The Red Sox at the All-Star Break

We’ve reached the Mid-Summer Classic and just as we all predicted the Red Sox are once again on fire. I say once again, not because they’ve been hot and cold this year, (they’ve been one frigid temperature all season up until the end of June), but because it was at this same time last year that the Red Sox showed playoff promise. Remember, the All-Star break couldn’t have come at a worse time for Boston in 2025, the boys were on a 10-game winning streak when the festivities began. (Stat of the day: since 2023, in the 10 games before the All-Star break, the Red Sox are 34-6! 2023 8-2, 2024 7-3, 2025 10-0, 2026 9-1.)

This year, the Sox hit the break winners of 9 in a row (13 of their last 15) are the hottest team in baseball and all of a sudden look like a team with a future. Is it real or is it Memorex? (Not a sponsor.) Last year it felt like the Red Sox were a young team that was blossoming at the right time, rallying together after the trade of Rafael Devers. There was a visible path forward built around veterans like Trevor Story (remember him?) and Alex Bregman, plus the injection of energy with Roman Anthony, plus-plus Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela playing all-star caliber/Gold Glove winning baseball. Add in Aroldis Chapman and Garret Whitlock anchoring the back end of your bullpen and there was sort of enough there to justify feeling optimistic about this team’s chances.

We know how that all played out in the postseason.

This year, the Red Sox offense is starting to perform better, but part of me wonders if that’s just a product of the general rule that it couldn’t get any worse than the way they played the first 3 months? Guys are hitting better in general, but I just can’t get past the lineups that we’re putting out there. Part of it is injury, part suspension (I love Willson Contreras and hope he puts on a show in the Home Run Derby tonight and the All-Star Game tomorrow. I was talking with the Old Man about Contreras being added to the AL team and he said: “He might be the first person to charge the mound during the home run derby.” To which I replied “Yeah, I just hope he doesn’t get ejected from the All-Star Game.” Everything is on the table with WC-40 and I’m here for it!)

But look at the lineup that we put out there for the finale last Thursday in Chicago

1. Anthony Siegler-2B (Love Tony Seagulls! Big energy guy, might also have a broken shoulder, we’ll never know.)

2. Ceddanne Rafaela- CF (If he doesn’t win the platinum glove, it’s a shame)

3. Wilyer Abreu- RF (Someone called him Trot Nixon and I can’t unsee the comparison now. Not a bad thing, just less exciting.)

4. Romy Gonzalez- DH (Welcome back, but a week ago was rehabbing a 9-month injury and now he’s batting cleanup.)

5. Caleb Durbin- 3B (Dude has turned it around in a massive way and with Contreras is a big part of this recent Sox surge. Also probably a Gold Glover.)

6. Andrew Monasterio- SS (Flashed early, but he’s a util guy who can play everywhere but don’t want him batting 6^th regularly. (Side note: wrote this line before the Mets series. I still stand behind what I said, just a little further back.)

7. Nate Eaton- LF (Like Seagulls, a lot of energy, good solid player, might also be playing with something broken right now.)

8. Brett Harris- 1B (Red Sox debut, got him from Oakland and like Delaware showing up on the green screen in Wayne’s World………”Look, it’s Brett Harris.”

9. Connor Wong- C (What can we say about that we haven’t already said about Brett Harris, except he’s correct 70% of the time on ABS challenges behind the plate!)

I mean, that is in fact a line up that won a ball game, though two things can be true at the same time in that, it’s also an offense that scored two runs. (Both on a Durby Home Run.) You take Contreras out of this lineup and suddenly it looks drastically different (Should be noted, Duran also had a day off, did pinch hit and had a big catch.) This isn’t a line up that scares you (or even my cat Ruby and she got scared by a motorcycle that drove by on Sunday playing its music too loud). Even after the Sox lost Anthony late last season, we thought there was enough offense to make the Red Sox dangerous in the playoffs. We were wrong.

This year, unless we get Roman Anthony back and lord knows if we will or not. I don’t see us down the stretch or good lord willing and the creek don’t rise, in a playoff series, having a better offense than in 2026. Lucky for us, the game isn’t played on paper!

While I just don’t know where the offense will come from, but what I will say is that the team right now feels like it has something going that it hasn’t had in a few years. Call it chemistry maybe, but on Sunday we trailed 2-0 in the 9^th inning and you still felt like this Red Sox team had a chance. For once it was the Mets (who are a WAYYYYY bigger a disappointment than we are) was the team that made an error at the wrong time and suddenly had that “not again” look in their eye. Again, I stress for the 4^th year in a row, the All-Star break couldn’t have come at a worse time.

I don’t want to diminish any excitement, the Sox are surging, there should be nothing but positivity right now, and that’s easy to find these days when you look at this starting pitching rotation. It hasn’t been all sunshine and roses for the starting staff either: Garrett Crochet hasn’t pitched in two months. Brayan Bello, who started game 2 of the Wild Card series for you last fall was demoted to Triple-A. Ranger Suarez, your big free agent acquisition, just went down with an ankle injury. Connelly Early’s elbow is barking a little bit. Hasn’t mattered. Every time someone goes down, there’s a giant, left handed hoss coming out of the stable, ready to stand on the bump and take a no-hitter into the 7^th.

My feelings about Payton Tolle are widely known. This Jake Bennett kid has been a revelation. A big, strong lefty who just gets hitters out. He’s the king of weak contact and short innings. Where Tolle is all mustache sweat and rubbing the hyde off the baseball, Bennett is the Excellence of Execution: he gets ahead of hitters, he induces fly balls, ground balls and allows almost nothing to be hit hard. In this day and age where starters rarely go long enough to qualify for a win, this kid cruises into the 7^th with 70 or less pitches. (You could envision this kid opposing Mark Fidrych on Monday Night Baseball in 87-minutes.) He’s a joy to watch, the kind of guy you’d like to see start the second game of a double header because he might get you out of there in two hours flat.

Sonny Gray doesn’t get enough love, he wasn’t named to the All-Star team despite having the second best ERA in the American League. (I hope even as you’re reading this that there is still a chance that he gets added to the squad. I like Suarez and have enjoyed watching him this season, but if this game wasn’t in his former ballpark (Philadelphia) would he have made the team over Gray? I can’t imagine that he does. They weren’t going to add both of them because at the time the team was announced the Sox were 10-12 games under .500 and I think Kennesaw Mountain Landis instituted a rule that you can’t have two starting pitchers make the All-Star team if the team is more than 10 games below .500. I still couldn’t pick Suarez over Sonny, heck I don’t think I’d pick Suarez over Tolle.)

The hope is that Early’s elbow isn’t a big deal and he’s able to return. Even if you don’t get Crochet back (but oh baby if we did!!!) you could be a tough team running Gray, Tolle Suarez, Bennett and maybe Early out there. (How many good young left handed pitchers can one team have? I mean, is there is a Kennesaw Mountain Landis rule about that? I hope not.)

The bullpen is the same, I love Chapman (as much as one can love Aroldis Chapman) and I trust Garrett Whitlock with my life. After that, buckle up because even the Tyron Guerreros, Justin Slatens and Greg Weisserts scare the beejeesus out of me. But if your starters just all go 7-shut, we’re all set! (That is if we can score a run or two!)

I think there has to be some regression for these stud left handers that are apparently growing on trees around Landsdowne Street; can Tolle keep up with the work load of a full season as a starter? Ditto for Bennett and Early. We don’t know if they can, because something like this is new for a franchise that hasn’t developed quality young starters over the last two decades. (Lester and Buchholz were really the last two, unless you want to count Felix Doubront, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brayan Bello. Which I do not.) It’s fun watching these big hosses take the ball every night and even more so when the offense can put up a couple of runs up on the board. To quote the great Nuke Laloosh “I just love winning, man. You know how it’s like, better than losing!”

For an aimless team for 3-monthes, it now seems like there is a path forward. A year ago at the All-Star break, the Boston Red Sox were viewed to have a 37% chance to make the playoffs. This year? 36%. We’re 2 games under .500 at 46-48, but we have the 4^th best run differential in the American League at +27. (Only the Yankees +91, White Sox +35 and Rays +32 are better. Fun fact, besides the Red Sox, only Detroit and Seattle have positive run differentials (+24 and +16 respectively) in the entire AL. Just a down year for the league overall.) We might be 10-games behind AL East leading Tampa, but all of a sudden we’re only a half game back of the final wild card spot. Build around pitching, hope the hitting picks up and in an incredibly down year for the American League, just see what happens.

It’s crazy, two weeks ago I would have traded Sonny Gray, Aroldis Chapman and (through gritted teeth) Willson Contreras. Now, I think I’d rather see how this thing plays out. Need some health, need some good luck, but two weeks ago we thought we needed miracles.

Baseball.