If was to say that the Red Sox would be one and a half games back of the division lead in August before you the season, every Red Sox fan would take that right? They will be competing for a Wild Card spot and hopefully the division until the end but this sets up for an all time collapse. Fans today would not take a Wild Card spot and say that is a disappointment, seeing what the team could do the first four months of the season. The Red Sox did little to nothing to address the glaring needs of the team and now is relying on Chris Sale to be as dominant as he was in 2018 to help fix the pitching rotation and woes of this team. They also got OF Kyle Schwarber from the Nationals for RH pitcher Aldo Ramirez. He is a great power hitter with 25 homeruns but is still on the IL with a hamstring injury. He is still a couple weeks away so he won’t be returning in the near future. He will still have to go on a rehab assignment in Worcester before he is even called up to the Red Sox too. They are expecting him to play first base for Bobby Dalbec but I think he is going to have to play the outfield, with Jarren Duran’s struggles at the major league level. His offensive production isn’t warranting an everyday spot in the lineup and needs to do something quickly to raise his .150 average. They tried fixing the bullpen by acquiring Hansel Robles from the Twins and Austin Davis from the Pirates but with their 4.80 and 5.23 ERAs respectively, I do not see them as players to get them over the hump. Chaim Bloom did not do enough at the deadline to fix their glaring needs at starting pitching, relief pitching, and first base. I do not want to hear the luxury tax was an issue too. If you are a fan and management is still feeding you that they can’t spend, I don’t get that either. You are the Boston Red Sox. You should be able to have a top 5 payroll and money should never be an issue. They had to deal Mookie Betts for the luxury tax, what more do you want.
Around the MLB at the trade deadline, all major names went to a different team expect Trevor Story (stayed with the Rockies). The Giants got Kris Bryant, White Sox got Craig Kimbrel, Rays got Nelson Cruz, Blue Jays got Jose Berrios, Mets got Javier Báez, Dodgers got Trea Turner & Max Scherzer, and the Yankees got Anthony Rizzo & Joey Gallo. Before I get to the AL East, the Dodgers continue to build their “super team”. If they do not win the World Series this year, it is a huge disappointment. Even if you do not have Trevor Bauer for the rest of the season, you still have Scherzer, Walker Buehler, and Clayton Kershaw as their 3 starters and Tuner to play second base because their lineup is too good as it is. It is World Series or bust for the Dodgers and whoever comes out of the American League will lose to them. The AL is wide open this year and every team is taking advantage of it. As you can see, everyone in the AL East got better (excluding the rebuilding Orioles). The Rays got Cruz to fix their glaring need of a power hitting DH, the Jays got a reliable pitcher with control, and the Yankees got more firepower for their offense. The Jays look like the scary young team that they were meant to be and I think next year is their time to finally move into one of the favorites coming out of the AL with their franchise player, Vladimir Guerrero JR. The Yankees still believe that they are a contender, continuing to stack their lineup but not addressing their starting pitching woes. I was not in the camp of trading for Anthony Rizzo to play first base for the Red Sox but he has proved me wrong so far. Rizzo has got a hit in every Yankee game so far, hitting 5 for 9 with 2 homeruns, and helping them to sweep the Marlins. Rizzo is a healthy bat that will defintly help them at first base, while Schwarber is still on the IL and the Red Sox still struggling. Then you get to the Rays where Cruz will help them for their playoff push and currently are leading the division by 1 and half games because of the recent series with the Red Sox.
The series over the weekend between the Red Sox and Rays was a complete disaster for the Red Sox and exposed them for the overachievers that they are. They currently have the biggest losing streak that they had all year (4). The first two games of the series were terrible, but the Red Sox showed some life on Sunday. They battled back all the way to the ninth inning but JD Martinez could not get it done. He left five men on base and was main reason that they lost that game, in my opinion. However, he did have an impressive sliding catch in left field that saved some runs. The Red Sox have to do something fast because the Rays are continuing their dominance with their great bullpen and the Yankees seem like they have caught fire with their trades. The Rays and Red Sox play each other ten more times so there is no need to panic yet, but it looks bad at the moment. I hope that the Red Sox can still fight for the division until the end, but it doesn’t look good. A nightmare scenario for me would the Red Sox would get leapfrogged by the Yankees in September and lose Wild Card contention all together. They have a five and half game lead on the Yankees so it shouldn’t happen but you never know with two months still left to play. I just hope that there won’t be a too much of a collapse because this team screams like the collapse of 2011. I also hope that the team breaks their Vegas win total of 80.5 and wins my future bet because although they only need to win 18 more games for that to happen, that would be a complete horror show for me since I thought it was a lock a few weeks ago, and money is at stake. With the Red Sox limping to the trade deadline, not doing much at the deadline, and being swept by the Tampa Bay Rays, the upcoming series on Tuesday versus the Tigers is one of the most important series they have had in awhile…