Vibes at Fenway are lower than an already eliminated September night game.

Again, everything the Sox do is built around xwOBA. Their start to this season does not get more damning than this. Bad.

Building a team with power as a secondary concern theoretically means wanting to be awesome at BB%, K%, Whiff%, and Chase% to keep the line moving.
So far, Durbin is the only Sox player in the top 100 in that combination of skills. Duran, Narvaez, Story rank 258, 259, 277 of 278.

Red Sox offense

The Sox are down to a team batting 89 wRC+ and 29th-ranked isolated power. Someone please hit a homer.

Red Sox are on Apple TV only tonight.

Free 30 day trial: redeem.services.apple/roktappletv-...

Activate it, go to iPhone settings, apple account, subscriptions, cancel trial and you won’t be charged in 30 days.

Juan Valera, one of the Sox top pitching prospects, just threw a pitch, walked behind the mound, bent down, and was removed from the game in the second inning.

Good day for an off day tomorrow, then the quality of opposing pitching really ramps up on the homestand: Mize, Skubal, Valdez, Flaherty, Gil, Fried, Schlittler ... plus god knows what bullshit McGonigle is going to be on hitting at Fenway.

Big day for Story with a HR, 2B, BB, and 5 RBI.

wRC+ 22 → 50

That's the first MLB homer allowed by Early

I found a positive stat. With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, the Red Sox have had 27 opportunities and scored the man 19 times, 70%, ranked #1 in MLB, nbd.

Red Sox positional rank by WAR
2nd - 1B
5th - RF
11th - CF
13th - LF
16th - DH
22nd - 2B
23rd - C
26th - SP
27th - RP
29th - 3B
30th - SS
25th - Total

like when they all line up and get run over by one?

Mick Abel is legitimately embarrassing the Red Sox tonight.

8 K, 11 GB, 2 FB, 1 LD

Have you ever watched 1 inning of a guy for the first time and think holy fuck

Leighton Finley

www.mlb.com/glossary

xERA is just xwOBA but in era form.

wRC+ is just woba, adjusted for league average.

woba and xwoba are the most important to google, most good stuff is based off those.

A substantial amount of Sonny Gray's ability to be good is tied to his strikeouts. He had made 79 consecutive starts with 4+ Ks; in his last two starts, he's had 3 and 2. It would be nice to see the dominance start to emerge tonight. So far, 152nd/162 in Whiff%.

Savant has not liked the Sox pitching so far. Moran and Slaten are the only pitchers with an xERA under 3; Gray, Coulombe, and Chapman are the only others under 5. BOS, STL, COL, WSH are the only teams with below league average wOBA & xwOBA in both first 10 days and next 10 days.

The Sox get crushed when they don't come through in big spots, and they were miserable to start the year, but in their last 1/3 of high-leverage plate appearances they've dug themselves out of a grave (1 K, 20 PA).

Crochet's game score last night was -8, which is the worst start of 2026 (Michael Lorenzen -1). It would have been the third worst of 2025 (Bradley Blalock -14, Jesus Luzardo -11, and Tanner Houck -10). No starts were worse in 2024.

I'm guessing he had his whole start analyzed by the end of the game. Probably just wanted to see what the media was going to say.

Crochet asked the reporters how much his velocity was down and scoffed when told it was a little over 1 mph. Unconcerned. He's mad about his location so far this year and has felt lucky through his first few starts with it.

he had an average 4sm velo under 95 once last april and once last may, 94.9 tonight

Crochet threw 87% fastballs (4sm, sink, cut) tonight.

Other times he has done similar: 3/26/26, 3/27/25, 4/2/25, 4/8/25, 4/13/25

With Boston, he's thrown 86% fastballs in March/April and 77% from May 1st onwards.

Maybe a perfect storm of bad day & Twins dialed in on the plan.

Every Crochet pitch is down 1.2+ mph, only 3 whiffs on 24 swings, 8 hard-hit balls, 3 barrels, 2 homers, 3 walks, and a HBP. Holy fuck.

His contract has been horrible so far, as seen below.

Starting on June 1 last year, he hit .270/.346/.415 the rest of the way, which would be nice if he could replicate it. He's hitting way too many grounders right now; he basically needs to be a walk + hbp + bloop master.

15 games in

Contreras +23% win probability added, +3.1 runs above expected today. What a weekend.

Bello has basically eliminated 4-seam usage this year and his ground ball dominance has returned. He's currently at 60% grounders, which ranks 3rd/134 starting pitchers.

NESN is so embarrassing and has been for years, today might take the cake