Commentary

Last April, the Red Sox were all positive momentum. This April, they’re anything but.

Christian Arroyo and the Red Sox dropped two of three to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park, games that could prove critical at year's end. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

By Jon Couture

April 22, 2022

3 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

Holding the big-swinging Toronto Blue Jays to 10 runs across three games at Fenway Park feels like a recipe for success. Especially when half of those came in a five-run second inning Wednesday off Nick Pivetta, which somehow made him lasting through the fourth feel mildly uplifting.

“I made mechanical changes that I’ve been trying to search for the past 15, 20 days now,” he told reporters, in part. “That was positive, but super disappointing with how the second inning went.

“I had way higher hopes with how this would go.”

For now, that can just be the tagline for the April 2022 Red Sox, but I’m holding an option to stretch it out.

A year ago, the Red Sox had won nine straight by now, and had that to fall back on when their pets’ heads started falling off in late summer. This year, the critical offense isn’t firing, with the five runs the last three days among some bottom-scraping numbers and amid J.D. Martinez suffering vague muscle tightness.

The starting pitching has underwhelmed in both volume and quality, with the bullpen — seventh in innings pitched league-wide — the core of everything good this season has brought. The Sox are 6-2 when they lead entering the seventh, with Garrett Whitlock, Hansel Robles, and Jake Diekman all earning saves.

Hanging over it all, again, is COVID-19. In the midst of 13 division games, the next 10 on the road, they will be without Alex Cora for some period due to a positive test and Tanner Houck for the series in Toronto due to a refusal to get vaccinated.

It all just feels off. The addition of whatever exactly “we’re gonna do a Jerry Remy tribute without Don Orsillo” is pitch perfect given everything else going on around it.

It’s a 6-7 start, with about 90 percent of the marathon to go. It should go without saying that they went 6-7 close to 20 times last year, with a puzzle that made a lot less sense than this one.

Maybe the biggest lesson is a reminder of just how spoiled we were in 2021. As noted above, they opened 0-3, then immediately swept the Rays in convincing fashion and essentially hummed without incident until July 31. Chaim Bloom hit on near every move as the pieces fell together in Week 1.

Momentum is a real thing like that. An early roll has a way of continually reinforcing itself, crushing the little doubts and dissents that will invariably crop up during a baseball season. That’s certainly not happening right now, after a winnable game Thursday was frittered away due to — among many other things — a mental gaffe that probably happens every night of the season somewhere without notice until, well …

Christian Vázquez not catching Matt Chapman’s infield fly on a genuinely gusty day? It happens. (Travis Shaw, filling in at first base, was late to react as well.) Ryan Brasier watching the proceedings and not covering the plate, meaning Vlad Guerrero Jr. scored the winning run with no one there to throw to? That too.

When things aren’t going your way, it often finds a way to matter.

The two-run rally in the ninth when the Sox needed three? Bobby Dalbec got a first pitch to hit from Toronto closer Jordan Romano and ripped it hard enough that the sure-handed Chapman bobbled it before recording the out. Inches either way and Xander Bogaerts likely ties the game, scoring from third.

That’s baseball, of course. But when you’re walking what figures at best to be a razor’s edge to contention in a stacked division, a division where head-to-head results could prove the difference between playoff baseball and not, a division where your roster is going to be lessened for road games against one of your toughest competitors, lessened by nothing more than the “personal choice” of some of your teammates …

It all matters. And it can all snowball quicker than anyone might think.

“It’s not fun when you’re not playing well,” said Bogaerts, on an 11-for-21 tear his last five games.

Tampa was against whom it inexplicably flipped a year ago, especially given the Rays beat Boston 11 out of 16 following that first-week sweep. On venue alone it’d be more surprising to see it happen again — the Sox lost seven straight at the Trop last summer before a late-season surge.

But lest we forget on back-to-back days against the Twins, Cora decreed he could feel his offense getting close. The at-bats were better. The contact was stronger. In his absence, they could use proving him right again.

Because by the end of the weekend, we’re probably going to know who those unnamed others not heading to Canada by choice are. And even with those in the clubhouse likely already aware of their identities, watching them stay behind as an early season hole is being dug isn’t going to be an easy watch.