Welcome back to the Mayor’s Office, our weekly series in which Jake Wallinger sends one naughty member of Red Sox Nation to Mayor Michelle Wu’s office for discipline, public shaming, and penance as we all strive to build a stronger baseball team and city.

This week, it’s a poor hitting designated hitter who is nervously twiddling his thumbs in the waiting room.

When Chaim Bloom courted Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida to Boston with a 5-year/$90 million deal in the winter of 2022, this simply cannot be what he envisioned. In 273 games for the Boston Red Sox, Yoshida has hit .281/.337/.427 for a wRC+ of 110. While on the surface that isn’t terrible, it is a far cry from what you’d like out of a now full-time designated hitter.

Yoshida’s stats from 2023 and 2024 don’t jump off the page in a negative way. He was serviceable enough in both years for two middling ballclubs. I’m not denying that. Where Masa’s visit to City Hall stems from is his severe underperformance and disastrous roster-fit for the 2025 Boston Red Sox.

After 25 games and almost 100 plate appearances, Yoshida’s 2025 triple slash is .235/.280/.365. That is, for lack of a better word, pitiful. He is striking out 18.3% of the time and walking 3.2%, up and down, respectively, from his percentages of 12.4% and 6.4% last season. Basically every trend regarding Yoshida’s bat is a concerning one.

If it were April, or May, or even June, that would be one thing. But it’s not. It is late August and the Boston Red Sox are smack dab in the middle of a pennant race. They really cannot afford to wait and see if Yoshida’s bat comes around. Every at-bat of every game means so much right now, and your designated hitter going 1 for 4 with a single on a nightly basis is simply not going to cut it.

But Yoshida’s bat is only part of the problem. Where Masa’s place on the 2025 Red Sox comes into real question is when one takes a look at the defense. Yoshida is, by essentially every metric, a very poor defender in the outfield. This is, to put it lightly, not ideal. Having a full-time DH with an wRC+ of 73 is not a good use of the position! It’s designated hitter. Not designated roll over to second-er.

The domino effect of Yoshida and his currently-below-average-bat taking up the DH spot is even more upsetting. Jarren Duran, very clearly the Red Sox’ weakest defensive outfielder (outside of Yoshida, of course) being unable to move to DH prevents the Red Sox from fielding their top defensive outfield (when healthy) of Anthony-Rafaela-Abreu. This in turn pushes Ceddanne Rafaela, the only outfielder with any ability to play the infield, to second base. If you read last week’s Mayor’s Office, you know this is a massive conversation in and of itself, but the main point is that Ceddanne Rafaela should be in center field every single day.

The extent to which the Red Sox are kneecapping the rest of the everyday lineup to facilitate getting a .645 OPS designated hitter into the lineup is genuinely baffling. The only hope is that Alex Cora sees the writing on the wall and commits to the team’s best defensive and offensive lineup going forward. Either way,

Mr. Yoshida, Mayor Wu will see you now.