I won’t begrudge you for feeling like the world is mostly a hopeless cesspool right now. It very much is!
But there are still things to get excited about, e.g.:
Yes, Paul Skenes, the best young pitcher of his generation, is in town tonight. And the Red Sox are countering with Payton Tolle, the best pitching prospect the organization has produced in years, making his MLB debut. Skenes comes into tonight’s game having compiled a league-high 6.2 bWAR and a league-low 2.07 ERA this season. Tolle, on the other hand, will be playing on his fourth level of professional baseball in 2025 alone, having skyrocketed up the system on the strength of a combined 3.04 ERA and 133 strikeouts over 91.2 innings pitched.
The Red Sox have won seven of their last eight games. They have a five-and-a-half game cushion in the Wild Card race and are still in the hunt for the AL East crown. Craig Breslow is, quite evidently, feeling it, and tonight looks like a heat-check for the second-year CBO.
Fenway Park is the center of the baseball world today. Let’s just hope the weather gods are as kind to us as the baseball gods have been.
Talk about what you want and be good to one another.
