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Red Sox’ Tuesday Night Lineup Shows Why Trade Deadline Was a Disaster

By Jason Schandl

The Red Sox lineup, including Christian Arroyo, points out exactly why Tuesday's trade deadline was a disaster.
The Red Sox lineup, including Christian Arroyo, points out exactly why Tuesday's trade deadline was a disaster. /
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Boston Red Sox fans have a lot of faith in Chaim Bloom, but that faith was sure tested on Tuesday.

Despite the Sox making a serious push in the AL Wild Card race, Bloom basically sat on his hands all day and seemed to all but ignore the trade deadline.

And it hasn’t taken long for this lack of action to rear its ugly head. Just look at our lineup for Tuesday’s matchup against Bryce Miller and the Seattle Mariners.

Red Sox Lineup: August 1 vs. Mariners

Bryce Miller makes for a pretty tricky matchup, owning a 7-3 record with a 3.96 ERA across his 14 rookie-season starts, and this lineup is making things much easier on him than we’d like. It’s basically two-thirds of a real MLB offense.

Just check out the triple-slash lines for those seven through nine spots:

  • Christian Arroyo: .245/.273/.372
  • Reese McGuire: .267/.313/.352
  • Yu Chang: .156/.200/.344

None of them can draw walks (walk rates of 3.5%, 6.0% and 3.1%) and they all strike out at high clips (22.1%, 27.6% and 30.9%).

Middle-infield was obviously Boston’s biggest non-pitching need at the deadline, and here’s what we’re stuck with after completely neglecting it.

Heck, if Bloom had decided to go big on pitching and sacrifice a little offense that would be a fine pill to swallow too. Would I have preferred a rounded approach? Sure. But it’s not like I could get too frustrated if he was working the trade markets and found better deals available for pitching.

And I guess I can’t say we completely ignored the middle infield, but I’m not about to count Luis Urias as an addition until he can find his way up from Triple-A and maybe at least get his average above the Mendoza line.

The poor deadline has left the Red Sox as heavy underdogs to make the playoffs this season.

And the betting markets aren’t particularly optimistic for tonight either.

The Red Sox are only small underdogs tonight thanks to having Brayan Bello on the mound, but I’m not feeling good about our chances in this one. If anything, I’m considering a bet on the Mariners.

On the plus side, if you bet just $5 on either side of this game on DraftKings they’ll hook you up with a guaranteed $150 bonus, win or lose. All you have to do is sign up through the exclusive Chowder and Champions link below to unlock the bonus.

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