Good Win, But...

Some tweaks to the lineup, is the offense really ailing, and some off-season ideas

It’s hard to overstate what a disaster the past weeks have been for the Red Sox. Sure, the entire team could’ve eaten bad shellfish and collectively puked their intestines up, or all simultaneously slipped on a huge group of strategically placed banana peals, or somehow all been caught at the top of the ferris wheel at the county fair, unable to get down for the entire month. So it could’ve been worse. But on a scale starting with the assumption they were at the ballpark, healthy enough to play, these weeks have been as bad as you could’ve imagined.

In fact, the past weeks have been so bad that I feel like I’ve written that intro before and in fact I feel like I’ve written this exact sentence before saying I’ve written this intro before before. Which is all to say this crap has been going on for a while now. So, while Travis Shaw’s game-ending grand slam yesterday was a most welcome ending to what had up to that point been another disappointing and feckless game, it did little to fix the underlying problems that have derailed this team’s hopes for a division crown and continue to hurt their chances to make the playoffs.

When this team was assembled last off-season, there was promise they would be far stronger than the 2020 version. The bar had been lifted in numerous places on the roster and some of the star players who had had down seasons in 2020 could reasonably be expected to contribute more in 2021. At the same time, you didn’t have to search hard to find potential problems with the roster. The pitching depth was far better, but unless numerous players stepped forward in an unexpected way, the kind of top end pitchers needed to field a championship team weren’t on the roster.

That has mostly played out over the course of the season. Early on the pitching was far better than expected. Through July 29th the Red Sox had a team ERA of 4.13. From July 30 onward, the Red Sox have a team ERA of 4.99. The difference is huge, from the 13th best pitching staff in the league, not great but acceptable, to the 28th best pitching staff in baseball. That’s a steep drop. And it’s come during a month when the Red Sox have faced the Tigers, Orioles, Yankees, and Rangers, three offenses in the bottom four in baseball and one, New York, ranked 18th in baseball at the start of the month. So they’ve been pitching badly, but they’ve been doing it against bad hitters, so maybe the pitching has been even worse than it looks.

While the pitching has fallen apart, the offense has as well, but in a more hidden way. The Red Sox hit .256/.320/.439 from the start of the season through July. That was good for a wRC+ of 103, tied with Tampa for the eighth best offense in baseball. Since August 1st, the Red Sox have actually hit better as a team than they had previously, and they’ve scored five runs a game, which is essentially the same as what they’d averaged before that.

But, on August 11th, the Red Sox beat Tampa 20-8 and on August 14th they beat Baltimore 16-2. Remove those two blowouts and the numbers change a lot. In the 18 non-blowouts the Red Sox have scored 62 runs. That’s an average of 3.4 runs a game, half a run per game fewer than the Orioles have managed this season. The Red Sox offensive slump is happening, but it’s getting hidden by those two blowouts.

Well that’s great, Matt, but what do they do about it?

Good question! Let’s talk solutions!

Now that Christian Arroyo is back, manager Alex Cora can play him at second more often, moving Enrique Hernandez to center field, and putting Jarren Duran on the bench. I’m a big believer in Duran, but he’s struggling hard right now and this team is trying to win. He came up because there was hope he could hit and provide a spark to a team desperately in need of one, but he hasn’t been able to do that. That doesn’t mean he has no role on the team, and if he can start to figure out major league pitching then he’ll have even more chances to crack the lineup, but for now, he should be on the bench. This also serves to move Hernandez to a position he’s far better at in center, and to get Arroyo’s bat back into the lineup. Win win win.

Additionally, Cora should put Kyle Schwarber at first base. Right now. Yesterday. Bobby Dalbec has these moments, and they’re great and fun moments, but they don’t tend to last long and then we’re back to the long stretches where he does nothing. Yesterday a throw went off his glove which led to a Rangers run. Had Rafael Devers not hit an 0-2 slider into the deepest part of the triangle with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning, they would’ve lost the game in large part because of that error. It’s hard to roster a guy who isn’t hitting and isn’t fielding, let alone start him. If Schwarber can handle the position even a little bit, he’s a massive upgrade over Dalbec’s offense and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if he was an upgrade over Dalbec defensively as well. As soon as Schwarber is healthy enough to play the field he should be starting at first base regularly.

If Schwarber is at first, that means the DH spot will be free, which means J.D. Martinez doesn’t have to play in the outfield. Oh happy day! Martinez has had a nice bounce back season after a rough 2020, but he’s a butcher in the outfield and the Red Sox are much better off with him focusing on his fixing his swing in between innings, rather than chasing balls around in left.

Both those changes help the hitting but they also help the fielding, which, as Alex Speier of the Boston Globe pointed out, has been an increasing problem for the team this season. The Red Sox offense is founded on Martinez at DH, Xander Bogaerts at shortstop, and Rafael Devers at third base, but those players have all been problems of recent. As we’ve discussed, Martinez should never play the field, or only in times when the rest of the team is locked in a bank vault.

Devers is back to making errors at third base, creating more questions about his ability to play the position long term. Yesterday he inexplicably dropped a ball he’d fielded while transferring it to his throwing hand. He’s made 750 errors this season, and no I refuse to look up the actual number out of fear it might be higher than that. While his arm and range are plenty good for the position, the errors are daggers, and the front office, soon faced with what to do with the player long term, must consider its options carefully.

Xander is another problem entirely. He’s the face of the franchise and one of the best hitting shortstops in baseball, but he’s also one of the worst fielding shortstops in baseball and on a potentially soon-to-be expiring contract (he can opt out after next season). By sheer coincidence, this off-season will see a ridiculous number of All Star-caliber shortstops come available on the free agent market. We’ll cover this in far more depth once the season ends, but doing something like moving Devers to first, Bogaerts to third, and signing Trevor Story has to to be something that has crossed more than a few minds on Jersey Street. Or, God forbid, moving Xander to third and trading Devers for young pitching. I’m not saying, I’m just saying, you know?

In the end, a good win yesterday. A great win, in fact! But the kind of win where you look at the particulars and think it should’ve been so much easier than that but for more bad infield defense, more bad Matt Barnes pitching (though I do think he’s faced more than his share of tough luck this past month), and more inability to hit with runners on base and in scoring position.

Until those turn around, this team is going to continue to struggle.