Boston Red Sox management again sits still demoralizing the team
The Boston Red Sox trade deadline inactivity has demoralized the team post-trade deadline and sent them into a major tailspin. The team’s hopes of winning the AL East or even making the playoffs have been seriously dented.
At best, their luke-warm approach at trade the deadline has put a serious crimp in the team’s post-deadline attitude and performance.
One can’t help but think that this overachieving outfit’s players must have been totally deflated when the Sox slept while other teams were hard at work beefing up their squads.
Boston Red Sox management under criticism to start the season
Earlier in the season, the Red Sox ownership management was criticized for an underwhelming offseason.
Yet, great managing by Alex Cora helped them to a surprisingly strong start to the season. Cora was the catalyst to that great beginning.
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Now, after these uninspired trade deadline moves, perhaps that criticism was justified after all. The Sox are in free fall having lost six of their last seven games. The air has seemingly been let out of that great balloon.
They now stand one and a half games behind the Rays with the Yankees now only four games behind them.
Trading for Kyle Schwarber, a very good hitter who can mash when healthy, and a couple of nondescript relievers, former Twins Hanson Robles and former Pirate, Austin Davis wasn’t enough.
The Red Sox received a “D” grade for the trade deadline from one source. While let’s face it, they may be a bit biased, the Red Sox didn’t excite anyone with their moves, except maybe their AL East rivals.
Unfortunately, in addition, Schwarber has been on the shelf due to an injury and hasn’t played in a game yet for Boston. Great.
Hopefully, he’ll rip the ball as he did in June when he crushed 16 home runs when he finally gets back in action. He had 25 home runs in 265 at-bats for the Nationals.
Yet, the Boston Red Sox needed starting pitching and a first baseman who could hit. None were evidently to be found, at least not by them.
The Boston Red Sox, AL East contender, crushed their own team’s spirit
The inability to fill their first base lack of production (although Schwarber may get some time there) by trading for a player like Anthony Rizzo was a big mistake.
Rizzo is raking for the Yankees now and the Sox are being raked over the coals by the media and their fans for sitting on their hands and not going for the gold.
It seems clear that the team is counting on a return to form immediately by ace Chris Sale. That’s risky. the 32-year-old Sale hasn’t pitched in almost 2 years.
The moves to be made were for both a first baseman who can hit and for a starting pitcher for the middle of the rotation. They whiffed on both.
The ownership remained on the same low ball course to shortchange their manager, team, and fans by not going for it all when they actually have/had an opportunity to do so.
The Yankees not only brought in Rizzo but also bashing outfielder Joey Gallo. The Rays brought in slugger Nelson Cruz and the Jays brought in legitimate pitchers Jose Berrios as well as Joachim Soria.
Dave Dombrowski got hammered in the media after a bad 2019 even though he had gone all in and won the World Series in 2018. What was he supposed to do, settle for mediocrity and wait for young players to develop when most of them don’t?
That criticism was foolhardy and nonsensical. The objective is not next year, nor five years hence. There is no year but this year. This is the only year.
The Boston Red Sox blew a chance to bolster their team for an AL East run, a possible pennant, and maybe even a World Series appearance, this season, by essentially standing pat at the trade deadline when everyone else went for the gold.
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The early criticism leveled looked poor as the Sox with Cora at the helm rushed to the top of the AL East. Now, not so much. Yet, the Red Sox still have time to right the ship.
If they do, it will be due to the leadership of Alex Cora and not have anything to do with his management and ownership who took the air out of their own team’s sails.
They hung Cora and his team out to dry through their lackluster trade deadline inactivity. Now, they have to reap what they sowed. So far, it’s a meager harvest.