The latest in a long line of disgraceful factoids surrounding the 2026 Red Sox remained in tact on Tuesday night: Since Chad Tracy took over as interim manager back on April 25th, the Red Sox have not won a single game at Fenway Park in which the opponent scored more than one run. They’re 4-12 overall in Tracy’s 16 home games at the helm, have lost every single series started east of the Appalachians during that time, and continue to stumble into inefficient oddities at the plate on a near daily basis not seen since one of the Roosevelt administrations.
Speaking of which, Tom Caron announced on the NESN postgame show that this is the Red Sox’ worst home record to start a season (9-20) in 94 years. In case you’re wondering, that 1932 Red Sox team lost a franchise worst 111 games, and also fired their manager (Shano Collins) just after he reached double digit wins.
Combine all the ingredients in this sobering stew of suck, and isn’t it rather appropriate that Chad Tracy’s pet project, Mickey Gasper, made the final out of this game? On the surface, Gasper is a feel good story making the most out of his callup, batting .333 and seizing the majority of the starts behind the plate in recent days. Breaking it into even more detail, he’s collected 18 hits in just 60 plate appearances since getting the nod. All of this sounds nice, until you realize exactly zero of those hits have come in his 12 highest leverage plate appearances on the season.
There’s a reason for this: Mickey Gasper can’t hit high leverage arms! He’s not good enough, and he shouldn’t be taking the final at bat of a game at Fenway Park for the Red Sox down by two in the ninth inning. This isn’t meant to be a knock on him, because to his credit, Gasper’s actually taken some of the better looking at bats on the team in recent weeks against low and medium leverage guys (that is meant to be a knock on everybody else). But if you’re a big market team and your roster is weak enough that Mickey Gasper is getting the lion’s share of the plate appearances when his bat comes up in high leverage moments, something went seriously wrong when constructing the roster.
He’s a 30-year-old who has nearly ten times as many minor league plate appearances (a shade under 2,000) as major league ones (less then 200). Despite this, he’s both clearly the hottest hitting catcher of the three underwhelming backstops on the roster, and the right guy to bat in that spot thanks to a hideously undermanned bench.
And you know what’s specifically frustrating about this roster construction tonight? This is exactly the type of game the “run prevention Red Sox” should be winning if the formula is going to work. Connelly Early didn’t have it on the mound, but he battled enough to keep the team in the game before the bullpen froze Baltimore’s run total at four. With just a little bit thump at the plate, this is the type of Fenway fray where if Red Sox string together even a couple of consecutive good at bats against a mediocre opponent, you get the crowd buzzing, and probably end up kicking the door down in an ugly but satisfying 5-4 win. No dice with this listless lineup.
Instead, we got to watch some of the thump that was on the free agent market last winter show up to Fenway in a road uniform and prove that yes, it’s still possible to hit home runs here from right handed batter’s box. Here’s Pete Alonso with some of that sweet, sweet right handed pop the Red Sox so sorely lack launching a ball Over The Monster:
Meanwhile, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, a right handed bat the Red Sox did sign over the winter, had this to say following the game when asked about the discrepancy between the home and road records for the club:
“I just feel like on the road we’re a very close-knit team. When we come home, there’s just a lot of people. It’s different. It’s just a different vibe at home. We’ve got to figure out a way to make it small like how it is on the road. I just feel like at home we see a lot of people we don’t know that are around this area.”
I’m sure there’s more layers coming from these comments in the coming days because that’s a statement that feels ripe with details waiting to be unearthed. If anything, we need more people in the clubhouse tomorrow, not less.
Ceddanne Rafaela: 2-4 at the plate, and the only man in the Sox lineup with multiple hits tonight. He continues to blossom by being more selective at the plate.
Greg Weissert: Faced five batters, got all of them out, and struck out three. Since he only seems to pitch well without men starting on base, maybe he should open for Brayan Bello?
Tyler Samaniego: Certainly not the sharpest he’s looked, and he got some serious help from the umpires on that call that went to New York and wasn’t overturned, but he sucked up two innings of work and didn’t allow a run. If the Red Sox offense didn’t suffer from narcolepsy when it’s time to rally, there’s a version of this game where he might have gotten the win.
Masataka Yoshida: 0-4 with three strikes outs and an OPS down to .683. And this is from a guy you pretty much have to use at DH because he’s a terrible fielder, can’t throw, and has below average speed on the bases. If he’s not going to start hitting, I’m not sure what he’s still doing here.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa: Came to the plate three times tonight and made four outs.
Lengthy Replay Reviews: Another bad night for replay as the process not only failed to get a call right that could have cost the Orioles the game, but it took several minutes just to incorrectly let us know that the following call stands.
As you might imagine, Orioles Twitter wasn’t pleased in real time:
It’s Pete Alonso’s two run jack (as seen above). Not just because it shoved the right handed power the Red Sox don’t have in their face, but also because it gave the Orioles the lead and provided what turned out to be the winning run.
