{"id":668560,"date":"2026-04-07T15:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/668560\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:07:13","slug":"red-sox-news-links-the-sox-face-historically-long-odds-to-make-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/668560\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox News & Links: The Sox face historically long odds to make the playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s particularly frustrating about the Red Sox horrific start is that you can\u2019t just point to one aspect of the game that the team is struggling with and hope for some positive regression in the near future. The sad fact of the matter is that the Red Sox are finding all sorts of different ways to lose baseball games. (Sean McAdam, MassLive)<\/a><\/p>\n

Last night, those different ways included a Manny Ramirez-esque defensive play by Roman Anthony out in left field. Anthony\u2019s arm isn\u2019t injured, but clearly something isn\u2019t right. Alex Cora says the issue is mechanics, while Anthony says \u201cIt\u2019s just a mix of everything. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s a simple play. It\u2019s got to be at least competitive. And it wasn\u2019t, again. So it\u2019s terrible.\u201d (Christopher Smith, MassLive)<\/a><\/p>\n

At least the offense has woken up a little bit lately. Caleb Durbin had his best day at the plate as a Red Soxer last night (that\u2019s right, I\u2019m going with Red Soxer), notching two hits and scoring his first run with Boston. And his old manager in the opposite dugout hasn\u2019t given up on him: \u201cYou can get down on him if you want.The fans can boo him. You can do whatever you want to do. But Caleb Durbin is a winner in every sense of the word.\u201d (Tim Healey, Boston Globe)<\/a><\/p>\n

I thought we left those empty \u201cwinning ballplayer\u201d platitudes behind back when David Eckstein retired. I guess I was wrong about that, but whether or not you want to insist that Caleb Durbin has some innately magical winning qualities, you can\u2019t deny that he he hasn\u2019t been helping the Red Sox win in 2026. And while we all know how April baseball works<\/a>, it\u2019s getting harder and harder to say \u201cit\u2019s early\u201d given the historical record: \u201c [T]he Red Sox are the 187th team to lose at least eight of their first 10 games [since 1903]. Of the first 186, just 12 (6.5 percent) reached the postseason.\u201d (Alex Speier Boston Globe)<\/a><\/p>\n

With the playoffs threatening to slip out of sight before we even reach Patriots Day, it\u2019s no wonder that the vibes inside the ballpark are ugly. Alex Cora, though, takes no issue with the boos that have rained down on his team this season: \u201cRight now, we deserve whatever they\u2019re thinking. We\u2019re not playing good baseball, and we know it.\u201d (Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic)<\/a><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just boos that are ringing around Fenway. The last two losses have featured audible chants of \u201csell the team.\u201d And regardless of what you think about that stance, you have to admit that this is hilarious:<\/p>\n

Maybe a good old fashioned baseball brawl will wake them up? Willson Contreras certainly seems ready for one: \u201cIt\u2019s not just the hit by pitch. That\u2019s the 24th time they\u2019ve hit me in my career \u2014 24th. That\u2019s the sixth time [Woodruff] has hit me. And they always say, \u2018I\u2019m not trying to hit you.\u2019 That gets old. So next time they hit me again, I\u2019m going to take one of them out. That\u2019s a message.\u201d (Tim Healey, Boston Globe)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s particularly frustrating about the Red Sox horrific start is that you can\u2019t just point to one aspect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,15409,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-668560","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-red-sox-news","15":"tag-redsox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116364053480800224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668560","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=668560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}