Extra rations of rum for all hands!: An inauspicious, typically Red Sox-ian start to the second half of the Boston baseball season

Saturday 7/19/25

I didn't like what I saw from the Red Sox yesterday in their 4-1 loss to the Cubs. The Sox had the same record at last year's All-Star break. They then did what Alex Cora teams normally do and fell apart in the so-called second half. Thus, I felt it was important to get off to a good start, and what I really mean by that is by playing the right way.

The Red Sox did not play the right way yesterday. They played like the boneheaded, bad-at-the-fundamentals Red Sox that I think these Red Sox are. You can, at most, squeak into the playoffs playing as they play with some of the guys they have. But you ultimately can't go that far being this bad at the basics of the game.

First, I'll say that the Cubs are a good team. They can do some winning this year when it matters most. They pitch well, they have good hitting, and their defense is strong. They're a World Series contender.

Lucas Giolito was on the mound for the Sox. He's been solid. Ideally, he's a fourth starter, not a two or three, which is what he is for Boston right now. He walked a couple men in the first, then he gave up a three-run homer. That was pretty much the ballgame, as it turned out, but also because the Sox played so stupidly.

Giolito's line wasn't good--5.1 innings pitched and four earned runs, but again, three quarters of those runs were on one swing. Walks kill you. Solo home runs don't. Three-run jobs, though, are a problem.

What you could say was that he kept them in the game. He worked out of a couple jams. If he was your number four starter, this would have been a serviceable job.

The Sox had their chances. One involved a situation with Abraham Toro on second base. He was the player who made that outstanding play I wrote about a few days ago in what to me was the Sox' best victory of the year, because it was their best played game.

There was a liner to shallow-ish center field, and for some unknown reason--his head must have been somewhere else--Toro went halfway between second and third and kind of stood there. There was little to no doubt that this liner would be caught. It was, the center field threw to second, and Toro, who was in no man's land, got himself doubled up like he was a Little Leaguer who'd now get a lesson from the coach and wouldn't make this mistake again going forward.

How a big league ballplayer manages to make that mistake eludes me.

Jarren Duran had a nice catch in left, in which he crashed into the wall in foul ground, but you have to understand something about Duran's defense. As I also wrote, he's a bad defender, but fans and baseball people are unable to see this. Instead, they see a guy who runs fast after balls--as he did here--and think that means he's this amazing defender.

Wrong. Defense--even outfield defense--isn't about speed. Sure, speed can help with outfield defense (and can cover for some of your mistakes). But it's about jumps, routes, quickness. Awareness. Spatial awareness. Understanding angles. Geometry.

Duran being Duran also let a routine pop-up land in foul territory. Bad route, bad pace to the ball, and typical Duran defensive confusion.

It's this stuff that limits what the Sox can be. You can't win as much as you need to win playing this way, and you certainly can't beat good teams at the rate you'd need to be beat good teams to reach the ultimate goal.

You can beat bad teams that should be in Triple A instead of the big leagues, you can beat a floundering Rays team, but you're going to lose games like this against teams like the Cubs. You can't play like a squad of dumbasses and Little Leaguers.

I wasn't discouraged by Giolito. He competed. Reached back for extra velocity when he had to and got into the upper nineties. He's a big guy--6'6'', 245. Should be able to put power behind the ball. His line could have been a lot worse.

But that's kinda/sorta a big-ish spot: first game after the All-Star break for a team with a history of falling flat/faltering in the second half, with an active ten-game win streak. Can't put two guys on. You just can't do it. You can surrender a homer. Happens. But not two free passes. That sets a bad tone for the game, for the second half, for keeping this good run going.

Catcher Carlos Narvaez had one of the worst games to date of his career, striking out in big spots, leaving three runners in scoring position with two outs, allowing a stolen base, getting an error on catcher's interference.

It also baffled me that Alex Cora was all happy and light with Toro after his brain meltdown on the bases. You're not in his face? He's not sitting down? There's not a stern talking-to? It's just, "We'll get him next time" happy-clappy talk? What the hell is that?

They're such a loose ship. I picture a British frigate and some lax captain saying, "Extra rations of rum for all hands, including boys!"

This will sound weird, but if you were going to win one of the first two games of the second half and lose the other, I would have preferred for the Red Sox to have won yesterday and lost today. Again, it's tone.

Now, if you lose today, you've lost the series, you've lost momentum, you start doubting yourself and the merit of this little run you just had, and you potentially start sliding back to .500, which you'd then only be six game above, with another tilt against the Cubs upcoming, and then two more good teams in the Phillies and Dodgers.

I just felt like yesterday was a big game for the Red Sox, and they played in the manner that I think is most indicative of what they ultimately are. As always with that kind of thing, I hope I'm wrong, or, if I'm not wrong, this can somehow be gotten around.

The Red Sox' problems, in my view, are deep, because they're institutional. From the top to the bottom. Meaning, from the front office on down to what's taught--or not taught--in the minors. The manager is a problem. They have some guys who can play. They have some guys who can pitch. But in baseball, you need more than that.