When the Red Sox entered the All-Star break having just won two of three against top playoff rival Kansas City, the club seemed to be sitting pretty. Boston was a season-high 11 games over .500 at 53-42, was 1.5 games above the playoff cutline and according to FanGraphs had 51.8% odds of reaching the postseason.
Since then they’ve gone 12-17 entering Tuesday, and their odds have plummeted accordingly.
Following Monday night’s walk-off loss to the Houston Astros, the Red Sox playoff odds fell to 28.9%, their lowest mark since June 17 when they sat at 26.4%. Though the Red Sox have been struggling for more than a month now, the majority of their slip has actually come within the last two weeks.
Even after starting the second half with a 1-5 road trip in Los Angeles and Colorado, the Red Sox odds didn’t dip too far and bounced as high as 51.9% on Aug. 6 after the club took the first two games of its road series in Kansas City. On that day Boston’s odds were higher than Kansas City (51.7%) and Seattle (51.1%) and just barely behind Houston (53.5%), and the club had also recently brought in its trade deadline reinforcements, who were supposed to shore up the starting rotation, stabilize the bullpen and give the lineup more balance.
Those additions have not panned out.
Over the past 12 games entering Tuesday the Red Sox have gone 4-8, and during that stretch the pitching staff has allowed 6.1 runs per game and blown five leads in the seventh inning or later. Newly reacquired starting pitcher James Paxton suffered a partially torn calf and will miss most if not all of the rest of the season, and bullpen additions Lucas Sims and Luis Garcia have both struggled.
Sims, who gave up a one-run lead in the eighth on Monday night, has allowed six runs over 8.2 innings in his first nine appearances with the Red Sox, recording four holds while blowing two saves. One silver lining is all of that damage has come in three poor outings against Houston, and in his six appearances against other teams he’s posted 5.1 scoreless innings.
Garcia, on the other hand, hasn’t been good against anyone. Through his first seven appearances with the Red Sox he has allowed 12 earned runs over 7.2 innings, and only one of those outings has been scoreless.
While the Red Sox have sagged, their top competitors have surged. Houston won 10 of 11 games over that same stretch, including four wins over Boston, and their odds have ballooned from 53.5% to 91.2%. Kansas City has gone 7-3, including five straight wins entering Tuesday, and their odds are now a season-high 79.1%.
Seattle has gone 5-7 and watched its own odds fall to 16.5%, but that won’t be of much help to the Red Sox at this point.
Even if everything had gone well the Red Sox would have faced a challenging road to the playoffs, and now that path is becoming more precarious by the day. Entering Tuesday the Red Sox were 4.5 games out of the last AL Wild Card spot and also 7.5 games out of first place in the AL East. The Red Sox have approximately five weeks to make up that gap, and over the next few days they’ll have to survive the rest of their series in Houston before welcoming a red hot Arizona Diamondbacks team to Fenway Park this weekend.
But if the Red Sox can stop the bleeding and avoid losing any more ground, their schedule will finally soften up a bit.
After Arizona leaves town the Red Sox will play five games in four days against the last-place Blue Jays, followed by winnable series against the Tigers, Mets and White Sox. Boston absolutely has to make up ground over that stretch, because after that it’ll be right back into the teeth of the AL East with series against the Orioles, Yankees and Rays, the latter two coming on the road.
The Royals schedule will become much tougher over that same stretch, with series against the Phillies, Guardians, Astros, Guardians again, Twins and Yankees on the docket. Those teams are all currently in playoff position, so if the Royals stumble and the Red Sox can capitalize, they can still get back into the hunt.
The only way that will happen, however, is if the Red Sox bullpen can find a way to stop blowing so many late leads.
Since the All-Star break Boston’s bullpen collectively owns a ghastly 6.93 ERA, and of the nine relievers who have appeared in seven or more games, only Chris Martin and Cam Booser have ERAs below 4.00, and Booser is currently in Triple-A. The Red Sox should get Justin Slaten back from injury at some point and Liam Hendriks could potentially be a massive late-season addition, but they’ll only make a difference if everyone else can shape up.
The Red Sox playoff hopes aren’t dead yet, but their margin for error is getting thin. By letting so many winnable games slip away the Red Sox have put themselves in a hole, and now the odds are solidly stacked against them.