So what are the 2026 Boston Red Sox made of?
That’s what I keep asking myself, because the box scores and the standings tell two completely different stories right now and I can’t reconcile them. The Red Sox are 18-26, dead last in the AL East, nine games behind Tampa Bay with May not even over. By every measure that matters in the standings, this team is a disappointment.
But watch the actual games and something doesn’t add up.
Even with Garrett Crochet on the IL, the rest of the rotation has been effective. The bullpen has been one of the quiet success stories of the first two months. The defense is better. Chad Tracy hasn’t lost the clubhouse.
And yet the Red Sox are 18-26 because the offense has been absolutely allergic to doing anything—aka scoring runs—when it matters.
This pitching staff is getting buried under all this offensive misery, and it shouldn’t be.
Garrett Crochet is still a pig. He’s doing side sessions and working his way back from left shoulder inflammation, and the rotation does in fact miss him. But even without the ace, these starters have held this team together in games all season, and this week gave you two of the starkest examples of what that actually looks like.
On Wednesday, Sonny Gray came back from his own IL stint for a right hamstring strain and was dominant. Six innings, one run, two hits, six strikeouts against a Phillies lineup that had been on a tear—especially Kyle Schwarber, who’s been eating every pitcher alive in baseball, basically. Gray is 4-1 on the year and has been every bit the steady workhorse the Red Sox needed him to be. Ceddanne Rafaela’s pinch-hit two-run shot over the Monster bailed the offense out in the win, but Gray handed them a game they had no business losing.
Thursday was the one that stings. Ranger Suárez, who left after eight seasons in Philadelphia to sign a five-year, $130 million deal with Boston in January, took the mound against his former team and was something else. He retired the first 11 batters he faced. Held the Phillies scoreless through 5.1 innings. Didn’t allow a hit until the fifth. He left with the game tied at zero and the bullpen held Philadelphia through the seventh. Then Kyle Schwarber hit a two-run homer off Tyler Samaniego in the eighth and the Red Sox lost 3-1 after scoring exactly one run in the ninth. Suárez was as good as you can be in a start. He got nothing for it.
That’s the whole season in two games.
Connelly Early has quietly been one of the better stories on this staff too, his smooth delivery and pitch mix confusing lineups without needing to throw 97. Peyton Tolle is the dude who absolutely shoves at 97 and beyond with just create-a-player nasty stuff.
The bullpen might actually be the best unit on this roster. Garrett Whitlock has finally found his footing after years of bouncing between starter, closer, and long relief — a defined set-up role has let him flourish in a way he never quite could before. Aroldis Chapman, at 38, is still throwing absolute heat and is perfect in nine save chances. The Cuban Missile hasn’t slowed down. Justin Slaten is back with more life on his pitches than before he left. Tyler Samaniego, despite Thursday, has been one of the more underrated arms on this staff all year.
When this pitching staff takes the mound, the Red Sox have a real chance to win. That’s been true all year. The problem is entirely what happens when the offense comes up.
The Numbers Don’t Lie, They Just Sting
That’s how many times the Red Sox have lost this season while allowing three runs or fewer. Seven games where the pitching held a quality opponent to a manageable score, kept Boston close late, and got nothing in return.
Now expand that window: any low-scoring loss where both teams finished with four runs or fewer, games entirely decided by a handful of plate appearances, and the list grows to nine.
Nine games. Flip those close losses into close wins, not some fantasy offseason move but just winning the games a competent offense makes winnable, and the Red Sox aren’t 18-26. They’re 27-17. Tied with the Yankees for second in the AL East. Right in the conversation with Tampa Bay instead of watching them from nine back.
This feels like the insanity of last year, of losing so many one-run games that could have made that team feel much more like a juggernaut.
Nine games! From an offense that ranks 21st in batting average (.235), 23rd in on-base percentage (.314), and 29th in slugging (.353). Through 19 home games at Fenway, the Red Sox have scored just 56 runs — the lowest 19-game stretch at Fenway since the Green Monster was built in 1934. Their record at home is frankly embarrassing, but that’s another story.
The team is hitting .236 with runners in scoring position. That’s bad enough. But the individual numbers are where it gets ugly, and it’s both the frequency and the flavor of the failures that make this so hard to watch.
Jarren Duran is hitting .189 with men on base. Caleb Durbin, playing almost every day at third, is at .169. Trevor Story, supposed to be the middle-of-the-order veteran presence, is hitting .198 with RISP and drawing boos at Fenway after back-to-back strikeouts have become something of a calling card. His .520 OPS in those situations tells you everything about where he is right now. I’m sure he feels in a weird place hearing all the information from the front office on whether he’s in or out of this squad, but the amount of drama this team has is—yet again—another story.
Two guys who’ve held up are Willson Contreras at .253 and Ceddanne Rafaela at .276. Contreras is also the team leader in home runs (8) and RBI (23): the guy brought in as a complementary hopeful power bat has become the one to actually count on to drive in a run. Rafaela’s numbers are decent, but he’s a nine-hole hitter, not meant for the middle of the order.
The multitude of ways this Red Sox team continues to fail at scoring runs matters as much as the frequency. A leadoff double dies on three weak grounders. An obvious fastball count turns into a called strike three because the hitter was sitting breaking ball. A swing with a man on third and one out that looks more like someone trying to end a month-long drought single-handedly than just put the ball somewhere useful. Getting greedy trying to swipe a bat and either getting picked off or caught stealing. Multiple games this season where Boston stranded nine, ten, eleven runners while the pitching kept things close enough that any one of them scoring changed the outcome.
Fenway wakes up for half an inning and goes quiet before anyone can actually get excited.
Roman Anthony is hurt, and that matters. He was the one hitter in this lineup with the plate discipline and natural power to change games, the kind of presence who makes the whole order harder to pitch around. When he comes back healthy, hopefully he regains his form from 2025, because this team is a different animal when he’s in it. His eye and walk rate was still solid, it’s clear he had something physical coming into the season and that should hopefully be abated.
In the meantime, Wilyer Abreu is the most dangerous bat this lineup has. He leads the team in hits, he has real pop, and he’s the one guy opposing pitchers actually have to think twice about. Marcelo Mayer keeps flashing enough to make you think the breakthrough is one hot week away. Jarren Duran, when he locks in and goes back to attacking instead of guessing, can still change games — but he’s hitting .162 overall right now and the new load approach continues to be a work in progress.
The defense is genuinely better. Ceddanne Rafaela continues to be a platinum glove in center. His range alone saves runs that never show up anywhere. That part of the team, at least, is doing its job.
Truly bad teams announce themselves early. You stop expecting much, adjust, and start looking at draft positioning and talking about next year.
This team keeps refusing to do that. It keeps flashing enough competence to make the offensive failures feel personal. You go into every series thinking this is the week something clicks, and then watch the offense score one run in nine innings behind a guy who retired 11 straight Phillies.
Tampa Bay is 29-14 and running away with this division. The pesky Rays are back. Great. That’s the reality. But the other reality, the one that makes watching this team feel like a specific, targeted kind of torture, is that those nine games are sitting right there. Nine games not lost because the Red Sox got outclassed. Nine games lost because the offense couldn’t do the one thing the pitching kept begging it to do.
Chad Tracy has been a steady presence since taking over and the clubhouse clearly hasn’t fallen apart. But steady presence doesn’t score runs. At some point this offense has to look at those nine games and decide it wants them back.
Gray eats innings coming off the IL and doesn’t skip a beat. Suárez shuts down his former team for five innings and gets nothing for it. Chapman throws 99 at 38 years old. Whitlock finally has the role he was built for. Slaten comes in throwing harder than before. And Crochet is doing side sessions, working his way back, probably thinking about all the run support he’s not missing.
The pig will be back. The rest of the staff is holding the building up in the meantime. Someone else needs to show up to the trough.
