Alex Cora Is Wrong. This Version Of The Red Sox Is Far From Good

Well, that was a painful way to end things. 

After scraping and clawing their way to their first playoff berth since 2021, the Boston Red Sox put up a lifeless performance in an elimination game against the New York Yankees.

Boston now holds the unfortunate distinction of being the only team to win Game 1 of the current Wild Card series format and still lose the series. 

It’s not like they were thoroughly outclassed. The pitching was solid all around, highlighted by Garrett Crochet’s insane Game 1 performance.

But horrible defense, and a boom or bust offense that busted more than boomed this series doomed the Red Sox to an earlier than desired exit.

"Obviously, we should feel the way we feel right now, because we had bigger goals," Cora said. "But when we have time to reflect on how we did things this year, this is what the Boston Red Sox are, it's a good group."

Is it though? Good groups don’t put up a goose egg against their age-old rival and allow a rookie pitcher to embarrass you. It's beyond shameful.

Let’s take a closer look at this group. In the regular season, who was the team with the most errors? The Red Sox. Who was the team with the worst fielding percentage? The Red Sox. It’s a miracle they advanced to the playoffs with that pathetic defense.

In fact, it's what led to the disastrous fourth inning in Game 3, the only inning either team scored a run.

Good teams aren’t that consistently bad at defense.

Fortunately, you can overcome bad defense with two things: great pitching and better offense. The Red Sox had the former, but not the latter.

There are too many players in the lineup who are inconsistent and disappear in big moments, and that was painfully evident in this series. Jarren Duran. Cedanne Rafaela. Romy Gonzalez. Wilyer Abreu. Nathaniel Lowe. The entire lineup could not drive in runners in scoring position for the last eight weeks of their season.

Moving forward, this team could be good, but the fat needs to be trimmed. The lineup needs more power bats. A true No. 2 pitcher would be nice. Better fundamentals are essential. Defensive improvement needs to be a priority.

Every player except Crochet, Roman Anthony, and Aroldis Chapman should be expendable. Owner John Henry needs to open up his wallet for once and beef up this young core. The time is now to revamp this team and become serious about winning titles.

Until then, this will not be a good ball club, and they’ll keep losing to legitimately good teams, like the Yankees.