But Can He Pitch?
So Johan Oviedo’s Red Sox career hasn’t started the way anyone would’ve liked. Oviedo didn’t crack the rotation out of spring training and then was roughed up in his first relief appearance against the Astros on Monday, displaying a concerning dip in velocity. But Andrew Bailey and The Run Prevention Unit have some ideas as […]
Good morning! The Red Sox are bad (right now) but Garrett Crochet is good (almost always) and he pitches today. We are not yet at the point where we need to make vacation plans for October. Having said that, oof. What a frustrating start to the season. To kick off today’s discussion, let’s hear what […]
A number of Red Sox players were hot in the World Baseball Classic. A number did well in Spring Training. But it hasn’t really carried over into the first week of the season. The Boston Red Sox are 1-4 after a full turn of the rotation and are once again looking for Garrett Crochet to […]
For the fourth day in a row, the Red Sox managed to play their new worst game yet of the young season. And while there’s still 157 more of these after tonight, that’s suddenly starting to sound more like a threat than a reason to get comfortable. Only two good things happened in this one: […]
The Red Sox look to get back in the win column tonight and avoid falling three games under .500 in the first swing through the rotation. On the mound, they’ll have Brayan Bello, who is very much the definition of Trick or Treat. At times (including much of last summer), he looks like a top […]
As I was recapping Saturday’s extra-inning loss to the Reds, my thoughts and emotions ran the gamut when it came to ABS, umpiring, and the intersection of the two. I touched on a few of those in the recap itself, but the broad outlines were this: I had some other thoughts about ABS that I […]
The Boston Red Sox stink. I don’t necessarily know if that statement can be categorized as hyperbolic — right now it sure feels correct, but I have been known to overreact and this exact franchise did something very similar last season before eventually making the playoffs. I just can’t help but shake the feeling… The […]
So the Red Sox offense so far is… ah, not great. Roman Anthony, Jarren Duran, Willson Contreras, Trevor Story, and Ceddanne Rafaela are all carrying an OPS below .700. Caleb Durbin is carrying an OPS below the gates of hell. But all is not lost offensively, thanks the prodigious play of Wilyer Abreu. Following his […]
Happy Tuesday, Red Sox Nation. After last night’s ass-whooping at the hands of the Houston Astros, our beloved Red Sox fall to 1-3. I don’t know about you, but the offense feels like it’s been slumping for weeks, even though it’s only four games. Baseball season is a grind, though, and nobody wins 162 games […]
Jarren Duran placed eighth in American League MVP voting in 2024, between Tarik Skubal and Yordan Alvarez. The following season, his 3.9 fWAR output was a disappointment. Offensively, his offensive output was most hampered by a .050 decrease in his slugging percentage, which includes 13 fewer extra-base hits. His strikeout rate also increased by about […]
The Red Sox’s bad start to the season continued in Houston, where they got pounded good by the Astros, 8-1, buoyed by a Yordan Alvarez moonshot and supplemented by all manner of similar shit to fall to 1-3. Ranger Suarez made his Sox debut and gave up four runs, as did Johan Oviedo (on both […]
The Red Sox are still on the road, having decamped south to Houston to face the dastardly Astros after losing 2 of 3 to the Reds. Which is fine. It’s March. March! The game’s at 8:10 EDT and the ‘Stros will be wearing their City Connect unis, which I learned from this post: The Sox […]
With Opening Day and the first series of the year under their belts, the Red Sox stay on the road with three games agains the Houston Astros. This time it’s three games over three days, rather than over four, and the series in Texas will get us into April, a more natural time for baseball […]
WORCESTER, Mass. – Payton Tolle already showed his MLB potential last summer with an electric Fenway Park debut and meaningful innings for the Red Sox in a playoff push. To start 2026, Tolle finds himself in a much lower-stress environment on the mound. The 2024 second-round pick got thrown into emergency circumstances for several starts […]
It’s a long season, and it would appear from the very small sample size of games (three!) that Chad Tracy and Dan DeLucia are making a concerted effort to limit the workload of the starters — at least with respect to this opening series with the Syracuse Mets. In the season opener, Jake Bennett threw […]
Welcome to year four of the Monday Morning Brushback, friends! Each Monday morning, I’ll be posting an article here with three of my biggest takeaways from the week that was in Red Sox baseball while having some fun along the way. It’s a pleasure to be starting up another season of this. As for the […]
Hello and happy Monday, folks. Wait, I’m being told my editor is challenging what day of the week it is. Checking the system…. …..Monday. It’s a Monday, call is confirmed. My editor loses a challenge. We saw a healthy dose of the brand spankin’ new automated ball-strike system in Cincinatti over the weekend. Roman Anthony […]
It’s not even March, but today’s game is an example of why I couldn’t fully buy in on this Red Sox roster. Starting pitching is great, but when the offense can’t support it, you’re always in danger of one swing changing the game. Connelly Early pitched well, although it wasn’t a dominant performance, but his […]
It’s the rubber match of the opening series of the season. Connelly Early makes his first start of the season against Rhett Lowder, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2024. Both bullpens are spent after a long game yesterday, so getting to the bullpen early should favor the offense. Masataka Yoshida makes his first […]
The Red Sox still don’t seem to have a long-term plan for what to do with the five outfielders they have for four outfield/DH spots, to say nothing of what happens when Triston Casas enters the DH picture. But they do have a short-term plan. Alex Cora announced that, starting today, Masataka Yoshida would play […]
Zigs and Zags The game had a ton of drama and resisted easy definitions. It wasn’t that the teams traded leads back and forth—the Sox never led, in fact—but every time I thought I had a handle on the direction of the game, a big moment occurred to completely erase that thought. For example, the […]
What to Watch for Today Red Sox Nation got a little taste of baseball on Opening Day, immediately followed by an oddly scheduled off-day. Due to the severe weather in Cincinnati, the game likely would have been postponed anyway so the Red Sox come out ahead with no disruptions to the schedule. Things are going […]
The Boston Red Sox did not play baseball last night, or even yesterday afternoon. But, never fear! About 60 miles west, in New England’s second biggest city and home of the gravesite of the guy who invented the smiley face, several players with MLB service time and some with some more service time certain to […]
WORCESTER, Mass. – Roger Clemens arrived as the Guest of Honor for WooSox Opening Day with core memories of the 40th anniversary of a special season. The 1986 campaign started a run of over two decades in the majors as one of the best starting pitchers in the sport. From learning from Hall of Famer […]
WORCESTER, Mass. – The Boston Red Sox paid Kristian Campbell early last April because the organization believed in the 2023 fourth-rounder after his meteoric minor league rise. His MLB experiment came crashing down after just 11 weeks in the show last season. Campbell struggled defensively at second base and hit just .223 in 67 games. […]