For me, May began with an unexpected funeral and ended with extremely painful bursitis. With a lot of crap in the middle. I’m hearing this kind of thing from a lot of different people, so I suppose there’s some comfort in not being alone in my suffering.

Red Sox Nation can certainly understand because May was a pretty terrible month for the Sox, all things considered. I’ll start with well wishes for Alex Bregman. That happened in May and it’s awful.

I don’t have any solutions, only complaints. Where to begin?

The Bullpen

I’m in too much pain to think entirely clearly, or to hunt for statistics to back up what I’m going to say. But the bullpen—overused as it is because the starters are rarely able to pull themselves together for 5+ innings—has been giving it away when they do.

Note the recent night game of last Saturday’s doubleheader, where starter Lucas Giolito pitched seven innings, struck out six, and allowed no runs. The Sox lost the game after the bullpen took over. As I wrote in my recap: “When Lucas Giolito goes seven and keeps it scoreless, that’s a game we should win.”

Errors

I beat this drum throughout the 2024 season. I sort of mentally wiped my brow in relief in the offseason, thinking that the front office had finally made enough moves, like welcoming Alex Bregman at the hot corner, to put this particular issue behind us. That, and surely they’d addressed the fundamentals of baseball in an upfront way with the position players.

But the parade of errors continues by the Sox in 2025. I didn’t mention this in our recap of the month of April because Bregman alone was responsible for several errors, and I thought I’d give the team time to gel.

Why we can’t curb these errors? They’re ugly. We’re not a playoff team if we can’t get these fundamentals under control. Any beginning player can tell you that.

I can only think that fundamentals aren’t being drilled anywhere in this organization. What else am I supposed to think?

Blame Cora?

We’ve seen (in The Clubhouse and elsewhere) that he’s great at managing to players’ emotions. Batting Wilyer Abreu on the eve of his grandmother’s death is a fantastic example, providing a way for Abreu to channel his feelings into his play. A player’s manager, they say. But does he care about fundamentals? Is he only interested in being a good guy, or is he setting expectations for his players? Is anyone in the minors doing that?

Offense

I know they’re doing well in a bunch of categories (remember, I’m not going to be providing stats—sorry) but so much of the time, it’s too little, too late.

In May, it seemed like our hitters couldn’t push any baserunners home. We can’t strike early. Sure, we’ve seen a whole bunch of late rallies that fall short. Maybe someone scores a meager run or two, so that we can say At least we weren’t shut out.

What a hollow freakin’ victory that is. I don’t care about being the last MLB team to be shut out when these pathetic late-inning “rallies” are the consolation prize. Why can’t we come out hot?

When Garret Crochet pitches a great game, giving up two runs and striking out 11 Brewers, that’s a game we should win. We lost by one run because another ninth-inning rally with the bases loaded fell short. It’s criminal.

I’m not typically one who wants to fire coaches (I reserve that for CBO types) but Pete Fatse seems to have a lot to answer for.

Ceddanne Rafaela

Does he go in the Offense category, or is he in a category all his own? I’ve gotten tired of his game. Particularly at the plate.

Preparation/Psychology/Whatever

Okay, if it’s not hitting, I’m also questioning their Mental Skills Preparedness or whatever it’s called. Like why isn’t Ceddanne envisioning laying off those ridiculous pitches? I’m not sure it’s all down to hitting. Could this explain some of the errors?

As I said, I don’t have solutions, just complaints

And you know how they say that psychic pain can manifest physically? I am THIS CLOSE to blaming the Red Sox for my wicked excruciating pain. Please, guys, pull it together.