Top Play (WPA)

Jacoby Ellsbury doubled to left in the 8th inning scoring both Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks (.347). He also advanced Brett Gardner to third if you really care about everything that happened on that one specific play. Technically speaking, it was probably an error on Andrew Benintendi, who lost the ball in the lights, but it wasn’t scored like that and Benintendi is just out there doing his best so we’re not going to penalize him. Ellsbury is hitting .214/.389/.286 with a .675 OPS so yes of course naturally he would have such a hit in that spot. Revenge is a dish best served 3 years later after you sign with a different team and become a replacement level player.

Bottom Play (WPA)

Hanley Ramirez grounded into a double play in the third inning (-.128). Hanley actually had a nice night at the plate, going 2-3 with a double and 2 RBI, but he’s the owner of the night’s bottom play as well as the owner of what will presumably be very sore body parts after getting just crushed by Gary Sanchez on a play at first base.

The Offense frustrates….again…. and again. 

They scored 2 runs. They were 1-9 with RISP. They left nine men on base. They’re hitting .229/.307/.366 with a .673 OPS over the last two weeks. There’s still lots of baseball to be played, but if the team is on the outside looking in come October, it won’t be in small part to the fact that over a stretch when their pitching gave them a lot of chances to win, they couldn’t hit.

Trend to watch

It feels like this team loses a lot of close games. They’re 13-14 in one run games this season, and we’ve arrived at the part of the year where any one or two run loss feels like the “breaking point.” Here’s this, from Pete, for context:

#RedSox have lost 14 games since the break. The average margin has been 2.07 runs. Little stuff now very big trouble.

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) August 12, 2016

You’ve heard all about their tough schedule, but they’ll be playing the Rays twice, the Diamondbacks, the Athletics, the Padres, and the Royals. If you have to play basically every day for the next six weeks, it helps that there are going to be a lot of winnable games. What’s that you say? A home series against a Yankees team that had already throw in the towel also counts as winnable games and they still found a way to lose 2 out of 3? Look, you’re not wrong.

What’s next

The Arizona Diamondbacks are next. They are 48-66. If the Red Sox were interested in tapping into their potential and going on a winning streak that united the team and all of New England on their way to a playoff birth, this would be a wonderful place to start. David Price will be on the mound for the Sox, Patrick Corbin will start for Arizona. First pitch is at 7:05.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA TODAY

As for 2016, our starting point, PECOTA, will tell you the Rays will win by three games over Boston, five over Toronto, six over New York, and 18 over Baltimore. FanGraphs has a different projection, featuring the Red Sox by four games over the Blue Jays, six over the Yankees, seven over the Rays, and nine over the Orioles. Look up other projections and they’ll tell you something different. That’s because there isn’t a clear consensus on who has the best team this season. Things are jumbled. I present this paragraph on the throwing spaghetti at a wall that is 2016 to indicate that, as we stand now, things are pretty equal as long as you aren’t Baltimore. If you are, well, sorry.

The most difficult thing to do in sports isn’t to win, it’s to predict the future.

Of course, team performance in 2016 won’t necessarily be indicative of team performance five years from now. Many of the players currently on AL East teams will be gone by then. Don’t believe me? Okay, who played shortstop for the Red Sox in 2011? Who was Boston’s top prospect back then? Right. This is hard. And we’ll never know for sure until the time has come and gone, but there are some ways to start to figure out how things might go in 2020 in the AL East right now. We here at BP publish a number of articles which may be of assistance, most notably the Top 10 prospects lists for each team and, within those, the 25-and-under lists. Those lists show us who the good young players are and what we might expect from them. We can combine the quality in those lists with what we know about the current state of the franchises going forward and that should give us our answer, or what will pass for it. Remember, this is guesswork. Intelligent (I hope!) guesswork, but guesswork.

Since this is BP Boston, let’s start with the Red Sox. We know the Sox have a strong farm system, but we also know it’s a very young farm system. Much of the strength of the system is in players that haven’t played above A-ball yet. That’s okay, though, as Boston also has Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Blake Swihart at the major league level, and some help on the pitching side of things as well. The next five years of this franchise will depend on two things. First, how well the top-tier prospects develop, like pitchers Anderson Espinoza and Michael Kopech, as well as bats like Yoan Moncada and Rafael Devers. Second, it will depend what kind of team GM Dave Dombrowski builds around the team’s already existing young core of stars and promising pre-star-level players. That, combined with the owner’s willingness to spend and Dombrowkski’s mostly smart (though kind of scary if you’re prospect-hugger like me) penchant for winning trades, bodes well for Boston in the long run.

The Blue Jays are in a far more precarious spot. They don’t have the system Boston does, though they do have some promising young players like Anthony Alford and Connor Greene. The depth of the system isn’t there though, at least not right now. That’s the bad news. The good news for Toronto is most of their good young talent is already at the major league level. Marcus Stroman shows signs of being a front-of-the-rotation stud, and Dalton Pompey, Aaron Sanchez, and Devon Travis all showed promising though varying degrees of ability. As currently constructed the Jays don’t have the Red Sox’s ability to spend, though that comes with it’s own curses for sure. The new front office also comes well regarded. The future is bright in Toronto thanks to a talented veteran roster, but unlike in Boston, the further you project out, the hazier it gets.

The Yankees are somewhat the opposite of Toronto in that the further you project out, the more promising they get. It’s right now that is hazy. That has less to do with the specifics than the fact that they are the Yankees and can bring in a Manny Machado or Bryce Harper should one of those players hit the market. As for their good young players, almost none are in the majors. The almost is Luis Severino, who throws gas and should break camp with the rotation, but after him the rest of the Yankees are grey beards, or would be if the Yankees allowed beards. The strength of the Yankees 25-and-under players is Severino and outfielder Aaron Judge, who wouldn’t look out of place on an NBA court. Those are nice players to have, but it takes more than a powerful right fielder and a single good young starter to make a franchise go. The Yankees are coming off an off-season that saw them be the only team to not sign a free agent to a major-league contract. That’s astounding. In the next few seasons older players and their contracts will fall away, and the way the younger Steinbrenner’s spend that space under the luxury tax threshold will dictate how good this team will be in five years.

In Baltimore it’s the Manny Machado show. Dude is crazy good and somehow still just 23. To put him in cotext, he’s Baltimore’s Mookie Betts, but if Betts had just put up a seven-win season instead of a five-win season. Jonathan Schoop is both good and promising, though in a step down from Machado kind of way. After that is when things start to fall apart. The Orioles’ inability to develop starting pitching, which has plagued them for over a decade now, needs to be rectified before Kevin Gausman, Hunter Harvey, and Dylan Bundy all explode like Spinal Tap drummers. The Orioles as currently constituted are a veteran-heavy team, led by Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, and J.J. Hardy, 30 or older all. Machado and Schoop are a good start in the way that Severino and Judge are good starts (though they’re much better than Severino and Judge) (probably) but it’s not enough. With the Orioles lacking the desire and/or ability to bring in top of the rotation starters like David Price and Zack Greinke, they simply have to create the good pitchers themselves.

For the Rays, the challenge is to constantly reinvent themselves. This goes for the team but for the front office as well. Fortunately, they seem to have hit upon a strategy that works for them, and as long as they continue to scout well, they should have some level of success on the field. Their system now is probably the second-strongest in the division behind only Boston. Number one prospect Blake Snell could step in and help the Rays rotation this season. Beyond him, the upside might not be present but the low ceiling means lots of major league average players coming to Tampa, which means the team doesn’t have to spend money on the James Loneys of the world. Smart trading will also help and the Rays’ newish front office has bolstered the team by acquiring players like Corey Dickerson. Things look bright in Tampa, but as always, holding on to star players and continuing their good drafting will the difficulties going forward.

At the end of the day, we can’t know who will win in 2020, but the sheer tonnage of talent, from high-ceiling arms to power bats, in the Red Sox minor league system, combined with the will to win of ownership and a capable front office, give the Red Sox a powerful combination of smarts, money, and talent. That’s the total package, folks. Things aren’t perfect, but when 2020 rolls around, based on these crude data points, the Red Sox should have won more than their share of the division championships.

Now, please burn this article so there are no copies around in 2020 to throw in my face after the Orioles have run off five straight AL East Division wins. Thanks.

Photo by Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports Images

So much so, in fact, that there has been some speculation the team could look to move him. It’s not been speculated by anyone like Ken Rosenthal saying “the Yankees are looking to move Ellsbury.” That has NOT happened. But there have been whispers. And with Ellsbury in New York for another five seasons at $111 million in total, you can probably see why. So here’s what I think: the Red Sox should trade for him!

Okay, it’s never going to happen. I’m going to acknowledge that off the bat (<- baseball pun!). The Red Sox did deal Stephen Drew to New York a season ago, but prior to that they hadn’t made a trade with the Yankees in decades. Ignore the standings and understand that these two organizations are the deepest of rivals. They’re not in the habit of making each other better. Of course, the idea isn’t to trade for Ellsbury to help the Yankees, it’s to trade for Ellsbury because his value is at a low point, making him cheap to acquire and worthy of doing so because he’s still quite good. So let’s make that case first.

The idea is to trade for Ellsbury because his value is at a low point, making him cheap to acquire and worthy of doing so because he’s still quite good.

For years before Ellsbury was a free agent it was seemingly a foregone conclusion that he would sign elsewhere. Scott Boras was his agent and he had steadfastly refused to sign the kind of extension that teammates like Dustin Pedroia, Clay Buchholz, and Jon Lester had to keep them in Boston past six or seven seasons. Like Jonathan Papelbon, Ellsbury wanted to see what was out there for him on the market. But when he became a free agent the Red Sox didn’t just let him walk like they did with Papelbon: the Red Sox reportedly offered Ellsbury around $120 million to stay in Boston! There’s a huge difference between $153 million and $120 million so in that sense it wasn’t a competitive offer, but $120 million isn’t chump change by any means. In fact, had Ellsbury signed that deal to stay in Boston, he would now be the Red Sox’s highest paid player. The point is the Red Sox valued him very highly, just not as highly as the Yankees.

Last season, his first in New York, Ellsbury hit .271/.328/.419. That looks rather pedestrian, but with his defense and base running, combined with the league’s overall level of anemic offense, the whole package came out to four wins via FanGraphs WAR. Baseball Reference put it a tad lower, at 3.3, while our WARP split the difference at 3.6. No matter which you prefer, they all agree Ellsbury was a very valuable player in 2014, as he had been throughout his career.

So what about this season? Well, it’s not a complicated story, really. Pretty simply, Ellsbury hurt his knee and spent almost two months on the DL. Then he came back quite possibly a bit too soon and was never right (his swing mechanics were a bit messed up, as Owen Watson noted at JABO). Before his injury, so from April 1 through May 19, he hit .324/.412/.372. That’s almost an .800 OPS from an above average defensive center fielder. That’s very good! After the injury, though, things went in the tank. From July 8 when he came back from the DL to October 4 (the end of the season), Ellsbury hit .224/.269/.332. Yuck.

For all the crap Ellsbury always got for being soft, he actually played through a whole lot of bumps and bruises and outright pain. The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier put it this way in a recent column.

He will forever be labeled as soft, even though the only significant stretches he missed with the Red Sox resulted from taking a human wrecking ball to the ribs and another to the shoulder. It’s easily forgotten that he raced back from a still-healing broken foot to spearhead the Red Sox lineup through its 2013 championship run. It’s easily forgotten that he played through a lot of strains and sprains and twisted ankles without complaint or visible on-field impact.

It’s tough to give him a total pass for lousy production, but then it’s tough to play major league baseball injured. It’s not hard to see that the skills which make Ellsbury valuable, speed, ability to drive the ball, defense, and some pop, are all still there. Ellsbury, like many players who play high-stress positions, does get hurt from time to time, but he has actually played a lot of games. In years when he didn’t have his season ended by a charging Adrian Beltre or something similar, he’s averaged 142 games played per season (that’s excluding the two seasons ended prematurely by blunt force injuries). That’s more than Dustin Pedroia has average over his nine full seasons in Boston.

What’s more, Ellsbury isn’t old. His age-32 season will be next year. Imagine if the Yankees would take back a bad contract from Boston, say Allen Craig, and kick in some money on Ellsbury’s deal. Jacoby Ellsbury for five seasons and (I’m making up numbers now) $80 million. That has the potential to be a damn bargain.

So the next hurdle is figuring out where he fits in with the Red Sox, who happen to have quite the young outfield. As well as the Red Sox played down the stretch, and as well as the outfield of Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, and Rusney Castillo fielded the ball, there is some room to wonder what the trio would put up in a full season. Castillo especially struggled with the bat. In 80 games this season he hit .253/.288/.359. That’s atrocious. Bradley was overall a spectacular player with the bat and glove this season, but if you look at his games, after cooling off, he was essentially the same awful Jackie Bradley of old at the plate. Warning: cherrypicking ahead! From September 8 through the end of the season Bradley hit .138/.247/.263 in 94 plate appearances over 25 games. I’d love nothing more than to go into next season with Bradley and Castillo and watch them both exceed expectations at the dish. There’s certainly reason to think that they can do it, but we have to acknowledge there is reason to think they can’t as well.

Acquiring Ellsbury would open up the team to move Bradley or Castillo (not Betts, never Betts) in the search for pitching, be it of the starting or bullpen variety.

The Red Sox are expecting to win next season, but there are clear questions as to whether the outfield as currently constructed can produce enough to help them do so. Jacoby Ellsbury can hit and he can play the field, and it’s possible the team could get him from one of their main rivals for less than they were willing to pay him on the market just two seasons ago. So how about weakening the enemy while strengthening yourself in the process? Let’s bring back Jacoby Ellsbury!

You may now fillet me in the comments. Thank you.

Photo by Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): Despite the loss, the Red Sox grabbed the honors here with Mookie Betts’ 5th-inning single (+.124), which scored Deven Marrero from second and left Boston with runners on first and second with one down. C.C. Sabathia got out of that jam unscathed, however, getting Jackie Bradley Jr. to ground out and Travis Shaw to fly out — with a Xander Bogaerts intentional pass mixed in between — to preserve the 2-1 lead.

New York’s top two plays were both solo home runs: A Carlos Beltran homer (+.117) off Rich Hill in the second and a Greg Bird round-tripper (+.106) off Jean Machi in the seventh.

Bottom Play (WPA): Shaw’s fly-out to center (-.107), the one we just mentioned, cost the Red Sox a chance to break things open in the fifth, an inning that would be Sabathia’s last. Instead, Sabathia threw a 2-1 slider down in the zone to Shaw, who popped it up harmlessly into right-center.

Key Moment: Ohh, those sacrifice bunts. When they work, they often don’t do much to increase your team’s win probability, but at least they don’t significantly hurt it either. Plus, as MGL would tell you, a perfectly placed sac bunt attempt has the chance to turn into a clean hit or an error, which is all the better. There’s also the opposite end of the spectrum.

In the fifth inning, the Red Sox asked Josh Rutledge to get down a sac bunt following back-to-back singles by Marrero and Sandy Leon to lead off the inning. Rutledge took a couple of balls, fouled off one bunt attempt, then, on the the fourth pitch of the at-bat, he awkwardly lunged at an 89 mile-per-hour fastball down in the zone from Sabathia and popped it straight up to the catcher.

Rutledge, who has posted an 83 OPS+ in over 1,000 major league innings, should know how to get down a bunt. He’s okay with the the bat for a versatile middle infielder, but his best shot at sticking in the bigs for a while probably involves him being a guy who does The Little Things well, and there’s really no excuse to go for that reckless of a bunt attempt in a key situation.

Trends to Watch: Keep an eye on Rutledge’s batting practice bunting regimen. Alright, just kidding. The default here is always the young guys. Betts had another two-hit night, and he narrowly missed hitting a two-run home that would have given the Red Sox the lead in the seventh. Bogaerts and Bradley went hitless on the night, but they did combine for three walks. Rusney Castillo also logged an 0-for, but he uncorked a strike throw early in the game that let you know why he’s a right fielder.

There’s also Rich Hill, who, barring a 22-inning marathon in Cleveland, won’t pitch again this season. He had a sensational, improbable, (insert-superlative-of-choice-here) four-start run with the Red Sox down the stretch, and he capped it off with another gem last night. Hill struggled early, losing his control at times and failing to put away Yankees hitters. For instance, he threw 37 pitches in the second and nine alone to John Ryan Murphy, who fouled off three consecutive curve balls before drawing a walk. Hill settled down after the second, however, and fittingly ended his outing (and season) with a three strikeout sixth inning, where he got A-Rod, Carlos Beltran, and Chris Young in order.

It’s unclear where Hill, a free agent, will end up next year. You’d have to think the Red Sox would like to bring him back, but a 7.2 strikeout-to-walk ratio, even in just 29 innings, will likely do wonders for Hill’s popularity around the league.

Coming Next: Cleveland, and that’s it. For a team with such high expectations, one that was expected to compete for a division title — heck, a World Series title — it’s been an oddly entertaining season, at least of late, despite the losing record. From Hill to Betts to Bogaerts (to Orsillo and Remy, as always), to almost sweeping the Yankees on the road while postponing their playoff celebration, it’s been fun. Here’s to more winning in 2016.

Photo by Jeff Griffith/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): Despite the loss, the top play of the game came from the Yankees side. After the Red Sox scored six times in the top of the first, the game looked like a foregone conclusion. But the Yanks got right back within striking distance in the bottom half of the opening frame. After having already pushed across two runs via a double, single, fielders choice and another double, Dustin Ackley smacked a two-run home run to right field (WPA: + .135) to get the Yankees within two.

As it turned out, the three-run home-run that Blake Swihart had hit in the top of the first inning (WPA: + .092) – his first of two home runs on the night – gave the Red Sox all the cushion they would need to win.

Bottom Play (WPA): With the Red Sox leading 7-4, Brett Gardner led off the bottom of the fifth inning with a single. At the time it was not entirely clear that Rick Porcello had settled in to the outing having had the rough first inning, and an eventful fourth in which he allowed a single and hit a batter. However, right after Gardner’s single he got Alex Rodriguez to hit into a 5-4-3 double play (WPA: – .081), which was started nicely by Deven Marrero.

Key Moment: Ackley’s home run in the bottom of the first got the Yankees to within a bloop-and-blast of tying the game. The score remained 6-4 until the top of the fifth, when Mookie Betts led off the inning with a solo home run to left field (WPA: + .085) that increased the Red Sox’s lead to a slightly more comfortable level. Always nice to see the #feats of Mookie on display.

Not so much a key moment on-field-wise, but a fun one came in the top of the sixth when Jerry Remy provided a funny story about playing wiffle ball with a guy who “played a little college ball.” The basic summary of the story is that Remy did not like a guy who was invited to a charity wiffle ball game. The guy was making sure to inform people that he had “played a little ball” and was taking things too seriously, striking everyone out when the intention of the event was to allow hits and encourage fun. In his chance at bat in the game Jerry wanted to send the guy a message but ended up grounding out meekly to second base. It still haunts him. You really need to hear him tell the story to be aware of how much it still bothers him. Regardless, the rapport between Jerry and Don Orsillo allows for this sort of story to happen on air. Don only has a few more games left in the Red Sox booth, so hopefully we get a few more Don and Jerry moments like this before Don is gone to his next stop.

Trend to Watch: As noted above, the game featured home runs from Mookie Betts and Blake Swihart. Seeing young players still hit for power this deep into a season is a welcome sign. Tim Britton pointed out on Twitter that the six home runs by the Red Sox in this series have been hit by players who are 25 years-old or younger. The two guys who went deep in last night’s game, Betts and Swihart, have higher slugging percentages in the second half than in the first. While Betts has moved up only a little bit from .464 to .480, Swihart has shown a large jump in performance, going from .323 to .415. Experience is certainly a factor in this improvement, so it is not only nice to see some evidence of learning/adjusting, but it is also great that fatigue from playing a longer season has not sapped them of their power. These are good signs for 2016.

Coming next: Game three of the series starts tomorrow at 7:05pm EDT with Wade Miley heading to the hill to take on the Yankees for the fourth time this season. Miley has struggled against the Yankees this year, posting a 5.60 RA9 against them, although his 2.97 FIP in those contests points to his pitching better than the results indicate. He will need to maintain his effectiveness as he progresses through the game better than he did in his last start (against the Rays last Thursday), when a rough sixth inning undid an otherwise solid outing. The Red Sox offense will be in for a tough challenge against Yankees’ starter Masahiro Tanaka (3.74 RA9, 3.95 FIP on the season), who has already beat them three times this season. However, in his outings against the Sox, Tanaka has been less than sharp, posting a 5.71 RA9 (5.15 FIP). Tanaka is coming back to the Yankees rotation after missing time with a hamstring injury, so the Sox’ offense can look to take advantage of any lingering issue and continue their reasonable success against him.

Photo by Anthony Gruppuso/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): The action started early in this contest with Greg Bird giving the Yankees a lead that they would hang on to for the remainder of the game.  With Chase Headley on base in the second inning, Bird cleaned out an inside fastball from Owens and deposited it into the right field box for the game’s top play (.193).  Bird has yet to show a ton of power since coming up and came into the game with an ISO of just .136, but his third big league home run left no doubt.  The pop is legit here with Bird and although it may take a few years for it to play up, make no doubt about it: the power will play.

Boston’s top play came in the first inning when David Ortiz laced a hard-hit double that looked like it had a chance of leaving the park. Mookie Betts would score and give the Sox their lone lead of the game and the second best play by WPA. (.105)

Bottom Play (WPA): The bottom play of the game also comes to us from early on in the contest and was delivered by Pablo Sandoval.  With Betts on second in the first inning and the game knotted at 0-0, Sandoval grounded to short and was put away by Didi Gregorius for the game’s first out (-.041).

Key Moment: The key moment of the game really did belong to Bird with his go ahead two-run shot in the second. However, it was Owens totally unravelling in the second inning that truly did the Sox in.  Following the Bird homer the next batter, John Ryan Murphy, took Owens deep again.  Owens walked two batters and allowed several more hits before turning the ball over to Ryan Cook.

Cook looked every bit the reclamation project that the A’s couldn’t fix and promptly allowed a two-run-shot to Carlos Beltran.  Even though the Sox made a bit of a run late in the game against the weak underbelly of the Yankees bullpen, the result of the game was never in doubt.  Owens and Cook were charged for 11 combined runs, which was more than the Yankees needed to secure the victory.

Trend to Watch: Aside from the awful pitching performance that plagued the Sox this Wednesday afternoon, the eight runs that they put up helped build my confidence in the strides being made by the offense.  Jackie Bradley Jr. continues to hit well and Xander Bogaerts smashed his fifth home run of the year, off of Tanaka in the sixth inning.

There were also no errors by either side and I enjoyed watching the “BBC” outfield in action.  Bradley even spent some time in center field later in the game as Allen Craig came in to take over right field and Betts went to the bench.  The Sox should have one of the best defensive outfields in the game going forward.

Coming Next: The Sox will have much needed day off today before welcoming the lowly Philadelphia Phillies to historic Fenway Park.  After dropping two of three from the Yankees, the Sox will be expected to take care of business against a depleted Philly team. It’s never too late to go for the late-season meaningless sweep.  There is no better time to start experimenting with their lineup changes than in these games that have very little meaning.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports Images 

Top Play (WPA): Jacoby Ellsbury’s go-ahead homer, with a .242 WPA, rightfully earns its spot here. Rodriguez was cruising up until that point, with his only real blemish being an A-Rod RBI double, but he hung a slider to Ellsbury, who got all of it and put it into the second deck in right field. Giving up the go-ahead run is never a good thing, but it was made worse by the fact that the Yankees had Dellin Betances warming and Andrew Miller behind him. With a 79% win expectancy and New York’s two best relievers coming up, it looked all but certain that the Sox would lose again after this homer. Surprising, I know.

Bottom Play (WPA): Even with Andrew Miller on the mound, the Red Sox tried their best to come back. With the tying run on 2nd and the go-ahead run on 1st, Rusney Castillo struck out to end the game, which amounted to a -.133 WPA. Lefties Travis Shaw and Jackie Bradley had a pair of great at-bats against Miller, but then the Yankees closer locked it down against Castillo. He threw two fastballs down and in on Castillo, then finished him off with a slider in the dirt. For a guy who looked lost against back-to-back left-handed hitters, Miller was completely in control with Castillo.

Key Moment: In what was by far the best chance the Sox had at scoring, CC Sabathia struck out David Ortiz to end the top of the 5th. Sabathia had gone away from him for the first three pitches of the at-bat, but came back inside on a 94 mph sinker that seemed to catch Ortiz off guard. Sabathia was pretty pumped up. Castillo’s RBI single had finally tied it, and with Ortiz up, you sensed there was a real chance to take the lead.

“How dare you have any hope,” said the 2015 Red Sox. And so it was.

Trend to Watch: Eduardo Rodriguez continues to impress. After a pretty mediocre start against Tampa Bay, he bounced back here against an offense that tears apart southpaws. The Yankees came into this game with an offense against left-handed pitching that ranked second in OPS (.783) and wRC+ (116), and the rookie held them to six hits and two runs while walking two. He worked hard to get through tough situations – with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 5th, Rodriguez got both Mark Teixeira and Chris Young to pop out to get out of the jam. Not only that, Rodriguez ramped it up as the game went on, as he still threw 94 mph heaters in the 7th inning. The home run aside, he got all the outs in the 7th inning on swinging strikes. Not too bad for a 22-year-old.

Coming Next: The Red Sox move on to the Motor City to take on a retooling Tigers team. Detroit will send out Van Man Daniel Norris, while the Sox will have Cy Young frontrunner Joe Kelly pitching. It’s a good thing Miguel Cabrera is still on the DL, or else you would’ve had to cover children’s eyes when Kelly pitched to him.

 Photo by Anthony Gruppuso/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): None of them. They were all bad.

More technically speaking, Alex Rodriguez’s double in the sixth inning (0.198) was the most impactful play of the game. A-Rod represented Henry Owens’ last batter, and even though Rodriguez crushed it to the wall in center field, it was actually a pretty good pitch by the rookie down in the zone. It would be Owens’ last batter in a solid debut, and the beginning of the end in another fine showing by the 2015 Red Sox.

Bottom Play (WPA): All of them. They were all bad.

More technically speaking, Brock Holt struck out to end the top of the seventh (-0.118) with runners on second and third. Believe it or not, Boston was only trailing by one at this point, and a hit could have actually given them a lead! Instead, they reverted back into 2015 Red Sox mode and everything was bad and terrible from this point forward. But hey, Holt still has killer hair.

Key Moment: If we don’t talk about any moments, they never happened.

More technically speaking, the key moment was probably the entirety of the bottom of the seventh. The Yankees scored nine (9!) runs in the frame and sent 13 batters to the plate. Thirteen! One more than 12! That inning was more damaging to children than a half-hour of Winnie The Pooh.

Trends to Watch: If you’re going to watch trends, try to find some that don’t involve the 2015 Red Sox.

If you must watch the Red Sox, I’m sorry. But at least you have Henry Owens, who had a solid debut. His control was definitely an issue, and it led to a lot of pitches early on, but he settled in nicely later in the game. He had impressive poise on the mound, and should be fun to watch for the rest of the year even if the results are up-and-down.

The other trend to watch is the bullpen. But my mother always told me if I have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So I’m not going to talk about the bullpen anymore.

Coming Next: The rest of the season, unfortunately.

Boston continues their series in New York tonight with Steven Wright taking the mound. The good news is the Yankees are sending out top prospect Luis Severino for his major-league debut. So that’s an exciting thing that’s happening. Enjoy!

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Oh, and the team’s best pitcher went on the DL this weekend. At least the game wasn’t boring, as the Red Sox had a chance to come back late. (They didn’t.)

Top Play (WPA): During the third inning, the Sox racked up a nice run of hits off of Eovaldi, culminating in three runs. The biggest shift in WPA in the Sox’s favor was Xander’s single (.148), the one that drove in the first run and put the Sox down by one. Ryan Hanigan scored on that single, but Bogaerts would score on the Sox’s next-highest WPA play: the fifth single of the inning. Hanley Ramirez, who went 2-4, had the second-place WPA mark (.118) with that single.

…

The top play of the game was really a Yankee play, Brian McCann’s second-inning, two-run homer off Miley to open the scoring (.187)

Bottom Play (WPA): So many to choose from! Just kidding, there’s one that’s quantifiably worst. Mookie Betts’ fly out at to end the sixth inning (-.082) with runners on second and third. Existentially, this is representative of the death of all human potential. Practically, it was the death of the Red Sox’s chances — despite the robust effort they put up at the close of the ninth inning.

Key Moment: Perhaps the key-est was Wade Miley’s balk in the fifth inning. Yup. That’s it. Miley balked in a run (McCann) to tie the game, because — well, that’s the kind of season both he and the Red Sox are having.

Trend to Watch: Entropy, and the slow heat death of the universe. Seriously, though — the trend I’d want to watch is this: when the Sox come back from the break, how bad do they have to be to firmly fall into the seller category? Will we learn more about the Buchholz injury? How are the Red Sox going to start preparing for whatever the next iteration of the team will be?

Coming Next: Brock Holt leads the American League All-Star team against their arch-rivals: the National League. The next real game for the Sox is on July 17th, in Los Angeles (of Anaheim) against the Angels.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

In a way, these commercials have perfectly summed up this Red Sox season. After something terrible happens, you can always count on people telling you that everything will be fine. It’s nice in theory, but if anyone has just been watching the Red Sox without paying attention to the context of the league, they’d look at optimistic people like they have six heads. At different times (and sometimes all at once) the pitching, offense and defense have all looked impossibly bad. This is a team that’s six games below .500 with a -46 run differential. How could anyone think it’s all going to be fine?

Well, in this case the context of the league is incredibly important. The American League is as mediocre as I can ever remember it being. Right now, the Angels have the best chance of making the playoffs by Baseball Prospectus’ odds. They are just four games above .500. Even more important to the Red Sox, the rest of the American League East has been a dumpster fire. None of the teams in the division have better than a 50 percent chance to make the playoffs. Just two, the Yankees and the Rays, are above .500, and they’ve eclipsed that mark by a combined five games. For as poorly as Boston has played, they are still just five games from getting a bye through the wildcard round.

Before we take a look at how these kind of divisions have gone historically, let’s take a closer look at these teams moving forward. The Yankees currently sit in first place behind the strength of a particularly strong run from mid-April to mid-May. While they’ve been led by bounce-back performances from guys like Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira, they’re a team that could be destroyed by one or two major injuries. They’re the odds-on favorite to take the AL East crown this year, but far from the monster of a team they were a decade ago.

While the division was viewed almost as a toss-up prior to the season, the Rays were the one team that many agreed would be hard-pressed to wind up at the top of the standings. However, on the back of strong pitching, they are currently in second place and have the second best playoff odds. Chris Archer and Jake Odorizzi have both been incredible, but they’re also relying on a lineup that consists of Evan Longoria and eight other dudes. An injury in the rotation, or simply some fatigue, could derail that team quickly.

The Orioles are currently in third, and have the lowest playoff odds of any team in the division. They’re a tough team to get a handle on, as they should be better than this, but there aren’t  many clear ways for them to improve internally.They are the most bland team in baseball’s most bland division.

Finally, the Blue Jays were a common preseason pick, but their pitching has held them back in a big way. They’ve scored the most runs in all of baseball, but they still find themselves six games below .500. With that being said, they’re still the scariest team in the division, because they have a couple of young pitchers who could turn it on at any point and an offense that can carry them in the meantime. Of course, one could say the same thing about the Red Sox if their offense ever starts to play up to their potential.

To get a clearer picture of how these unclear situations typically go, I looked back through the last 15 years to find some comparisons. These were hard to come by. I searched for divisions that looked this mediocre on June 4 of any given year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a group of teams playing this poorly was not overly common. Going back to 2000, I found four examples:

In 2009, the Tigers were the only AL Central team over .500, and they only surpassed that mark by four games. By the end of the season, the Twins came back by playing .548 baseball through the rest of the year and won the division. However, they weren’t playing nearly as poorly as Boston has in the first part of the season. On June 4, 2009, Minnesota was just one game under .500 and had a +7 run differential. They’re not a great source of optimism.

One year before that, the NL West also only had one team with a better-than-.500 record. Similar to the 2009 AL Central, the eventual winner was below .500 on June 4. The Dodgers were 28-31 on that date in 2008, and posted a .544 winning percentage the rest of the way to claim the division title. However, like the Twins of the year before, their run differential told a different story, as they were +9 in the early part of the year.

One of the most favorable comparisons for the Red Sox comes from the 2007 NL Central. Through June 4, the Cubs found themselves seven games under .500 and 6.5 games behind Milwaukee, the only better-than-.500 club in the division. The Cubs went on a huge run for the rest of the season, winning 57 percent of their games and eventually winning the NL Central. Unfortunately, once again, run differential tells a different tale. Chicago was +20 on June 4, meaning they were a much better team than their record would indicate. They are likely a better comparison for the 2015 Blue Jays than the Red Sox.

Finally, we get to the 2006 AL West and the Los Angeles Angels. Although they didn’t make the playoffs that year, they would have been one game out of the second wildcard had it existed at the time. They also represent the best comparison for the 2015 Red Sox. On June 4, this team was six games under .500 with a -31 run differential. They would turn it on through the rest of the year, playing .604 baseball from June 5 onward, and finishing the year with 89 wins. In any other division, they would’ve played themselves out of the race early on, but they were held in the race just long enough by playing in a mediocre division.

The Red Sox have played poorly enough that it’s gotten annoying to hear that their chances aren’t dead yet. However, it’s important to look at their almost unprecedentedly mediocre division, and the past says divisions like this can be won by underperforming teams. There are changes that need to be made, but playing in the 2015 AL East means one strong run can put the Red Sox right back in the thick of the playoff race.

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