A dispatch from baseball’s wide middle, where the Red Sox have clawed a place in the mix

The Sox have used 38 players, collected from various deals, signings, and promotions, this season.

Pablo Reyes, acquired for cash from Oakland as the Red Sox ran through middle infielders, has been part of the team's grind. Ashley Landis/Associated Press

By Jon Couture

May 26, 2023

4 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

On Friday morning, nine of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams sat within two games of .500: The Red Sox, Minnesota, and Seattle (26-24); Pittsburgh (25-24); the Mets and Toronto (26-25); San Francisco (25-25); Miami (25-26); and Detroit (23-25). It’s the vast, average middle, neither ticketed for nor disqualified from dreaming anything’s possible.

You could probably compel me to believe the Red Sox were the most average of them all, but I think it’s clearer that this group lacks anything particularly exceptional.

The roads to that yawning middle have been different. The Marlins are 15-4 in one-run games; the Twins are 4-10. The Tigers won 11 of 16 against the National League. Pittsburgh tumbled into it after a hot start, but is certainly still happy to be there. The big-money Mets were looking up at it until a good week, and certainly aren’t happy to be there.

The Red Sox still spend more like the Mets, even if you could just about drop a Pirates payroll today’s payroll and the one from five years ago. They certainly don’t expect like them, though. Not this year, anyway.

“We’re doing well,” manager Alex Cora said during his weekly WEEI appearance Wednesday. “We have an idea who we have and who we are right now. . . . We’ve just got to keep playing good baseball.”

“There’s obviously some things to be happy about, [but] we’ve got a long way to go,” chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said on WEEI Thursday. “A lot of the positive things that have happened, obviously, the record is what it is. It’s solid, but not spectacular. . . . There’s a lot of things to build off of, but we need to keep improving.”

What are these Red Sox truly good at? Mood swings. They’ve put together four four-game streaks in just 23 games — the eights wins in a row between April and May, and the rolling four losses, four wins, four losses ride. The latest is ongoing after the bats mustered just four runs across 96 hours in San Diego and Anaheim.

As Cora suggested, there’s saving grace in the starting pitching’s turnaround. He made official Wednesday the obvious move: Corey Kluber is out of the rotation effective Friday, with Tanner Houck penciled in Sunday after Garrett Whitlock’s scheduled Saturday return.

Much like Pivetta, it’s an awkward fit given walks and home runs are the problem. Given the road that’s gotten the Sox to their place in the middle, the greatest reason for hope from either is, well, look at the array of contributors so far.

Adam Duvall hit .455/.514/1.030 before he got hurt, knocking in 14 runs in just eight games. Yu Chang might’ve been their steadiest hand in the middle infield in his 17-game sample. Jarren Duran’s gone cold, carrying a 1 for 23 skid into Phoenix against the surprising Diamondbacks, but he’s still batting .300/.353/.483 this year.

Need we even mention Enmanuel Valdez, part of the Christian Vázquez trade last summer who has hit a little as a fill-in for a fill-in (Chang)? Pablo Reyes, cast off from Oakland’s Triple-A squad?

The shuffle is usually endless on teams in this middle, the perpetual search for short-term answers and those to take their place when the magic wears off. Boston’s already used 38 players in the field, tied with the mediocre Twins and not-mediocre Rays for 10th most this season.

They’ve used five different starters are three positions: Center field, plus both second base and shortstop. The former has been remarkable, Boston second in OPS at the position (.903). The latter two have at least held their own as they wait for a potential sixth starter: Presumed No. 1 Trevor Story, whose elbow issues threw the whole middle-infield picture out of whack in January.

The starting rotation has clarified. The bullpen, more of an offseason focus than any other portion of the team, has had its hiccups, but remains far better at locking down late leads and close games.

The offense is starkly feast or famine, averaging 7.5 runs and an .897 OPS in the 26 wins and just 2.8 and .608 in the 24 losses. (The win average gets skewed up by big totals, but Boston’s topped seven runs and failed to top three runs 17 times each.) Yet Cora feels like most of us do: They trust their approach — even from Triston Casas, whose .181 average is worst among first basemen with 150 plate appearances — and their injured guys are getting healthy.

It’s life in the middle, plain and simple. Until the schedule gets a little more AL East-centric — four with Tampa from June 2-4 and six with the Yankees mid-month — it’s going to be hard to really know what exactly we’re dealing with.

Even that may not say much. Nineteen of Boston’s final 25 games are in the division, which figures to be packed and may still have four of the division’s five with a chance to sneak in baseball’s October cut line.

It’s about getting in position and hoping your good days line up.

It’s about keeping the plates spinning long enough for the numbers to fall your way.

It’s the sport in 2023. Not just in Boston, but in an increasing majority of cities who know just trying to get into the dance is, increasingly, enough.

“This is a really long season, and even 50 games in, there’s just so much more left,” Bloom said on WEEI. “You’ve got to take a step back and cool off.”