Why one bad month means more for this year’s Red Sox

They've proven who they are until they prove otherwise.

Hirokazu Sawamura's 10th inning throwing error on Saturday night made it three walkoff losses for the Red Sox across their 10-day road trip. Julio Cortez/Associated Press

By Jon Couture

May 2, 2022

5 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

Three cities, three walkoff losses, 3-7.

Whether it’s early is a subjective debate, and whether the Red Sox are more than that feels like settled science. But that’s an irrelevant discussion, isn’t it?

The onus is on them to prove they’re enough more than this for anyone to care, their bosses included. And the time is now, as it was before this weekend and will be into the winter and whatever comes next.

This was always going to be a test: A 10-game road trip to finish off a run of 17 games in 17 days, both of those matching Boston’s longest on the schedule. But that didn’t have to mean a we’re-letting-Kevin-Plawecki-pitch-level debacle.

Yes, yes, those perfunctory qualifiers, most of which were helpfully offered by the Red Sox themselves as they lumbered toward their Monday off.

“We need to figure it out quick,” Christian Vázquez told reporters in Baltimore. “We have a great team and everybody knows that the Red Sox are dangerous when they get hot.”

“If we go through a stretch like this in June or July, it’s something that’s really common, but it gets so blown up at the start of the season,” Xander Bogaerts said. “When everyone gets hot at the same time, it’s going to be a beautiful thing to witness.”

“Nothing has changed in our mind. We’ve still got a good team that has to work,” manager Alex Cora said. “Do we have to work a little harder now? Yeah, of course. We’re still good.”

None of it wrong, and if it makes you feel better, good news: Seven of the eight playoff teams last year — all but the Rays — did go on runs of 9-14 or worse, just as the 2022 Red Sox have done out of the blocks. That includes Houston and champion Atlanta, which was under .500 the first week of August before finding the gas.

But let’s continue, since everyone who’s looked at their 401k statements in the last four months can remind past performance does not guarantee future returns.

The team we saw this weekend before that execrable mini-Monster at Camden Yards only dodged a sweep by scoring in one inning Friday — their go-to move of the trip, pulling it in three of their four straight losses across Tampa and Toronto.

These last two days, the reigning bottom of the 2022 season, serve as a nice travel-size guide to the problem. The Red Sox scored first, as they have in 13 of their 23 games. Sunday, it took them five rallies and a sacrifice fly to do so.

In the first with runners on the corners, Franchy Cordero reached for a pitcher’s pitch curveball and meekly grounded out to first.

In the second, Vázquez got on second with arguably his best opposite-field contact of the year, then thought there were two outs instead of one, retreating on a single rather than scoring. (Trevor Story, who has two hits on pitches faster than 93 miles per hour this season, then fanned on a shoulder-high fastball.)

The same Vázquez, during Friday’s three-run inning, was thrown out by 10 feet trying to stretch a single and error to third base. It’s been a lot, and there’s so much canvas left to go.

Look. If you’re reading this, I bet you know the lines by heart. Rafael Devers, first-pitch swinging six inches off the plate. Jackie Bradley Jr., first-pitch swinging with the bases loaded at something no lefthanded hitter could ever drive anywhere.

“I don’t think we are executing our game plans. I think we are going up there, we are talking about them, but we are not executing them,” J.D. Martinez told reporters on Saturday night. “I think it comes from the pressure. It’s kind of like, ‘I got to do something, I got to get a hit. I’m 0-for-2, 0-for-3.’ It’s added pressure and it just kind of snowballs.”

And it’s not just the offense, of course. Minutes before, Hirokazu Sawamura fielded a bad 10th-inning bunt and tried to start a double play when one out should’ve been fine. He certainly had all day to get said out before he shot putted the ball into left field.

Pressure. Poor execution. And just as it snowballed with a 17-10 April last year, the opposite works.

Xander’s still right: A bad June doesn’t resonate like a bad April. But nobody who got near the 2021 playoffs was 7.5 games out of first place a day into May. Nobody lost their first five series to division competition the way these Red Sox have.

And can we point out that Bogaerts, the unquestioned leader of this group, has almost no chance to being here next year unless he again takes less to stay? How long before that window closing feeling starts to tick the collective heart rate even higher?

I’ve read the comments. I know it’s already yours.

They’ve proven who they are until they prove otherwise. Chaim Bloom’s one big signing in three years, Story, was a $200-million player the Sox think they got a deal on.

Remember they traded Mookie Betts? Take it a step further. Betts hit .264 and missed 40 games last year. He’s got a .720 OPS this one. You think the Red Sox today regret not giving that guy $30 million a year for another decade?

If this team is under .500 in the second half of July, you think they’re going get Adam Duvall and Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario to try and make a run? Or that Bloom will get a call from his bosses, whatever their record, saying better than expected revenues in the early season meant they had more to spend the way Alex Anthopoulos did last summer?

It’s early on the baseball calendar, but everyone’s calendar doesn’t really have the same number of days on it.

And everyone’s who they are until they give you a reason to think otherwise.

All that said, I don’t think it’s time for panic moves and prayers for Patriots mini camp to start. What is here isn’t this bad, and the handy “So You’ve Decided To Be Terrible at Baseball” pamphlet the Sox just published with their road trip can be a bottom from which to bounce if they’re as resilient as they preached they were a year ago.

The schedule doesn’t have the Blue Jays, Rays, or Yankees on it again until the last week of June. The Angels come to Boston hot, leading the majors in runs, but there’s no stretch that looks as dangerous as this one did. (The West Coast trip does have Oakland in it, after all.) Build something.

The half-dozen winnable games frittered away can’t be saved. But unless this team can start to execute, at least they won’t sting as much, the 2022 Red Sox becoming nothing more than a transitional group toward some hopefully brighter dynasty under construction.

Early? Sure. But a little less early with each passing opportunity.