Fox: It's beginning to feel a lot like 2023
The Red Sox are once again melting in the dog days of August
The unofficial beginning of the end for the 2023 Red Sox came during an early August series against the Blue Jays. Trailing the third wild card by just two games at the onset of the weekend, the Red Sox were swiftly swept away in a three-game series that featured just seven combined runs, a disheartening 5-4 loss in the Saturday contest, two pitching meltdowns in de facto bullpen games, and a James Paxton disaster.
The Red Sox weren’t officially dead by the time the Jays left town, but they would never get as close as they were in the beginning of the series.
Does this all sound a little too…. familiar? When the Astros finished off a 10-2 victory on Sunday, the Red Sox still remained only three games of the Royals for the third wild card, but the embarrassment of the weekend made it feel like a lot more.
The new-look bullpen got pinballed all around the yard to the tune of 21 runs in the three games, while the offense, which had been annihilating right-handed at a league-leading pace, suddenly couldn’t touch the Astros pitching staff. They scored just eight runs in the three games while striking out 40 times.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. The Red Sox reworked bullpen was supposed to steady the ship and successfully bridge the gap to Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen at the back end. Yet new-acquisitions Luis Garcia and Lucas Sims were arguably the two biggest culprits, allowing a combined 11 runs over the two games they pitched.
Meanwhile, their only starting pitching acquisition, Paxton, had to leave his Sunday start with a calf injury that could wipe out the rest the season. Basically, it was an “everything that could go wrong will go wrong” kind of weekend for the Boys of Beantown.
Now, I’m not going to bury the Red Sox or their recent acquisitions after one weekend. After all, the Astros have been doing this for a decade, and nobody should be surprised that established stars Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez were on fire all weekend. Yet the quality of the opponent doesn’t change the fact that time is beginning to become a factor for the Red Sox.
There now trail the Royals by three games for the third wild card and the Twins by three and a half game for the second. The Red Sox need to find their stride quickly, or risk repeating the recent trend of collapsing as soon as the calendar flips to August.
