It's been a bit of an uneven start for the Boston Red Sox in the 2025 campaign. It felt as if the team was breaking out in their dominant home series sweep against the St. Louis Cardinals, but they wound up following that up by losing three of four against the Toronto Blue Jays. But for as disheartening as that series against the Jays was, at least the Red Sox had a "get right" series to follow on the road against the Chicago White Sox.
Boston Red Sox TV announcers Dave O'Brien and Will Middlebrooks were so confident that the team was going to make the trip to Rate Field and dominate that they even talked the White Sox down during the team's final game against the Blue Jays.
"The White Sox invent ways to lose games." - Dave O'Brien
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 10, 2025
"The trip to Chicago could be coming at the perfect time." - Will Middlebrooks
The Red Sox announcers are excited about their upcoming trip to Chicago. pic.twitter.com/BKaDEWZm7W
O'Brien made fun of Chicago's ability to lose in ways nobody knew was possible, and Middlebrooks believed that the Red Sox were headed to face the White Sox at the perfect time. Well, they couldn't have been more wrong.
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Red Sox announcers couldn't have been more wrong when previewing White Sox series
Not only did the Red Sox lose Friday's series opener in Chicago, but they were embarrassed. The team was down 7-0 after five innings and lost 11-1 against the White Sox. Let me rephrase: The White Sox, somehow, defeated the Red Sox by 10 runs. It doesn't make sense.
The White Sox entered Friday's game with a 2-10 record. They had pitched somewhat decently to begin their season, but lost 10 of their first 12 contests largely due to their offensive ineptitude. The White Sox were coming off a series in which they scored a total of three runs in three games against the Cleveland Guardians, and they had scored more than three runs just three times in their first 12 contests. Their offense is so bad to the point where, even after an 11-run outburst in their 13th game, they still rank 27th in the Majors in runs scored.
This was the team that the Red Sox allowed to score 11 runs in a single game. To make matters worse, a lot of Boston's struggles were self-inflicted, as the team committed a whopping five errors. The Red Sox only allowed five earned runs all game.
It's hard to blame O'Brien and Middlebrooks for feeling the way they did. The White Sox are a horrible baseball team; they finished last season with the worst record in modern MLB history and look even worse on paper after trading their best player, Garrett Crochet, ironically enough to the Red Sox. They even found a seemingly impossible way to lose just days prior to Friday's contest.
Still, as bad as the White Sox might be, they're still a Major League Baseball team. They might not win many games, but they realistically can go out and beat anybody. They proved that on Friday.
At the end of the day, the Red Sox can ill-afford to look down on any opponent, even one as bad as the White Sox. Based on their effort on Friday, there's reason to believe they were expecting an easy series sweep much like their broadcasters. Hopefully, this game will serve as a wake-up call to Alex Cora's ball club.