The 2025 Boston Red Sox: Time to reassess?

Thursday 7/10/25

The Red Sox have won six in a row and the World Series talk is back on with their fans.

Or should I say, fans of a certain age?

People who grew up with technology as we now think of technology and social media are typically stupider than those who didn't. Less educated. Less informed. What's real matters less than what feels best, which for them takes the place of what's real, as though these things that aren't real were. Then they all play along with each other.

The other day, I saw a post in which someone said that the Patriots were "literally a laughingstock for three decades" before Brady got there. Everyone commenting agreed. This has less to do with not being there--almost everything that has ever happened has happened without you being there, which doesn't mean you can't know about many of those things--and simply not knowing things, which is different.

Pre-Brady, the Patriots had a lot of NFL success compared to most teams. They were almost always interesting, save at the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s.

The 1970s Patriots were cool once they got John Hannah. That 1976 team could have won the Super Bowl and may have done so minus a bad call. The Patriots had Hall of Fame players throughout their history. An exciting player like Stanley Morgan who should be in the Hall of Fame and who'll get there someday, I believe. They had the best offensive lineman ever.

In 1985, they went to the Super Bowl by winning three games on the road. They upset what people through was a great team in the Dolphins, and did so in a very hard place to play. Okay, they got throttled by the Bears in the Super Bowl, but it almost didn't matter. How many teams in NFL history would have beaten those Bears? Ten teams? Five teams? No teams? Sometimes you have an improbable, awesome run, and the run is the thing. That was true of the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, the 1959 Chicago White Sox, the 1967 Boston Red Sox, the 1993-94 Vancouver Canucks. Beloved teams.

I said the Patriots were bad and boring at the end of the '80s and into the '90s, but come 1993, they had probably the most charismatic coach in NFL history in Bill Parcells and a young, gunslinger of a QB in Drew Bledsoe who, despite what people think of him now, was exciting. A few years later, they're back in the Super Bowl.

Many NFL teams would kill for the Patriots' pre-Brady history.

Had I posted all of this, you know that it would have been "down voted" by scores of people, because these things are all true, and people hate the truth. The truth rains on their ignorance party/parade. Then they can't just talk out of their ass, without risk of embarrassment or exposure, and people hate not being able to do that and anyone who keeps them from doing it.

Because we're a world of insecure morons now. Which makes us more unhappy than we've ever been. And yet, we do nothing about this, and, rather, endeavor to become even stupider and more cowardly, like we're willingly working to get more miserable each day than the last.

Sounds like a good plan. By the same token, were I to raise some points re: the Red Sox that might put a damper on some things, there would be much acrimony.

As it stands:

The Red Sox are now in that third Wild Card spot. Surging! Bregman is coming back this weekend! Things are looking up!

Should we reassess?

Here's what I would say.

Bregman's return: This is great. Should be a big lift. Offensively, defensively. He's motivated to do well, opt out, get paid more by some other team, and leave Boston. The better he does now, the better all of that will go for him.

Yoshida returned last night. Red Sox fans don't care much about this player, but I think he's highly useful. Puts the ball in play, can hit .285, .290 for you. The Red Sox don't really have another hitter like that. Okay, he's not this great star that you imported, like people wanted him to be. But again: Useful player. Useful players help you get playoff spots and win in the postseason.

Reason for optimism: Aspects of the rotation. Crochet: Better than advertised. The guy. Bello: Is he putting it together? Complete game the other day. Been solid. Looking more poised than in the past. Giolito: Who would have expected this? Also solid. If these three starters keep up what they're doing, you have something there. Chapman: Better than you could have expected. Feel good when he comes on.

I said the Sox needed to sweep the woeful Rockies, and they did. The Rockies are this season's Chicago White Sox. The pits. A Triple A team. The Red Sox routed them, as they should have.

Next the Sox have the Rays at Fenway for four. Let's see how that goes. It would be just like the Sox, having gotten four games above .500, to turn around and get swept. I don't think they'll be swept, though. But if they could take this series, that would be encouraging. The Rays are struggling some themselves. Take three out of four, and move ahead of them in the standings.

But...

I don't think you can win playing the way the Sox play. They are too deficient fundamentally. They make so many stupid errors. Mental errors. Ceddanne Rafaela shows some promise, but he plays recklessly in the outfield and on the base paths. He runs into outs. He can't hit a cutoff man to save his life, it seems. Or would rather die than do so. ("Eternal glory to the strength of my arm!"). Hell, this guy can't remember how many outs there are in the inning. Multiple times in a game.

There's just too much of that kind of thing with these Red Sox. They don't know how to play. They don't think the game well. Granted, you don't have to be anything notable to make the playoffs now. And in this year's American League, you don't have to be what you would in other seasons, I guess. I find the three Wild Card thing is silly. The standard has been lowered too much. Making the baseball playoffs should mean something and one thing that was cool about baseball is that it meant more than making the playoffs did in the other sports--the NHL and NBA especially.

Then again...you may need like 90 wins for that third Wild Card spot when it's all said and done.