The most important person in Boston sports, punchless Sox, David Pastrnak's diminished goal-scoring prowess, and a guide to how the New England sports fan thinks
- 9 hours ago
- 5 min read
Sunday 4/5/26
The Red Sox dropped another one yesterday after winning their home opener the day before. so their record now stands at 2-6. The biggest issue is the offense. The pitching has been okay-ish overall. Sonny Gray went six on Friday, surrendering two earned runs, but that's misleading, as the hometown scorer apparently decided to hold those woeful error totals right where they are for the Sox defenders and ask the pitchers to pay the price for a bit. Rafaela dropped a routine liner in center, for instance, which was scored a triple, and Trevor Story did Trevor Story stuff at short, but it went down officially as an error-free day. Box scores, as revealing as they are, only tell you so much.
The Bruins haven't picked a great time to drop two in a row, but they should make the playoffs regardless. They didn't show up until it was too late against the Panthers the other night, and were ineffectual yesterday against a strong Lightning team. The Bruins tend to play to the level--or what they perceive is the level--of their competition this season, which they can ill afford to do, not being especially talented themselves. The Bruins actually led 1-0 in the third against Tampa Bay before surrendering three unanswered goals.
He's going to get 100 points in all probability for the fourth year in a row, but David Pastrnak's goal total will be down for the fourth year in a row. Way down. He'll finish with 30 or 31. I think this is a problem and indication of slippage. Not all points are created equally, and when Pastrnak is at his best, his goals and assists totals are closer to even. Why doesn't he score goals like he used to anymore?
A 30 goal, 70 assist player is different than a 50 goal, 50 assist player, and that stands out more on a team that struggles at times to score goals and doesn't have a reliable goal scorer ever since Morgan Geekie fell way off, which was a while ago now. Pastrnak's numbers are more in line with a center's than a winger's. Better for a winger to finish than set-up, all things being equal. Don't get me wrong--100 points is 100 points. But he should have more goals.
The Celtics continue to impress. Jayson Tatum keeps getting better. He had a triple double the other night, and was then an assist short of another in the following game. Jaylen Brown is pouring in the points. I'd said all along--since before the season started--that this team could come out of the East, and they may be able to do more than that and win a championship this season.
The playoffs are a different animal than the regular season, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did something no one, or very few people, would have thought possible when Tatum went down last spring, contrary to what I said shortly thereafter in these pages. I remember talking to someone right as the season started, saying the Celtics could emerge from the East, and they thought I was nuts. Granted, I thought they could be the fourth seed in the East and then take their chances from their against a fairly weak Eastern Conference field. But this has gone nearly the best that it could have.
If you asked Boston sports fans who the most important person is right now in Boston sports, who do you think they'd say? Most, I believe, would say Drake Maye. Some would say Mike Vrabel. A few (the people who only care about the Red Sox, that is) would say Roman Anthony. A few more would say Brown or Tatum, or both of them in tandem, given how it feels permissible to package them that way. (Side note: I think they'll always be linked in Celtics history in a way no two other players are. The Celtics have never really had a signature duo. Tatum and Brown's first names link them as well. They just go together.)
The best answer, though, might be Brad Stevens. He looks like a Hall of Fame executive to me. The Theo Epstein of the Boston Celtics, but maybe better. Red Auerbach would be in a tizzy over this guy.
UConn-Michigan men's college basketball final on Monday. College sports mean less and less. They aren't college sports. There's no connection between school and player. You're supposed to have an allegiance with your school that the players themselves don't have at all. But, everything in life gets worse now. That's how the world works presently, and maybe how it'll work indefinitely.
After UConn's comeback to send them to the Final Four, I saw a post from someone saying that everyone in New England must have gone crazy with that game-winning shot, which itself is crazily clueless. People just say things; they hardly ever know anything, or have any logical reason to say what they do.
The idea of people in Maine leaping up from their couches with joy because they're UConn basketball fans, or feel like they're represented in any manner by a school from UConn is just...it's just not reality. That isn't how it works. That isn't close to how it works. First off, most New Englanders don't think much of Connecticut, New England-wise, regarding it suspiciously given the cross loyalties it has going on with the whole tri-state thing. Are you part of that group or this group? If a New Englander has to ask, it isn't because they don't already know how they feel about you.
Secondly, New England doesn't much care about college sports. Boston couldn't care less at all. College sports are very niche in the Boston area. You have people who like Hockey East hockey, for example, but those are often people from hockey families who spend lots of time in hockey rinks, and sometimes fairly educated grads from the Northeast hockey power schools with rich traditions. BU and BC especially, Maine to a degree as well.
A person living in Bangor will believe every bit as much as a Bostonian does that the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics are their representatives, so to speak, sports-wise, as does the resident of Montpellier, Nashua, and Woonsocket, but UConn basketball will mean no more to those people than Texas football does. They see it as having nothing to do with them, let alone somehow representing them.
Who cares about UConn basketball in New England? People who went to UConn and some people in Connecticut. No one else. That's not how New Englanders work. You can live quite a distance from Fenway Park right up near Canada, or in walking distance, and you will think that the Red Sox are your team, each to the same degree. The "Boston" might as well be "New England," like it is for the Patriots.
This, to me, is exactly how it should be, as a New Englander. And if you live in New England and aren't this way, barring mitigating factors (like you grew up in New York rooting for the Giants, for example, so you should remain loyal to your team even if you've lived here for forty years), then I wouldn't consider you a New Englander, which is different than happening to live in New England.
Jumping for joy because of UConn! Come on! That's not a New England thing.
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