The Red Sox Haven't Won A Game Since Pablo Sandoval Showed Up
The Red Sox haven’t won a game since Pablo Sandoval showed up. I’m not saying it’s related, but it’s one thousand percent related.
Boston was 7-2 on their road trip with two games to go against the worst team in the division. Everything was coming up Red Sox, and then Sandoval showed up, Andrew Benintendi went down with a knee injury, and the Red Sox have lost all three games since. Three games — that’s all it took to go from fans saying, “Wow, this team is CRUISING,” to “FUCK, this team is shitting the bed.” I would say make sure Sandoval stays away from now on, but the damage might already be done. Ugh. Just listening to him talk after taking ground balls at the Trop gave me flashbacks to 2015, how shitty of a season that was, and how he played such a huge role in that, no pun intended.
And then you’ve got all these beat writers talking about how many pounds he’s lost again, and fawning over how great he looks. Here we go again with the 17% body fat bullshit. A couple days before that, you had John Henry saying that the Red Sox need Sandoval next year. Yeah, they need him to get the fuck out of here. Yoan Moncada is the third baseman of the future, and designated hitters need to actually be able to hit. There’s no place for Sandoval in this organization now, or ever. See ya later. End rant.
Steven Wright made his return to the Red Sox rotation for the first time since he injured his shoulder, diving back into first base on a pickoff attempt in which the ball didn’t even leave the pitcher’s hand. It’s getting a little annoying that I’ve gotta hear about humidity percentage and the fuckin’ heat index every time this guy pitches. Yeah, he got his shit rocked in the first inning, but I’m sure it had way more to do with rust, and the Royals actually being good, than the weather. Wright put the Red Sox in a 5-0 hole in the first inning, but gave them five shutout innings the rest of the way to prevent what could’ve been a long ass night for the bullpen, and that’s the last thing the Red Sox need.
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Wright was part of the problem, sure, but this Red Sox offense somehow managed to score three runs on FIFTEEN hits. How the fuck do you even do that? I think it’s more impressive to score three runs on 15 hits than it is to score 10 runs on 15 hits. You have to be a special kind of suck to score three runs on 15 hits. Out of those 15 hits, only four of them came with runners in scoring position.
The Red Sox went 4-for-15 with runners in scoring position, and left a grand total of 12 runners on base. That’s how. You see 15 hits, and probably assume that everybody was swingin’ it on Friday night, but that wasn’t the case, either. Mookie Betts went 5-for-5, Xander Bogaerts went 3-for-5, and Dustin Pedroia went 4-for-4. The rest of the lineup went 3-for-26 with 11 strikeouts. Two of those strikeouts came with the bases loaded, Boston’s favorite situation to hit in all year. The Red Sox are hitting .095 with a .230 OPS with the bases loaded this month. Good stuff.
One of those bases loaded strikeouts came from Jackie Bradley Jr., one of three strikeouts for him on the night. It’s hard not to notice that Bradley has been struggling for a while now. Since his 29-game hitting streak ended on May 26, he’s hitting .225 with a .735 OPS. Out of the 51 outfielders who qualify since May 26, Bradley ranks 50th in batting average, 37th in on-base percentage (.310), and 30th in slugging (.426).
People FREAKED out when I did this on Twitter last night, but I was honestly just curious to see what his season has looked like if you take out the 29-game hitting streak, and figured I’d share what the numbers were. It’s interesting to me. People responded by saying stuff like, “If you take out all of David Ortiz’s home runs, then he has zero home runs,” and “If you take out any player’s best 29 games then their numbers are probably terrible.” Yeah, not the same thing, and not what I was trying to do. I was simply trying to see what his season has largely been without the one-month hot streak. If you don’t think that’s interesting to look at, then just don’t look at it. Pretty simple.
During Bradley’s 29-game hitting streak, he hit .415 with a 1.271 OPS. In the 93 other games he’s played this year, he’s hitting .227 with a .720 OPS. That’s not saying he’s a .227 hitter this year. He’s not. He’s hitting .269 with an .844 OPS. Just because his best production of the year was all clumped together into one month does not mean that it should be discounted. That’s ridiculous. But if you think it’s irrelevant to look at what his numbers outside of one hot month have been, then I’ve got a brick outside Gate B to sell you.
Final score: Royals 6, Red Sox 3