NEW YORK — With the moves the Red Sox made leading up to this season, Boston was poised to be a true threat to dethrone the Yankees atop the American League East in 2025.
That hasn’t been the case over these first two-plus months of this season, though.
Not even close.
The Red Sox are a mess. They’re 30-34, sitting 9 1/2 games behind the first-place Yankees in the division. Boston leads the league in errors on defense (54), they’ve been hammered by injuries, they have 17 losses in one-run games (with 14 blown leads on the year) and if they don’t figure this out soon, they could be offloading talent at the deadline instead of buying for a playoff push.
“Obviously been a tough start for them,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Thursday’s 4-0 win over the Guardians. “A lot of close games that they’ve been on the wrong side of.”
It’s not all bad. Garrett Crochet has been an ace for Boston. That trade with the White Sox has aged magnificently. Alex Bregman has been a great fit and Rafael Devers has broken out of his ice-cold start to the year. Ex-Yankees catching prospect Carlos Narvaez has blossomed with a full slate of playing time in Boston as well.
But the issues cast quite an ominous shadow over those success stories.
Bregman is out for the foreseeable future with a quad injury. Everybody other than Crochet in the rotation has been average or a liability, with a few key pieces on the IL.
Boone and the Yankees aren’t taking this series lightly, though.
As the skipper said right after the Red Sox signed Bregman in February, this is a talented team that’s tough to beat.
“We know what they’re capable of and feel like that can still be a reality for them,” Boone said. “We feel like a really good, hungry club is going to be coming in here that hasn’t started certainly how they wanted to. But I do feel like they’re very dangerous.”
While Boston enters play Friday with a 4.00 ERA as a team, they’ll send their best starters to the mound in this series.
Walker Buehler, who closed out last year’s World Series with the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium, starts in Game 1. Then Crochet will pitch in Game 2. The left-hander has been one of the best starters in baseball this year, posting a 1.98 ERA in 13 starts with 101 strikeouts, the second-most in MLB.
“Obviously, Crochet, they’ve imported an ace,” Boone said. “He’s pitched like that. He’s been dominant for them … So I know [Bregman’s injury] was a tough blow for them, but Crochet has been taking that next step from what he kind of showed everyone last year.”