This suuuuuuuuuuucks

Campbell's last week (including today). Legitimately the first time since last April I'm excited about what I see. This is what he was.

Percent of months running the Red Sox with an offense above a 100 wRC+ 81% - Epstein 63% - Cherington 75% - Dombrowski 67% - Bloom 54% - Breslow* Above a 110 wRC+ 61% - Epstein 25% - Cherington 38% - Dombrowski 38% - Bloom 23% - Breslow* *8 games left in April

Max Fried, former Red Sox Plan A, is pitching at Fenway tonight. Here are Crochet and his numbers since joining Boston and New York.

There were a ridiculous amount of people talking off the record last season about shit going on with the Sox --- a lot of which got flushed out in the days following the Devers trade through a bunch of articles. Birds are chirping again.

My watching baseball nightmare

Feels sacrilegious to say about baseball, but I’ve seen people talking about it and it’s hard not to agree, this is leaking into very boring team territory. Winning regularly fixes boring, but man, this shit is brutal.

On four seam fastballs the Red Sox have swung at, they rank 29th in wOBA and 30th in xwOBA. They also rank 29th in swing rate on four seam fastballs thrown in the strike zone.

Luis Gil has reached 30 career innings against the Sox and has allowed 3 earned runs / 17 hits.

Somehow every day Red Sox roster construction is a main topic, and it still feels like not enough is being made about how absolutely weird the team's situation is with Duran.

Vibes at Fenway are lower than an already eliminated September night game.

Again, everything the Sox do is built around xwOBA. Their start to this season does not get more damning than this. Bad.

Building a team with power as a secondary concern theoretically means wanting to be awesome at BB%, K%, Whiff%, and Chase% to keep the line moving. So far, Durbin is the only Sox player in the top 100 in that combination of skills. Duran, Narvaez, Story rank 258, 259, 277 of 278.

Red Sox offense

The Sox are down to a team batting 89 wRC+ and 29th-ranked isolated power. Someone please hit a homer.

Red Sox are on Apple TV only tonight. Free 30 day trial: redeem.services.apple/roktappletv-... Activate it, go to iPhone settings, apple account, subscriptions, cancel trial and you won’t be charged in 30 days.

Juan Valera, one of the Sox top pitching prospects, just threw a pitch, walked behind the mound, bent down, and was removed from the game in the second inning.

Good day for an off day tomorrow, then the quality of opposing pitching really ramps up on the homestand: Mize, Skubal, Valdez, Flaherty, Gil, Fried, Schlittler ... plus god knows what bullshit McGonigle is going to be on hitting at Fenway.

Big day for Story with a HR, 2B, BB, and 5 RBI. wRC+ 22 → 50

That's the first MLB homer allowed by Early

Red Sox positional rank by WAR 2nd - 1B 5th - RF 11th - CF 13th - LF 16th - DH 22nd - 2B 23rd - C 26th - SP 27th - RP 29th - 3B 30th - SS 25th - Total

Mick Abel is legitimately embarrassing the Red Sox tonight. 8 K, 11 GB, 2 FB, 1 LD

Have you ever watched 1 inning of a guy for the first time and think holy fuck Leighton Finley

A substantial amount of Sonny Gray's ability to be good is tied to his strikeouts. He had made 79 consecutive starts with 4+ Ks; in his last two starts, he's had 3 and 2. It would be nice to see the dominance start to emerge tonight. So far, 152nd/162 in Whiff%.

Savant has not liked the Sox pitching so far. Moran and Slaten are the only pitchers with an xERA under 3; Gray, Coulombe, and Chapman are the only others under 5. BOS, STL, COL, WSH are the only teams with below league average wOBA & xwOBA in both first 10 days and next 10 days.

The Sox get crushed when they don't come through in big spots, and they were miserable to start the year, but in their last 1/3 of high-leverage plate appearances they've dug themselves out of a grave (1 K, 20 PA).

Crochet's game score last night was -8, which is the worst start of 2026 (Michael Lorenzen -1). It would have been the third worst of 2025 (Bradley Blalock -14, Jesus Luzardo -11, and Tanner Houck -10). No starts were worse in 2024.

Crochet asked the reporters how much his velocity was down and scoffed when told it was a little over 1 mph. Unconcerned. He's mad about his location so far this year and has felt lucky through his first few starts with it.

Crochet threw 87% fastballs (4sm, sink, cut) tonight. Other times he has done similar: 3/26/26, 3/27/25, 4/2/25, 4/8/25, 4/13/25 With Boston, he's thrown 86% fastballs in March/April and 77% from May 1st onwards. Maybe a perfect storm of bad day & Twins dialed in on the plan.

Every Crochet pitch is down 1.2+ mph, only 3 whiffs on 24 swings, 8 hard-hit balls, 3 barrels, 2 homers, 3 walks, and a HBP. Holy fuck.

15 games in

Contreras +23% win probability added, +3.1 runs above expected today. What a weekend.

Bello has basically eliminated 4-seam usage this year and his ground ball dominance has returned. He's currently at 60% grounders, which ranks 3rd/134 starting pitchers.

NESN is so embarrassing and has been for years, today might take the cake

Monster night for Willson Contreras when the Sox needed one badly offensively. +23% win probability added, +2.9 runs above expected.

Anthony Eyanson struck out 6 of 12 batters in his debut, and so far in his second start he's struck out 6 of 9. Polished, deep repertoire looks like it's going to mow down High-A bats. His starts will be a hot ticket in Portland this summer. Reminds me of watching Clay Buchholz.

In the Sox first 6 games, they had a .642 OPS and 86 wRC+, and in their next 7, they've had a .650 OPS and 88 wRC+. Overall: 20th walks, 22nd strikeouts, 23rd power, 21st BA, 22nd OBP, 23rd wOBA, 24th xwOBA, 23rd wRC+

Wilyer Abreu 5th/300 in Batting Run Value (99th percentile) 11th/285 in Fielding Run Value (97th percentile) 38th/188 in Baserunning Run Value (87th percentile)

Team Fielding 7th - Red Sox, +3, Fielding Run Value 10th - Red Sox, +4, Defensive Runs Saved 29th - Red Sox, .973, Fielding Percentage

The good news on Campbell so far is he's hitting the ball hard regularly again. The bad news is his quality of contact continues to be poor, with elevated whiff and chase. On their broadcast, there was discussion about how the timing with his new mechanics is still off.

That's two in a row. We win one on Friday, that's called a winning streak. It has happened before.

Patrick Sandoval is finally making his rehab return from TJ. He topped out at 93 mph in his first inning with half his pitches not in the zip code of the plate. The first inning also featured 2 errors and an over-run pop fly. 37° in Worcester.

I'm always amazed with the home plate seat situations in these two parks.

Willson Contreras OBP watch: .438

This is the highest leverage situation Kelly has ever been brought into: 4.48 vs. 4.13 (2024)

Everything the Red Sox do is built around trying to optimize xwOBA, which is Quality of Contact + Strikeout Rate + Walk Rate. Makes sense; well-built teams thrive in those areas. Right now, the Red Sox are a mess.

When this happens to your starting pitchers through a 10-game stretch, you're gonna have a bad time.

Our pen is getting absolutely cooked.