Chad Tracy and the Red Sox to blame for Game 1 embarrassment vs. Yankees

The Boston Red Sox experienced their worst offensive month of the regular season in September, and it didn't get any easier in Tuesday's postseason opener against the New York Yankees. The Red Sox matched Payton Tolle against Cam Schlittler in a battle of young aces. The latter won out, while New York's bullpen was far more effective on cleanup duty.

Boston's relievers combusted and the Red Sox bats went M.I.A., producing three hits and zero runs. The Yankees turned on the jets late, including an eighth-inning Ben Rice grand slam, to secure a 9-0 victory. That means Boston must win two straight on the road, in the Bronx, in order to reach the ALDS, with Max Fried and Gerrit Cole in line to start for the frontrunning Yankees. It's a tough spot to be in. Here's who deserves the most blame.

Chad Tracy pulled all the wrong strings with his bullpen

Chad Tracy's first postseason appearance as Red Sox manager went about as poorly as it could have. You never want to lose to the Yankees, especially not in blowout fashion. And, while baseball is often more about player performance than managerial decisions, it's hard not to put the blame squarely on Tracy for his horrific mismanagement of the bullpen. It starts with his first sub of the afternoon.

Payton Tolle emerged as one of the best pitchers in MLB this season. Over the final two months, he made nine starts, pitching to a 2.52 ERA and 2.43 FIP. And yet, with two outs in the fifth inning and zero runners on, Tracy yanked Tolle — who allowed one run on five hits in 4.2 innings in his first career postseason start.

Tolle was replaced by lefty Erik Miller who, despite excellent holistic numbers (2.98 ERA and 3.10 FIP), is currently mired in struggle. He allowed five runs over his last four appearances to end the regular season. And on Tuesday night, he immediately gave up a solo homer to Ben Rice, which extended the Yankees lead to 2-0.

After the game, Tracy told reporters he factored in Tolle's pitch count (83) and his place in the order. It was Ben Rice's third time facing Tolle, and he'd already hammered a double to the wall back in the first inning. While that's not completely illogical, trust is something Tolle earned. You make that switch, perhaps, with a lesser pitcher on the mound. But the Red Sox needed to ride Tolle as deep as possible in order to build a less ominous bridge to the ninth inning with a rickety bullpen.

Miller's brief appearance was a disaster. Then, after Greg Weissert breezed through the sixth inning, Tracy called on rookie Alec Gamboa. While Gamboa was sensational in his first taste of MLB action, he's not a proven high-leverage arm. The Red Sox left Aroldis Chapman, Garrett Whitlock and yes, Garrett Crochet on the shelf. That trio can very easily pick up 12 outs, which would have kept Boston's offense within striking distance.

Instead, Gamboa loaded the bases and ceded a run, before Wyatt Olds came in and coughed up three earned runs of his own in 1.1 innings. Boston tried to ride Olds to the finish line, but he was yanked in favor of Brayan Bello in the eighth, who promptly gave up a grand slam to Ben Rice, ironically enough.

After the game, Tracy told The Athletic he was worried about burning through back-end relievers in a losing effort, as the Yankees were close to deploying top-shelf closer David Bednar.

"If you do one (high-leverage arm) in the seventh, you’ll probably have to do one in the eighth, and now you’re ripping through back-end guys and you’re awfully close to a pretty darned good closer," he said.

Frankly, that is a loser's mentality. It's the postseason. Game 1 winners in the current Wild Card format are 15-1, historically. You need to push your chips in. This shows a lack of faith in the Red Sox lineup, for one. It also shows a lack of faith in Tolle, who did everything to earn the benefit of the doubt in his first full MLB campaign. Now, Boston has its back against the wall, and the Yankees didn't even need Bednar. So their vaunted closer is totally fresh. The back end of their bullpen, untouched. Tracy will struggle to live this one down if the Red Sox can't pull off a comeback.

Willson Contreras was not himself

We can blame several relievers individually, but there's not much to add there. So let's instead focus on Willson Contreras, who has been Boston's best hitter all year. He missed a couple weeks in September and did not return until the regular season finale, however, and the rust was highly visible in Game 1.

Contreras went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. That includes the first inning, after Adley Rutschman worked a 10-pitch, one out single, which threatened to inflate Cam Schlittler's pitch count. The game plan with Schlittler is always to get the pitch count up and force him out of the game as early as possible. Contreras struck out on three straight whiffs and killed an opportunity for early momentum. As it turns out, Boston would only manage three more base-runners after that. The Red Sox advanced a grand total of one runner into scoring position all game.

This was a challenging turnaround for Contreras so shortly removed from an injury, but the Red Sox desperately needed their most consistent hitter to at least battle against New York's top arms. Instead, Contreras was entirely out of sync. It portends poorly for the rest of this series.

Caleb Durbin could not come through

If it provides any solace to Red Sox fans, Alex Bregman and the Cubs lineup were somehow even worse on Tuesday night. Still, Caleb Durbin carries some of the blame. It's hard to spotlight individual hitters when the collective failed, but Durbin was the only Red Sox batter all night to inherit a runner in scoring position. He stepped up in the eighth inning after a two-out double from Trevor Story. The Yankees lead was a daunting but manageable 4-0 at that point.

A solid hit into the outfield scores a run and, at the very least, gives Boston some momentum heading into the bottom of the eighth. Perhaps that would've been enough for Chad Tracy to pull out a higher-leverage bullpen arm. Or perhaps it just gives the offense something to build on in the ninth, which New York's own momentum stymied.

It's an unknowable 'what-if' situation. Maybe it never really mattered at all in a 9-0 loss. But Durbin went 0-for-3 on the whole, all pop-ups and grounders. Boston's splashy offseason addition has had a roller coaster season, but last night was a noticeable dip — and it leaves the Red Sox dangerously close to elimination.

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