared helpless to stop the drubbing.
Despite the uneven fielding, the Red Sox somehow finished the night charged with just one error. Nevertheless, they still lead the majors by a wide margin with 20 errors.
The warmth of Tampa was supposed to awaken the Red Sox bats after a cold week in Boston and Chicago, but they managed just one run on six hits and struck out 14 times. The club leads the majors in strikeouts with 179, almost 20 more than the next closest team.
“The defense has been bad, the offense has been bad and we’ve been inconsistent pitching-wise,” Cora told reporters. “Those are the three pillars of baseball and we haven’t been good.”
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It all raises the question, what is wrong with the Red Sox?
After investing in the roster this offseason by adding a frontline starter in Crochet and locking him up long term, signing Bregman, a Gold Glove third baseman, in free agency, and welcoming back a healthy Story to the infield, the Red Sox were supposed to be better than this. The Red Sox should be better than this.
Just prior to the series against Toronto last week, the Red Sox put up 13 runs in the Fenway opener against the St. Louis Cardinals and then scored 18 runs two days later. They’ve shown they are capable of being a good team that hits well and plays clean defense like they did for the first week of the season. But since a five-game winning streak April 2-6, the Red Sox have not been able to win consecutive games.
“We’ve been consistently bad the last 10 days,” Cora said.
Changes to the coaching staff this early in the season are rare. Coaches are not immune from criticism, but at the same time can only do so much. The players need to find a way to step up and simultaneously slow things down.
Is it too early to panic? Yes.
Have the Red Sox looked atrocious of late? Also, yes.
Making matters worse (or perhaps better, depending on perspective), entering Monday, no American League team had more than nine wins. Almost every team is hovering around .500, including the 8-10 Red Sox.
On one hand, that means the Red Sox aren’t far behind the pack. On the other hand, had they played better baseball in just a few games, they could have been building a lead in the division that might matter down the stretch.
Instead, they’ve floundered, creating yet another frustrating stretch of baseball in Boston.
(Photo of Tanner Houck: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)
