The Boston Red Sox entered a titanic four-game series against the New York Yankees with everything in front of them, a golden opportunity to kick their hated rival while they were down (or at least wounded) and put the cherry on top of a remarkable midsummer turnaround. Instead, they left the Bronx with their tails between their legs, three losses in four games putting the AL East essentially out of reach and home-field advantage in the Wild Card Round very much in doubt.
Even beyond the standings math, though, it was the sort of performance that raises fresh questions about what this team can ultimately accomplish come October. We've seen Boston at its best climbing from the AL East cellar back into the postseason picture; but recently, cracks have begun to show again, and they were exposed for everybody to see over the weekend.
1B Willson Contreras
Contreras has been Boston's most consistent hitter all year long, and one of the biggest reasons why the Red Sox have been able to turn their season around. But none of that can mask the fact that his production has fallen off a cliff of late: After tallying just one hit and two walks across 16 plate appearances over the weekend, his OPS is down to .715 in the month August.
Things have been particularly ugly of late (.399 OPS since Aug. 22), and Chad Tracy confirmed to reporters after Sunday's loss that the slugger has been dealing with a nagging hamstring issue. There's no way to know just how serious it is, of course, or how much it's affected his performance at the plate. But the Red Sox aren't going anywhere serious if Contreras isn't hitting like a middle-of-the-order force, and he looked like a shell of himself in the team's biggest series to date.
C Adley Rutschman
Speaking of former All-Stars who just don't look right: Rutschman tallied three hits in Boston's 6-0 win on Saturday afternoon, but none of them had an exit velocity above 80 mph, and he went 0-for-8 with three strikeouts in his other two starts. He's lost at the plate right now, and while his defense behind the plate usually gives him something to fall back on, he missed several opportunities for challenges over the weekend that could have swung crucial moments in the Red Sox' favor.
It should go without saying that it's still way too early to hit the panic button on this trade, But Rutschman isn't impacting the game much at all, either at the plate or in the field, and these are the sorts of moments for which Boston gave up a haul to acquire him. For a player with a sketchy recent track record in terms of both performance and injury, it's been a worrying few weeks.
Chad Tracy
No, Tracy isn't the reason why Boston's offense disappeared, and he's not the reason why his bullpen circle of trust is so small. But while he's not the primary reason why Boston lost three of four over the weekend, he also didn't help matters with some puzzling decisions at times.
He didn't do a great job of rallying his team in the wake of that controversial replay review decision in the fifth inning on Sunday, allowing emotions to spiral — and inexplicably bringing the infield in with one out and the bases loaded, turning what would have been a double-play ball from Paul Goldschmidt into a two-run single. It was also tough to figure why he used his bench when and where he did all weekend, not to mention the confusion around exactly when Roman Anthony and Trevor Story would be returning from their rehab assignments at Triple-A.
It was a gentle reminder that, for as well as Boston has played under Tracy's watch, we still don't know all that much about him as a manager — especially not in the highest-leverage spots. We're about to learn a whole lot more in the coming weeks.
LHP Ranger Suarez
Complain about the replay review all you want, but Suarez also had ample opportunity to get himself out of that jam in the fifth, and instead he allowed things to snowball into a five-run inning — and yet another underwhelming start in a stretch full of them. The lefty now has a 5.40 ERA since the start of July, and he's only made it beyond the fifth inning in two of those eight outings.
Is he still feeling the effects of a tweaked groin he suffered back in June? It's hard to say; he told reporters after his start on Sunday that he feels fine physically. But he simply isn't throwing the ball the same way he was earlier in the year, and a Red Sox team dealing with a struggling offense and a fading Sonny Gray can't afford another weak link right now.
The underbelly of the bullpen
The late-game formula for Tracy is pretty iron-clad at this point, especially now that Garrett Whitlock's back in the mix. The middle innings ... less so, and we saw that on full display over the weekend as Jovani Moran and Raymond Burgos turned two competitive games on Saturday night and Sunday into outright laughers.
Of course, neither of those guys occupy particularly high-leverage roles. But you can't always rely on your big guns, especially not when your starting rotation is less and less capable of getting you to the sixth or seventh inning. You need more than two or three arms to survive October, and it's unclear whether Boston has that sort of depth right now.
Add us as a preferred source on Google