3 Reasons The Red Sox Are Headed for Another August Swoon

2. The Trade Deadline Was a Bust

As I wrote last week, the Aug. 1 trade deadline was a major opportunity for Bloom to get his team some help. Despite dealing with injuries, the Red Sox played great in July (15-8) to give themselves a fighting chance at a playoff berth.

Rafael Devers, Kenley Jansen and others called for reinforcements to sustain their run and make a playoff push. Instead, Bloom basically gave them (and the fans) the finger, calling them “underdogs” and doing virtually nothing.

I suspect a big reason why Bloom’s teams have done so poorly in August is because he keeps pissing them off and ignoring their needs at the trade deadline. He’s never brought in sufficient pitching help, and he actively disrupted the clubhouse last year by trading away Christian Vazquez.

Bloom’s quiet trade deadline wouldn’t be as big of a deal if he had done a better job building the roster in the offseason, but he blatantly left massive holes at shortstop and second base that have still yet to be filled. He also rolled the dice on a risky starting rotation that, not surprisingly, has been decimated by injuries.

Cora and his players have done their best to work around those issues, but when they asked for help from above, nobody answered.