Sometimes You Lose

Sox Drop Two To the Yankees, I stomp around house, say naughty words

It was a frustrating day of baseball for your Boston Red Sox. But that’s how things have gone over the last month plus. When the pitching is clicking, the hitters are in a collective slump. When the hitters are hitting, the starters are getting shelled, or the bullpen is falling apart at the worst possible time. When everything is working, the team is attacked by bears, there’s a plague of locusts, or it starts raining blood.

It’s mid-August and we’ve seen many iterations of the 2021 Red Sox. This team has been really good, one of the best if not the best in baseball. We’ve also seen them be awful, one of the worst in baseball. As is often the case when presented with two real options, the truth is often in the middle.

The 2021 Red Sox might make the playoffs. They might not. Heck, they could still win the division, but that will require a run of winning, becoming, again, one of the best teams in baseball. From where we sit now (my couch) that’s not looking particularly likely. The bullpen looks gassed. The offense, despite exploding (in a good way) when facing Orioles pitching, looks like they can be pitched to by a competent pitching staff. Those things could change. It’s baseball. It’s the Red Sox. We know, but we don’t know, ya know?

The Boston Globe has published two seemingly contradictory pieces on the Red Sox in the last few days, one by the always excellent Chad Finn, saying, in essence, this team has earned the benefit of the doubt. The other, by beat writer Peter Abraham, saying, in essence, this team is bad right now. It’s odd, but I think both are true. Talent evaluators will tell you that once a player exhibits a skill, you know they have that ability, even if they don’t do it all the time. That may sound obvious, but you don’t know that, say, a pitcher can throw 95 until you actually see him do it. Similarly we’ve seen this Red Sox team play really good baseball. We’ve seen them hit, we’ve seen them score a lot of runs against very good pitchers, and we’ve seen them hit with runners in scoring position (perish the thought!). These are things they can do, even if they’re not doing them now.

But as Finn’s piece says, there are still reasons to trust this team, to trust they can get back to the things that made them so good in May and June. One big reason is Alex Cora. If anyone can get this aircraft carrier turned around and point it in the right direction it’s him.

A factor that could help is that, as Abraham’s piece points out, the Red Sox schedule could be a saving grace as this team moves down the home stretch. In fact, I pointed out here at Sox Outsider a week or so ago as well. Games against the reeling Twins, Rangers, and… are they the Guardians yet? Whatever. Cleveland. Games against the Twins, Rangers, and Cleveland are all gifts to a team looking to stack wins together wherever it can.

The other factor in yesterday’s games and in the Red Sox pursuit of a playoff spot is that the Yankees, though they’ve been winning a lot lately, have as many (or more) flaws as the Red Sox. There were a number of inflection points in yesterday’s games, points where if one thing had happened just a bit differently the game could’ve ended in Boston’s favor. Off the top of my head, one of those came in the first game when Andrew Velasquez singled with two outs and runners on second and third. You’ve probably never heard of Velasquez before. He’s a 27 year old with a .460 career OPS in the majors who Baseball Reference describes as a “shortstop, outfielder, and second baseman.” He’s been a member of Cleveland, Arizona, Baltimore, and New York, twice. The Yankees signed him in January, released on July 16th of this season and re-signed him the next day. Why? I don’t know, but that’s the kind of player we’re talking about. That guy was up with two outs and two runners in scoring position and singled. Two runs scored. That was the difference in the game.

Frustrating. Annoying. But ultimately not really indicative of one team being better than the other. Just baseball, just the way things go sometimes, and more specifically, just the way things have gone for the Red Sox over the past month plus.

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Apologies for not having a better analytical piece with more poop jokes up for everyone this morning. I’m on vacation with my extended family for the first time since COVID hit and at the end of the day yesterday I was exhausted. In a good way, but still. There will be more from me here at Sox Outsider but posts might be more sporadic this week while I attempt to recall the names of my immediate family.

Thanks for reading, everyone.