Picked-up pieces while acknowledging that the Red Sox are who we thought they were . . .
⋅ Hope you enjoyed that 32-5 midsummer Red Sox thrill ride. The record-setting surge saved the season but might be a bad thing for your franchise in the long run. My fear is that it’ll make Fenway Sports Group fat and happy — content to be the ninth-best team in baseball, a team that makes a lot of money but has no real chance to compete in October.
At this sad hour, your Red Sox are . . .
⋅ A team that has won exactly one playoff series in the last eight seasons. A team that has not played a postseason game at Fenway in the last five seasons.
⋅ A team beholden to Driveline and analytics.
⋅ A team that wouldn’t pay Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman, or Pete Alonso because there are more cost-efficient ways to win.
⋅ A team that sells run prevention then allows 18 runs in two playoff games.
⋅ A team that took a victory lap in late September, extending a novice manager (who had an abysmal postseason) and an overthinking baseball boss three years each.
Like it or not, 32-5 ultimately disguised four-plus months of poor play and allowed the Sox to pat themselves on the back instead of admitting that 2026 demonstrated regression rather than progress.
The 2026 Red Sox scored 97 fewer runs than they did last year. They also won fewer regular-season games and had a much worse showing in the Wild Card Series.
And now, because of 32-5, they can steer clear of future spending and insist that no sluggers is no problem. Moving forward, all they have to do is call the WooSox and turn the team over to Andruw Monasterio, Anthony Seigler, and Mickey Gasper. It’ll work every time. It’ll fill Fenway and NESN can pump the team’s tires on the “Road to Soxtober” (a road that went off a cliff before Oct. 1).
Who needs overpaid sluggers like Devers or Bregman (10 playoff appearances in 10 seasons) when you can have gritty Caleb Durbin?
Swell. That certainly helps FSG’s coffers, but the Sox again went to the playoffs with a Mendoza line nine featuring MLB’s worst September offense (.219), then got embarrassed in a wild-card rout, getting outscored, 18-2, in two games while failing to get a single base hit with a runner on base. Seven hits. Two runs.
The 32-5 run disguised the fact that the salami-bat Sox were a .440 baseball team (55-70) for three-quarters of their season. Only one of those numbers is sustainable. And it’s not 32-5.
Meanwhile, in subpar 2026 seasons, Bregman and Devers had more home runs and RBIs than any member of the Red Sox. Alonso — deemed too pricey last winter — hit 43 homers with 113 RBIs.
None of them played for the Red Sox this year, and that’s on the folks who built this roster.
Data dependency is another problem. Veterans Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras made not-so-subtle comments about this in their midnight confessions in New York.
What made manager Chad Tracy lift Payton Tolle (83 pitches) and Gray (70 pitches) so quickly in the Bronx? Was it really the manager’s decision, or were Breslow’s minions calling the shots?
And why go with Erik Miller both times? Was that to justify Breslow’s trade-deadline deal?
In his final nine regular-season appearances, starting Aug. 31, Miller allowed seven runs on seven hits and nine walks over 8⅓ innings! His ERA was 7.56.
So he gets the first call on back-to-back nights in the fifth inning of 1-0 playoff games?
Miller was lit up both times — surrendering a homer to Ben Rice on his third pitch in Game 1, then back-to-back singles to his first two batters (one an RBI hit) in Game 2.
The curious moves screamed “analytics,” plus the notion of Breslow trying to show off his deadline deal. It’s obvious the moves were not well-received in the Sox’ clubhouse.
“Miller Time” brings us back to the damage done by 32-5. Not doubt it was the sugar high from that streak that bought Breslow’s extension and resulted in Tracy getting “interim” stricken and earning him a contract as skipper through 2029.
The Red Sox are a storied franchise, part of the fabric of our community. Following the Sox takes one through lots of fanboy fervor, corporate gaslighting, and NESN-fueled nonsense. It’s at once entertaining and exhausting.
Now, on top of everything else, there’s the looming prospect of an MLB lockout.
Mercy.
⋅ Quiz: 1. Name the first three Patriots receivers to achieve a 1,000-yard season during the Tom Brady era; 2: Name the four professional sports teams that drafted baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield in 1973 (answers below).
⋅ Is Trevor Story the new “Cooler”?
⋅ Drake Maye’s confidence appears shot and he seems to be thinking too much (15 turnovers in seven games will do that), but this is not Mac Jones, 2.0. Let’s remember that Maye was MVP runner-up and led the Patriots to the Super Bowl at the age of 23 in his second season last year.
⋅ USA Today this past week ranked the Celtics the 10th-best team in the NBA. Clearly, their entire season is going to be a referendum on the Jaylen Brown trade. It’s just never going away. Count me as one still amazed that Brown and Jayson Tatum — teammates in Boston for nine seasons — evidently never spoke after the deal went down July 1. How bad was it when they were together here? Was this deal done to get them away from one another?
⋅ New Celtics guard Mike Conley is entering his 20th NBA season. Paul George is going into his 17th.
⋅ Wilyer Abreu is a legit Gold Glove right fielder, but he needs to slow things down out there. His strong throws go off line when he rushes.
⋅ Time to retire the stupid Wally head after Red Sox home runs. It’s an especially bad look when you’re getting blown out, 9-0 and 9-2, in back-to-back playoff games in New York. And speaking of bad looks, it took Contreras 30.09 seconds to hot-dog his way around the bases when he homered off Max Fried in the sixth inning Wednesday. Imagine taunting a team that’s kicking your butt when your own team just went 26 consecutive scoreless playoff innings over two seasons.
⋅ The White Sox advanced to the American League Division Series with a lot of help from former Red Sox star Andrew Benintendi, plus Kyle Teel, Chase Meidroth, and Braden Montgomery — three of the players Boston dealt to acquire Garrett Crochet.
⋅ How could the Patriots issue Rob Gronkowski’s No. 87 to Romeo Doubs?
⋅ Giants coach John Harbaugh after releasing Odell Beckham Jr. this past week: “There’s no deep conversation, no conspiracy theory . . . I’m not hiding anything. It’s not Watergate.” Beckham played 20 snaps and had zero catches on one target in New York’s first three games.
⋅ Speaking of New York football, the Jets take a 20-game interception drought into Sunday’s game at Chicago. Their last pick was by Ashtyn Davis against the Dolphins in the 2024 season finale.
⋅ USC’s Lincoln Riley gets no forgiveness for his in-game and postgame cluelessness after one of his players made a dirty hit then celebrated an Oregon player being carted off the field last Saturday.
⋅ Local baseball scout John Kosciak, a best pal of the late Joe Morgan, gets a lot of credit for steering Yankees scout Matt Hyde in the direction of Cam Schlittler. Kosciak and Morgan for decades were fixtures behind the backstops at Bay State Conference games across our region.
⋅ A local reporter speaking to a Boston University journalism class was stunned when most of the students had never heard of Roger Clemens. Is that on us, or them?
⋅ Mookie Wilson, who operates a barbecue stand during Mets games at Citi Field, is opening a bigger place near the New York state capitol building in Albany.
⋅ I’m guessing that Missouri senator Eric Schmitt is not a big basketball fan. The Missouri legislator’s “gotcha” stunt during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday should give “Saturday Night Live” material for weeks. It was left for Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar to explain to Schmitt that Iowa’s Big Ten basketball team is the “Hawkeyes,” which is not the same as the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA.
⋅ Good news for Bill Chisholm and friends: According to the Wall Street Journal, the buyers of the Lakers are telling prospective investors that they expect to nearly triple the team’s valuation within 10 years. The Lakers’ sale price is reportedly $12.5 billion.
⋅ Robert Parish has partnered with Pittsfield cannabis company Canna Provisions.
⋅ The Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation and The Huddle will honor the late Chuck Cooper (first Black player drafted in the NBA) Nov. 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Auerbach Center at Boston Landing. For tickets and sponsorship opportunities, contact Melissa McGlashan at mmcglashan@thehuddle.org.
⋅ Congratulations to longtime Barnstable girls’ volleyball coach Tom Turco, who picked up his 800th career victory this past week.
⋅ Quiz answers: 1. Troy Brown (1,199, 2001), Wes Welker (1,175, 2007), Randy Moss (1,493, 2007); 2. San Diego Padres, first round; Atlanta Hawks, fifth round; Utah Stars (ABA), sixth round; Minnesota Vikings, 17th round.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.