Red Sox
“We [were] good coverage-wise unless something bad happens,” Alex Cora said entering Sunday, “and it happened.”
COMMENTARY
The Astros series. Again.
Just saying “The Kyle Barraclough Game” might not ring a bell for enough of you, even in a region invested enough for Darnell McDonald and Deven Marrero to land post-career NESN gigs as Red Sox notables. Goodness, Jeff Plympton‘s impression of Walpole Joe Morgan got referenced on Sunday’s radio broadcast. Your grandpa’s dungarees aren’t that old.
Even if you don’t remember Barraclough’s name, I suspect you remember the moment. Last Aug. 28, the Red Sox, fifth in the chase for three wild cards, welcomed Houston to Fenway on a Monday night to begin a massive series.
Down a run with two outs in the fifth, Alex Cora pulled Chris Sale for Barraclough, a 30-something the Sox pulled from indy ball in July who’d posted good numbers in Triple A.
He needed six pitches to escape runners on the corners. He needed 88 more to finish the game, which he was left to do despite 11 hits, 5 walks, 3 hit batters, and 10 entirely earned runs.
“We had a lot of guys down,” Cora told reporters, a shoulder shrug in words.
The Astros swept and got within one home win of the World Series. The Red Sox lingered maybe another week, but they were exposed. They cratered to a literal White Sox degree — each lost 22 of their last 31 — to match the 78-84 of 2022 they’d seemed well beyond earlier in the year.
Out, Chaim Bloom. In, Craig Breslow, a Cora extension, and a decisive trade deadline.
In, James Paxton.
And Sunday, out James Paxton, just five pitches into his third post-deal start.
“I felt it pop,” the lefty told reporters of his right calf, on which he’s due to have an MRI Monday.
Before you ask, 17-29. After three more Astros wins at Fenway, the 2024 Sox are 61-55, putting them 17-29 from their 2022-23 level. To be clear, they remain on the sill of the playoff window, three behind third-wild-card Kansas City and 3.5 behind second-wild-card Minnesota. Right about where they’d have been if Barraclough had the night of his pitching life last summer.
The computers, though, have dropped the Red Sox October odds from better than 50 percent to 31.6 in less than a week. That’s not because of the symbolism of Jarren Duran getting caught cussing out a fan hours after he won the team’s Heart and Hustle Award for his “passion for the game.”
That’s because they’re a team which threw a bullpen game Saturday to try and help Nick Pivetta, whose fastball velocity was its lowest (91.9 mph) in two years in his last start, and then lost his backup Sunday. A team with three against Texas its respite before a gauntlet — at 70-win Baltimore, at Houston, home for National League contender Arizona.
“We [were] good coverage-wise unless something bad happens,” Cora said entering Sunday, “and it happened.”
They made us hope, these Red Sox. Dastardly stuff, when we’d corralled all that righteous anger about throttles not engaged.
With a new team braintrust of Breslow and Andrew Bailey, their resumes built on pitching revivals, the Sox promptly posted a 2.00 starters’ ERA in April. Tyler O’Neill, whose every profile, brought up his 2021 NL MVP votes and the injury litany that followed, hammered the ball out of the blocks.
The hope of young saviors perpetual in baseball, Wilyer Abreu put up a .917 OPS in April. Duran topped 1.000 in June, when the team stole the most bases in the American League. Ceddanne Rafaela carried the dreams this past weekend, off to a .367/.424/.467 start to August as his numbers continue a month-by-month climb.
And did you see the Portland triumvirate got their Triple A callup as well?
Of course, small samples never seem smaller than after a bad weekend. The starters’ ERA was 4.49 in May, 4.97 in June, and is 4.51 since July 1. The youthful exuberance of the high times gives way to reminders about youth needing to learn in the low ones. Those hitters we mentioned? All well above league average for the year, but they — like most — are living large off their best moments.
It remains a striking thing about these Red Sox. They’ve averaged 6.8 runs in their 61 victories, second only to Arizona for most in a team’s wins. They have 23 5-run victories, fourth-most in MLB, and 23 5-run losses, tied for fifth-most.
Feast or famine, and still lacking at Fenway. The Sox aren’t only under .500 (27-31) at home, but have been outscored by 32 runs. The latter would be the third straight year of that, despite the Sox mustering a 43-38 home mark in 2022.
So much of this, circling back to the last-place years this group seemed destined to shake off. Years they themselves didn’t seem destined for ugly ends until they were. Slowly, in an instant.
“Let’s not make it bigger than what it is,” Cora told reporters after Sunday’s mess. “We lost three games.”
Forty-six remain, and it would be silly hyperbole to say everything is riding on them. This has been, it can not be lost, already so much more than so many bargained for. The hope of what Breslow’s crew can do, properly backed, remains.
Rob Manfred’s MLB, however, doesn’t require much more than a couple excellent months for a playoff ticket. The sort that are still within reach, and the sort that opportunities for aren’t to be squandered.
They found a way to make us care into Patriots training camp. They found a way to make Sox-Yankees, well, Sox-Yankees again. Opportunity, in some form or fashion, is still knocking in Boston, just as it was into August each of the last two years.
Cora’s teams folded then, when both seemed at least a little better than that.
Maybe this will be the one that proves it is.
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