It May Be Time To Panic In Boston As The Red Sox Have Just 2 Wins

Through nine games, this season has been a swing and a miss for the Boston Red Sox, who are 2-7 and find themselves in last place. (Photo by Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Boston Globe via Getty Images

Is it time to panic in Boston? Well, it is always time to panic in Boston, but a little more than a week into the 2026 MLB, it may be that panic is the correct emotion. After losing yet another series on Sunday, the team is 2-7, which is the worst record in the game.

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The Red Sox lost out on big bats over the winter – they refused to offer Alex Bregman a no-trade clause, so he signed with the Cubs, and Pete Alonso elected to take Baltimore’s $155 million to play first base a little farther south. When that happened (or didn’t), Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow shifted his focus to pitching and defense. After Bregman went off the board, he immediately signed Ranger Suárez to a $130 million contract. That was in addition to trades for Sonny Gray, Johan Oviedo, and Danny Coulombe to bolster the club’s pitching staff.

Pitching

Prior to the season, FanGraphs had Boston as baseball’s best pitching staff. After nine games, their starting pitchers have given up more hits and more runs than any other American League rotation. Measured by fWAR, the Red Sox currently rank 26th in baseball in total pitching. Measured by ERA, they rank 23rd. And if you think bad luck could be at play, by FIP they rank 26th. Ace Garrett Crochet has had one good outing (six innings, three hits, no runs) and one bad one (five innings, six hits, four earned runs); Suárez has had two stinkers (4-1/3, seven hits, four runs; four innings, six hits, four earned runs). And closer Aroldis Chapman came into a tie game on Saturday and promptly gave up two hits and the losing run.

Hitting

On the offensive side of the equation, one of Boston’s first moves of the off-season was to acquire Willson Contreras to play first base in lieu of the injured Triston Casas. Then they made a deal with the Brewers to bring over infielder Caleb Durbin, who spent the spring vying with Marcelo Mayer to determine who would play second base and who would play third. That allowed Ceddanne Rafaela to permanently move back to center field, where he won a Gold Glove last season. Rafaela would be flanked in the outfield by Wilyer Abreu in right (back-to-back Gold Glove Awards) and Jarren Duran in left. Everything seemed to be going according to plan.

However, the prognosticators looked at the Red Sox lineup and feared that it lacked for slug, which could be problematic in the ultra-competitive American League East. Well, after nine games, the prognosticators are being proven correct. Boston has half as many home runs (8) as the league-leading Dodgers (16) and have scored just 30 runs over nine games (the same number as the Rockies, and only above the Giants and Reds). As a team they are hitting .226, which could be okay if they weren’t slugging just .372, and if their on-base percentage wasn’t under .300 (.297). The team’s high-water mark for runs scored in a game was yesterday, when they plated six, and still lost by two, after taking a 4-0 lead into the fourth inning.

Defense

Defensively, Boston has been just middle-of-the-road, ranking 15th in MLB by FanGraphs defensive war. They have already made nine errors, which is tied with the Angels, and just behind the Nationals (10) and the Rays (13) for worst in the league. Planned stalwarts Durbin and Mayer have committed errors, and shortstop Trevor Story already has three on his ledger (to go along with a .119/.119/.214 slash line).

There Is Still Time

Nine games is most certainly a small sample size. There are still 153 games to go. But the AL East is not a division you can fall too far back in and hope to compete come late summer, and the Red Sox already find themselves five games back of the division-leading and hated Yankees. And things don’t get any easier, as they are about to host Milwaukee, who is tied for the best record in the majors and has the third-best OPS in MLB, for a three-game series.

If Boston can right the ship and take the series against the Brewers, then they will head to St. Louis and Minnesota where they can build on that momentum. But lose their fourth series in a row at home this week, then it will be a long flight to the Midwest, with grips getting tight and seats getting hot.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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