2026 Red Sox/MLB Season Thread

[Roy H.]

Sox starters are 9th at 3.96 ERA.  It feels like it has been better than this, but there it is.

This surprised me, but I think that's because of my own recency bias.  The pitching has been lights out since the streak began.  I think I'm already forgetting how badly the season started.

[Vermont Green]

The Uberstine for White deal is weird.  It seems like we traded a useful reliever for a pinch runner.

Trading for a pinch runner is weird, too, because we have Braiden Ward in AAA who's elite at stealing bases and should get that job in the playoffs

When the trade first happened I figured it was a precursor to a Duran deal, but that never materialized. Maybe they'll have him platoon with Duran until Roman comes back? Or do something with Duran (IL, AAA) and have White start in the meantime? Just a weird deal

It is a small sample size, but White has an OPS about 200 points higher vs. lefties this season compared to Duran, so maybe they will platoon Duran for a bit to help get him some days off and get his head in the right place.  White also has managed to nearly triple Duran in WAR, despite having about 1/3 the plate appearances.  I know that says more about Duran than White, but I think he is potentially more than a pinch runner.

Yes, a platoon seems like where this is headed:

vs. Lefties    White             0.758 OPS
vs. Righties  Duran             0.607 OPS
BOS LF this Season            0.658 OPS

And Duran is nothing special in the field.  This may allow for some improvement in production from LF, until Anthony is back.  Duran has been better lately.  So maybe between White and an improving Duran, we can get this OPS up to something in the 0.700s for the position.

[BitterJim]

Sox starters are 9th at 3.96 ERA.  It feels like it has been better than this, but there it is.

This surprised me, but I think that's because of my own recency bias.  The pitching has been lights out since the streak began.  I think I'm already forgetting how badly the season started.

It's also weird about openers. The games earlier this year with an opener pitching the 1st and Bello coming in afterward count the opener as the starter and Bello out of the bullpen, but in terms of traditional roles I would consider them to be the other way around. So those poor first innings and lights out innings 2-7 count in the opposite buckets from where they "seem" to fit (at least to me).

Ditto for inherited runners counting on the starter, so early in the year Weisert was pitching when plenty of runners scored but they count against the starters' ERA instead of his/the bullpen's (even though, again, it "seems" like the bullpen allowed those runs while watching/listening to the game)

[Vermont Green]

Sox starters are 9th at 3.96 ERA.  It feels like it has been better than this, but there it is.

This surprised me, but I think that's because of my own recency bias.  The pitching has been lights out since the streak began.  I think I'm already forgetting how badly the season started.

Starters' ERA is being plumped up by some early season bad numbers from Bello and Crochet, who have not been starting games lately.  The current core starters [Gray, Suarez, Tolle, Bennett, Sandoval] all have season ERA under the season average of 3.96, actually all are between 2.90 and 3.32.  So yes, this starters' season ERA is a bit misleading.

I still feel the team needs Crochet pitching well to really be a World Series contender.  The starting pitching is good in any case, but with Crochet it would be right there with anyone.

[Vermont Green]

Sox starters are 9th at 3.96 ERA.  It feels like it has been better than this, but there it is.

This surprised me, but I think that's because of my own recency bias.  The pitching has been lights out since the streak began.  I think I'm already forgetting how badly the season started.

It's also weird about openers. The games earlier this year with an opener pitching the 1st and Bello coming in afterward count the opener as the starter and Bello out of the bullpen, but in terms of traditional roles I would consider them to be the other way around. So those poor first innings and lights out innings 2-7 count in the opposite buckets from where they "seem" to fit (at least to me).

Ditto for inherited runners counting on the starter, so early in the year Weisert was pitching when plenty of runners scored but they count against the starters' ERA instead of his/the bullpen's (even though, again, it "seems" like the bullpen allowed those runs while watching/listening to the game)

Yes, and Bello added to this by pitching horribly when he started (10.35 ERA) and great when "in relief" (0.69 ERA).  These are just ridiculous splits for Bello and they distort the overall splits.

[Phantom255x]

Sox starters are 9th at 3.96 ERA.  It feels like it has been better than this, but there it is.

This surprised me, but I think that's because of my own recency bias.  The pitching has been lights out since the streak began.  I think I'm already forgetting how badly the season started.

Some of that was Crochet and Bello having some massive stinkers early in the year. Bello especially. Also the openers that went in front of Bello would usually get shelled in the 1st inning and they are counted as the starters lol

[byennie]

Sox starters are 9th at 3.96 ERA.  It feels like it has been better than this, but there it is.

This surprised me, but I think that's because of my own recency bias.  The pitching has been lights out since the streak began.  I think I'm already forgetting how badly the season started.

It's really pretty remarkable: Gray, Suarez, Tolle, Bennett have a combined ERA of 3.08.

The highest ERA among them (Tolle, 3.30) would be in the top 20 in the majors if he had just a handful more innings, and every one of them would also be top-10 in the AL.

Early was legitimately our 5th best starter, albeit not far behind (and not trying to weigh in on the trade here.

It looks like Sandoval might even be an asset. Maybe he should start in front of Bello, but pitch more like 3-4 innings?

[Silas]

Sox doing it again against the 1st place White Sox....13-2 in the 7th.

[Vermont Green]

Sox doing it again against the 1st place White Sox....13-2 in the 7th.

Sandoval, 2 ER in 5+ innings.  Increasing his ERA to 3.38. Not bad for your 5th starter. 

Also, Duran with a HR in his first AB. 

[Goldstar88]

Left fielder Roman Anthony took another step Tuesday with his first batting practice session.

Today he actually took overhand BP in the cage, which is another step in the right direction, Tracy said. So it?s kind of like your in phases with this. Like early on it was tee and flips, which he managed well. Hit BP today for the first time.

Tracy said Anthony will have a scheduled recovery day Wednesday and then resume hitting Thursday.





Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet (left shoulder inflammation) threw on Monday for the first time in more than two months.

He threw out to 50-60 feet.

He?s been down a while, so we?re in the very infant stages of like very short (throws),? interim manager Chad Tracy said before Boston?s game Tuesday. ?But he did have a ball in his hand and was throwing it, which is good. So he?s probably going to be in that really short range throwing right now and then we?ll move him along as he goes.

[Vermont Green]

15 hits vs CWS.  8 different players with hits. 7 with 2 hits.  Good to see balanced production up and down the line up.  I keep trying to put this run in perspective but I can?t think of anything comparable. 

[Redz]

15 hits vs CWS.  8 different players with hits. 7 with 2 hits.  Good to see balanced production up and down the line up.  I keep trying to put this run in perspective but I can?t think of anything comparable.

Definitely not from a team that was putting up several ?worst in franchise history? numbers for a solid chunk of the season.

[Vermont Green]

I have been hoping to find more time to play around with the stats for the Sox new look line up.  What I did is take the OPS for the team by position to date.  That aggregates whoever played at that position.  Then I attempted to project what the OPS would be for the position going forward with new assumptions.  For example, Mead and Rutschman playing 2B and C.  I assumed some platoons for other positions such as DH, which based on some of the trades, I believe this is going to be the strategy to improve production at some positions

    To Date   Rank   Forward      Assumption
C    0.608     26       0.775      Rutschman/Wong Platoon1
1B   0.897      2       0.900      Contreras Expected
2B   0.627     27      0.850      Mead OPS with WAS
3B   0.739     12      0.875      Durbin June/July OPS
SS   0.671     21      0.750      Kiner-Falefa/Monasterio2
LF   0.667     27       0.750      Duran/White Platoon3
CF   0.774      7       0.850      Rafaela Expected
RF   0.777     10      0.775      Abreu Expected
DH   0.674     22      0.750     Yoshida/Jones Platoon4
            
All   0.717     18      0.808   
            
1 Rutschman 0.799 OPS vs R / Wong 0.740 OPS vs L            
2 Kiner-Falefa  0.804 OPS vs R / Monasterio 0.985 OPS vs L            
3 Duran  0.804 OPS vs R Career /White 0.750 OPS vs L 2025-2026            
4 Yoshida  0.787 OPS vs R Career /Jones 0.742 OPS vs L Career

The easy ones were Catcher and 2B where we have a new player.  Here I based the Forward OPS on what player has done.  I did not try to account for the games that Mead will miss.  For Catcher, I assumed Wong would play against lefties, his splits are very good against lefties, there should not be much drop off compared to Rutschman if Wong mostly hits vs lefties.  This is more for load management than production.

For the regular platoons (SS, LF, and DH), I list my assumptions but basically tried to average out the L/R splits of the players, looking at career or recent season, depending what looked more realistic.  I don't think it is an accident that BOS brought in players with very good splits to offset current players who are weak on one half of their splits.

This is somewhat idealized, it is unlikely that BOS will hit at an 0.800 or better OPS, but they have been 0.789 OPS the last 30 days and that is without Mead, Rutschman, and White.  What I am trying to prove is that there should be continued improvement from the current to date 0.717 OPS for the team overall (this accounts for the current hot streak).  If I could figure out how to get the value excluding the last 30-45 days, the team OPS would probably be <0.700 for that period.