Red Sox

It felt like the Red Sox had turned things around over the summer, but now they need wins during baseball’s worst time to save the season.

COMMENT

Even before their five straight losses in Detroit and Queens and their return to a .500 record months after losing it for good, the Red Sox tried to sell tickets for this weekend’s home series against the historically abysmal White Sox like this:

“A scary-beautiful time.”

It’s reminiscent of the winter when it seemed difficult to sell anything related to the team, even though the team’s marketing department portrayed it as something other than difficult.

“We’re not going to talk (fans) out of something they feel,” Adam Grossman, the Sox’s chief marketing officer, told the globe in April. “We’re going to continue to do the things we know are important when it comes to marketing the players, putting them in a position where fans know them on the field and off the field, and making Fenway Park an attraction — and also being aware that sometimes those negative vibes don’t always last on the field and through the end of the season.”

For months, the Red Sox shook off that negative vibe. They played well, even as injuries further depleted their already thin roster. They played well, fueled by pitching, the domain of the new pitching coach and the new head baseball manager. They played dynamically and excitingly, fueled by young players prone to learning mistakes but imbued with the endless potential that the hopium offers.

This weekend will remind us what desolation really means. Chicago comes to Boston 32-109 — no team you’ve ever seen has lost that many times, unless you were there for the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics. Andrew Benintendi, now 30, is hitting .217/.280/.374 and has been one of the worst defensive outfielders in the sport this season. The photo of him flying through the air at the 2018 World Series feels like it was a million years ago.

Did I mention that the $75 million the White Sox gave him before the 2023 season is the highest guaranteed contract they’ve ever given out? (The White Sox and the A’s are the only two franchises that have never signed a player for nine figures.)

That flying All-Star week for your Red Sox franchise—Roman Anthony in the Skills Challenge, Jarren Duran in the big game, Alex Cora talking about the division title—feels only about a millennium ago, but it’s ancient.

What felt like one turning point just a short time ago now feels like three turning points, right where we started. The 2022 Red Sox reached 8-19 in July, improving from the third-best record in the American League to 78-84 by year’s end. The 2023 Red Sox reached 8-19 in September, staying in the playoff race longer, but ultimately falling to six under .500.

The 2024 Red Sox need to go 8-14 to win a third straight, 12-10 to beat .500 and have their best performance in a generation to be up for a playoff challenge. (They won 20 of 22 games in the second half of August 2004.)

Maybe that’s even an irrelevant point in context. The Sox are closer to the Blue Jays, who are in last place in the East (3.5 games), than they are to a playoff spot (5.5).

“Right now we’re just an average team,” Alex Cora told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ve got to step up and be better on Friday.”

Whether they do or not somehow seems unrelated to how we will see them in the winter and beyond. The fall back to baseball’s forgettable middle has put ownership back in the spotlight. The tone around the team is once again “there was more, but.”

Frankly, nothing short of a World Series could ever have changed that. And it shouldn’t have.

The question that keeps coming up for the Red Sox in this era when they are the jewel in their bosses’ crown, not the ultimate jewel, is what happens when the young core establishes itself and takes off. Full throttle or not… when does the shift into second and third gear happen?

This has been a year of taking stock for Craig Breslow and Co., and he’s learned a lot. He has established outfielders — Ceddanne Rafaela, Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu, and Anthony is knocking on the door. He still needs a second baseman. (Maybe Kristian Campbell, if you don’t see Vaughn Grissom as a pipe dream.) The catcher is ready for Kyle Teel when he is.

And the rotation has plenty of supporting players. The one under contract for the rest of the 2020s, Brayan Bello, is still only showing signs of being top-end. The only healthy one who isn’t years away from being a free agent, Nick Pivetta, is who he is. Lucas Giolito is on a contract for another year with a mutual option for 2026, giving him a second chance to be the “is who he is” pitcher he was. The rest have 3-4 years to prove they can do more.

Not that they’ve been the problem: Since the Houston sweep on August 9, Red Sox starters have averaged five innings a night with a 3.61 ERA, seventh-best in that span. The bullpen’s ERA in that span is 6.77, nearly one run worse. Offensive fWAR ranks 28th out of 30 teams, averaging 3.8 runs/game.

However, we’ve seen it three years in a row. Eventually, these undermanned rosters run out of pitchers before they even get to the scrutiny of baseball’s postseason. Without question, it would have made life easier for everyone if Giolito and Garrett Whitlock had pitched more than 18 innings.

Again, three years in a row. James Paxton was the Giolito of 2022, a hopeful addition for the final push that never came. Corey Kluber had nine difficult starts in 2023 before going on the injured list, but he was another attempt to solidify the foundation while, hopefully, some real pillars materialized inside.

Breslow cannot be blamed for his predecessor’s decisions, but others can. At some point the cast must have proven themselves to be more than just peripheral characters and supporting actors.

One would hope so.

A century ago, the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics had gone three years without winning three World Series and were selling off stars they could no longer afford in the promise of a younger, brighter future. (Remember: There are no new ideas.) The difference was that back then, real wins were required, and little more was paid for than concessions and tickets.

Today is different, and there’s no denying that the Red Sox are still compelling after three mediocre-at-best years. Fenway Park is still a magnet. Salesmanship works, and hope seems close as young players become the ones filling T-shirts and commercials.

This weekend at Fenway. I suspect it will be more scary than good, but I’ve been surprised before.

And we tend to remember these times much more easily than the times when it wasn’t so.