After a successful opening home series against the Cardinals, the Red Sox quickly began looking like the Sox of 2024, where injuries are the norm, defense is sloppy, and the bats are cold. With rookie Richard Fitts on the mound, throwing an absolute stunner of a game, the Red Sox went up 2-0 in the top of the fifth. When the team came back on the field for the bottom of the sixth inning, the game took a turn for the worse as Fitts threw about one pitch, and then was taken out of the game. Later in the broadcast, it was revealed he was removed due to right shoulder pain, resulting in a nightmare scenario for this relatively young Boston team. With no one warming up in the pen, the Sox called upon Zack Kelly to step in and potentially work an inning while they could warm someone up to be ready for the bottom of the seventh. Things then went from bad to worse as Kelly gave up a leadoff walk to start the half-inning. As lead-off walks often do, it led to trouble for the Red Sox as Chicago’s Luis Robert Jr. stepped up to the plate. With one on and one out in the inning, Kelly gave up a 96 mph four-seamer right down the heart of the plate, which Robert Jr. often looks for in a pitch. He made solid contact and homered to right center, tying the game at two going into the seventh inning. An opportunity arose for the away pair of Sox in the top of the seventh when Ceddanne Rafaela singled to left to start the inning, then with one gone in Romy González who grounded to third, Rafael Devers came to the plate and was intentionally walked, bringing up Alex Bregman who ended up fouling out to the first baseman. All hope rested with lefty masher, Rob Refsnyder, who, against righty Mike Vasil, struck out looking to strand the runners on first and second.

With nothing going on for the Red Sox in the ninth, Cora called upon closer Aroldis Chapman to work in the knotted ninth inning. One thing that Cora consistently does, which often wields the same result as today, is calling upon the closer before it’s time to officially close out the game most likely results in your team not walking away with the win. This year we have seen it a few times now with Chapman, but throughout Kenley Jansen’s tenure with the Red Sox, you could see it as well. Alex Cora loves to use the closer in the bottom of the ninth in tied games, and it always seems to cost the team in the end. In addition to the whispers of the front office beginning to look for another catcher, perhaps they can add a setup guy for the bullpen to that shopping list as well, as they are in desperate need of some help with only a few relievers in the arm barn as of now being consistent. So, it’s the bottom of the ninth, and in comes Red Sox closer, Aroldis Chapman to hopefully keep things where they are and force the game to go into extra innings, which, if you are a team like the Chicago White Sox you would hopefully not need to do against a team the caliber of the Chicago White Sox. With a leadoff walk given to the player of the game, Luis Robert Jr., Chapman managed to strike out his next batter, first baseman Andrew Vaughn. Then, White Sox manager, Will Venable, substitutes young second baseman, Brooks Baldwin, for Joshua Palacios. Luis Robert Jr. then stole second, and Baldwin singled to left, allowing Robert Jr. to score and the White Sox to walk it off, winning their second game and taking two out of three from the Red Sox.

One bright spot amidst the recent struggles is seeing Trevor Story is starting to look like his old self again. In this series with the White Sox, he’s gone 3-8 with two stolen bases, in addition to the walk-off win against the Blue Jays. Despite having five strikeouts in his last thirteen at-bats, the moments where he’s shined offensively, like today when he got the offense going in the later innings, he has started to show signs of life at the plate.

There is not much going right for the Boston Red Sox right now, but hopefully, when ace Garrett Crochet takes the mound for the first time against his former team, there will be something to get excited about. Going into this season, the Red Sox were projected to be one of the hottest hitters in baseball, but now, they are barely playing .500 baseball. There comes a time in which the blame can move solely from the player being overeager at the plate, or whatever the case may be, and be shared upon the shoulders of the hitting coach. The younger players that make up the core of this team, Casas, Devers, Rafaela, and now even Wilyer Abreu, all seem to continue to rack up strikeouts with not much contact being put on the ball. Tomorrow’s finally an extremely important morale-boosting win for a team that went from first place to fourth; it is a must-watch. While it’s still early in the season, hopes were so high that this type of play from a team projected most likely to win the division is unacceptable. Here’s hoping that everyone takes a few more defensive reps tomorrow before the matinée, and can avoid the sweep.