{"id":652246,"date":"2026-03-30T11:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/652246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T11:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:02:17","slug":"are-the-red-sox-no-better-or-even-worse-98-5-the-sports-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/652246\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Red Sox no better – or even worse? – 98.5 The Sports Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serious question just one weekend into the 2026 baseball season: after Sunday’s loss, is there any chance the Red Sox are actually worse?<\/p>\n

After winning by a 3-0 margin behind ace Garrett Cochet on Opening Day<\/a>, the Sox suffered consecutive losses to the Cincinnati Redsby scores of 6-5 (in extra innings Saturday) and 3-2 (yesterday) over the weekend, leaving with a 1-2 record a mere three games into the schedule. Is it too early for panic? Of course. But the pronblem with a philosophy built around “run prevention” (translation: the offense might stink) is that you have to play near-perfect fundamental baseball, and it certainly seems as if the Red Sox still don’t have that concept drilled into their (seam)heads.<\/p>\n

For example: the Sox trailed 3-2 with one out in the eighth inning yesterday when Jarren Duran drew a walk. Then this happened:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Look, you can justify this play however you want. The pitcher was quick. Duran wasn’t leaning. But if you’re going to excel at “run prevention,” then you can’t give away runs on either side. When the Red Sox had an incomplete scouting report on Reds reliever Tony Santillan or whether Duran was simply too far off the base, he gave away a precious out at a horrible time. And so before you start launching in on umpire\/human pinata C.B. Bucknor, let’s acknowledge the mistakes the Red Sox made in key spots over the weekend.<\/p>\n

For starters, they failed to hit with runners in scoring positon<\/a>, batting .172 (26th in baseball) with a .457 OPS (also 26th); in those same situations, they struck out 11 times, tied for sixth-most. Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin – their Nos 4-5 hitters on Opening Day, went a combined 1-for-21 with a single, no RBI and six strikeouts, including 0-for-6 with three strikeouts with men in scoring position. The Sox made two errors in thee games – already tied for seventh-most in baseball – while ranking 17th in defensive runs saved (with a total of zero) and 17th in defensive outs abover average (with a total of 0.2).<\/p>\n

Oh, and did we mention that the Sox (read: fellow paisan Greg Weissert) blew a save yesterday when he missed location against strikeout machine Eugenio Suarez while the Sox held a 2-0 lead in the sixth? The Italians, for whom Weissert pitched in the World Baseball Classic, would have called this disgrazia.<\/p>\n

Here’s the point: if you want to win this way, you can’t do stupid sh**. And for as much as the Red Sox 2025 was generally deemed a success, let’s not forget that they struck out over 1,400 times, led the majors in strikeouts with runners in scoring position (394), went 23-27 in one-run games (they’re already 0-2 this year) and 8-12 in extra innings (they’re 0-1 this year). If take away the 10-game winning streak the Sox had just before the All-Star break, they went 79-73. If you take away Garrett Crochet – the 2025 Sox went 24-9 in his 33 starts, including postseason – the Sox went 76-75.<\/p>\n

Get the picture? The Sox were average for the large majority of 2025.<\/p>\n

And minus another big, right-handed bat in the middle of the lineup right now – Contreras and Durbin are simply hitting out of position – they look pretty average at the moment.<\/p>\n

Tony Massarotti is the co-host of the number 1 afternoon-drive show, Felger & Mazz, on 98.5 The Sports Hub. He is a lifelong Bostonian who has been covering sports in Boston for the last 20 years. Tony worked for the Boston Herald from 1989-2008. He has been twice voted by his peers as the Massachusetts sportswriter of the year (2000, 2008) and has authored five books, including the New York times best-selling memoirs of David Ortiz, entitled \u201cBig Papi.\u201d A graduate of Waltham High School and Tufts University, he lives in the Boston area with his wife, Natalie, and their two sons. Tony is also the host of The Baseball Hour, which airs Monday to Friday 6pm-7pm right before most Red Sox games from April through October. The Baseball Hour offers a full inside look at the Boston Red Sox, the AL East, and all top stories from around the MLB (Major League Baseball).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serious question just one weekend into the 2026 baseball season: after Sunday’s loss, is there any chance the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-652246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-red-sox","14":"tag-redsox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116317789830434964","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}