State of the Sox
A weekly summary of how the Red Sox performed and where they are heading
Opponents: Rays, Guardians (A), Yankees (A)
Week Record: 3-4
Overall Record: 33-33
Current spot in standings: 5th place in Al East
The week started off pretty grim with a make up day loss to Rays which cost them the series.
After the Rays, the Sox went out to Cleveland for a three game series, which made things go from bad to ugly.
Not only did they drop 2/3 to the Guardians, but in Wednesdays loss, Alex Verdugo was taken out of the game for a lack of hustle, and promptly benched in the series finale on Thursday. Then Thursday came around and things got even uglier for the Sox.
This game may go down infamously in Red Sox history as the “Matt Dermody game.” A controversial call up starter for the Red Sox who had some twitter controversy leading to the fanbase despising him even before his first pitch.
In Thursdays game, it may have been the first time in team history that Red Sox fans were pleased watching their starting pitcher lit up. This was the case when Jose Ramirez hit two home runs off of Dermody, ultimately contributing to Dermody getting pulled after four and giving up three runs. The Sox ultimately dropped the game 10-3 and the series, 2-1.
The week ended with a weekend series in the Bronx, which was the first time this season that the historic rivals have met. Whitlock and Casas were big reasons why they were able to take game one off of Gerrit Cole and co. Rafael Devers homered for the first time since May and Kike Hernandez did as well.
Devers took that momentum into the next day where he homered again, this time off of German. After dropping the Saturday game, the Red Sox were able to walk into Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN and take the series behind a strong start from Brayan Bello (7 IP, 2 ER) and some extra inning success.
Ultimately this team had a bad week, of course having a losing record and then angering the fan base with Dermody. The losses looked like more of the same, bad defense and lifeless offense.
There were some positives to take from the week however, as Duvall made his return to the lineup in the Yankees series, which has helped a few guys look more comfortable.
Also, the team got great and very important starts from James Paxton and Bello, which is a promising sign. Also, the bullpen has looked as good as advertised with Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin proving to be key pieces in the back of the pen.
Finally, Casas has started to look a lot better at the plate, with three multi hit games this past week. The team will start a three game series against the Colorado Rockies tonight at Fenway.
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