Play Ball! Boston Red Sox

Sure, Boston Red Sox fans are disappointed. Their team has finished last in the American League East the past two seasons and three of the past four.

But at least the Red Sox are consistent. Got to give them that.

They were 78-84 each of the past two seasons. The Red Sox were 39-42 on the road last year and 39-42 at home.

On the plus side, they were 9-4 vs. their arch-rival New York Yankees. But they were 15-24 against the rest of the division. That includes 2-11 against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom was fired near the end of the 2023 season. He was replaced by former Red Sox pitcher Craig Breslow.

Will the Red Sox rebound in 2024 under Manager Alex Cora, who guided the team to a 108-54 record and a World Series championship in 2018? That was his first season on the job.

Going back to the late 1990s, only two teams have won four World Series. That would be the Yankees and Red Sox.

It’s now been 15 years for the Yankees and six for the Red Sox.

If Red Sox fans are desperate for glimmers of positivity, they can look at other last-place teams in the American League last year. The Oakland A’s lost 112 games and the Kansas City Royals lost 106 games.

Last is still last.

But at least the Red Sox weren’t as bad as the A’s and Royals. Everything unraveled last year, particularly down the stretch.

Veteran Red Sox beat writer Ian Browne pointed to what he described as the season’s defining moment in a season recap story on mlb.com .

On Aug. 28, reliever Kyle Barraclough entered a game in the fifth inning. In 4 1/3 innings, he gave up 10 runs on 11 hits and five walks in a 13-5 loss to the Houston Astros in Fenway Park.

Two days before that game, the Red Sox were 69-61. They then went 8-19 in September,

Ouch.

The Red Sox hit well, as usual. Their team batting average of .258 ranked third in the American League but they tied the A’s for most errors in the league, 102.

Consider this: The World Series champion Texas Rangers made only 57 errors.

Changes were needed. A big change was trading standout pitcher Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves for infielder Vaughn Grissom, who will likely play second base with Trevor Story staying at shortstop,

The starting rotation might look like this: Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock. Veteran Kenley Jansen, 36, returns to the closer role. His 420 career saves rank seventh all time and with only another 18 this year he will vault into fifth all-time.

Outfielder Masatakas Yoshida, 30, hit .289 with 15 homers in his first season in Boston.

The offense may be built around first baseman Triston Casas, who late in the season seemed to get a feel for big-league pitching. In the final 200 at-bats last year he hit .306 with 15 homers. In 27 games with the Boston in 2022, he hit .197 with five homers.

Across the diamond from Casas is a cornerstone of the team. Although still only 27, third baseman Rafael Devers is a fixture with 172 career homers. He’s 13th all-time in Red Sox history and when he reaches 200 homers, he will pass Nomar Garciaparra (178) and Jason Variety (193) on Boston’s all-time list.

But he will he do with a winning team or another last-place team? ¦

In the KNOW

· 2023 at a glance: 78-84, last in the American League East.

· Off-season changes: Traded pitcher Chris Sale to the Braves for infielder Vaughn Grissom. Justin Turner played one year with the Red Sox and hit 23 homers with 96 RBI. He is now with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Red Sox signed free agent right-handed pitcher Lucas Giolito.

· Quirky historical oddity: The Red Sox won five World Series between 1903 and 1918. They won four World Series between 2004 and 2018. Perhaps Red Sox fans should start looking forward to the first two decades of the 22nd century.

· 2024 outlook: The last time the Red Sox finished last for at least three consecutive seasons was before divisional play began in 1969. The Red Sox were eighth and last in the American League every season from 1925 to 1930.

· Potential rookie impact player: Outfielder Roman Anthony is only 19 and has played only 126 games in the minors but his ceiling is high. It’s unlikely he will have a big-league impact this year. In 126 games the second-round draft pick in 2022 out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland hit .277 with 14 homers and 17 stolen bases.

The post Play Ball! Boston Red Sox first appeared on Fort Myers Florida Weekly .