Archive for Red Sox

The American League Championship Series between the Rays and Guardians was a study in contrasts when it came to starting pitching, particularly as the series extended. Tampa Bay’s starters lasted five or more innings in all but one of the six games, with Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta combining for three starts of at least six innings; the former went seven innings and the latter 5 1/3 in the the final two games. Cleveland’s starters reached the five-inning mark just twice and never went deeper than that; over the final three games, the team’s starters — ace Parker Messick and reliever Shawn Armstrong, who was deputized to open Games 4 and 6 — totaled just four innings. Given that imbalance, it was hardly a surprise that the Rays rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win those three and take the series.

The World Series might present a similar contrast. The Rays and the Yankees are the only teams whose starters have averaged at least five innings per turn during this postseason, and Tampa Bay knocked off New York in a Division Series sweep earlier this month. Meanwhile, the Brewers are one of five teams whose starters have averaged less than four innings per turn; only twice did a Milwaukee starter even last five innings, with Logan Henderson reaching that mark in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Padres and Robert Gasser doing so in Game 3 of the NLCS against the Dodgers. Jacob Misiorowski — the likely NL Cy Young winner, who even before the playoffs had already exceeded his total workload from last year by more than 30 innings — burned through 88 pitches to complete four innings in his NLDS start and 94 to go 4 1/3 in his NLCS start. For the Brewers and Rays, those divergent approaches have worked. Tampa Bay went a combined 7-2 in the ALDS and ALCS; Milwaukee, 7-1 in the NLDS and NLCS.

After a season in which he ranked third in the AL in FIP (2.81) and WAR (5.0) and fourth in ERA (2.67), Rasmussen began his postseason by no-hitting the Yankees for 7 2/3 innings in the Division Series opener. In three starts totaling 21 innings, he’s delivered a 1.29 ERA and a 2.58 FIP. Peralta, who struggled during his four months as a Met before righting himself somewhat as a Ray following a deadline deal, has put up a 1.13 ERA and a 3.72 FIP in 16 innings as a starter, on top of which he added two-thirds of an inning out of the bullpen in ALCS Game 4; that cherry on top of his two strong starts helped him win series MVP honors. While their third and fourth starters, Nick Martinez and Griffin Jax, haven’t been as effective, the Rays’ postseason rotation ERA is good enough to crack the top 10 dating back to the start of division play in 1969:

Read the rest of this entry »

Brooks Brannon raised his prospect profile this season, and atypically he did so despite sliding down the defensive spectrum. Breaking out with the bat was the reason why. Now a first baseman after primarily wearing the tools of ignorance for his first four professional seasons, Brannon bashed 22 home runs while putting up a .280/.355/.560 slash line and a 133 wRC+ over 398 plate appearances with Double-A Portland. His slugging percentage led all qualified Eastern League hitters.

The positional change didn’t come as a surprise. As Brendan Gawlowski and Eric Longenhagen wrote when ranking him 29th when our 2026 Red Sox Top Prospects list came out in mid-May, Brannon “had been developed as a catcher throughout his career, though most scouts expected him to wind up at first base, which has finally come to pass.” With a caveat that strikeouts remain a concern — Brannon went on to finish the season with a 28.9% strikeout rate — our prospect analyst duo opined that he “could have a productive, bat-only prime.”

Again, Brannon broke out with the bat. Now ranked 22nd in the system with a 40 FV — not to mention a 70 grade for raw power — Boston’s ninth-round pick in the 2022 draft out of a Randleman, North Carolina high school has emerged as a prospect with more promise than he’d previously possessed as a bat-first backstop.

Brannon discussed his evolution, both positionally and as a hitter, in the final month of the regular season.

———

David Laurila: This is your fifth year in the system, yet you’re still just 22 years old. I have to admit I thought you were older than that.

Brooks Brannon: “I was a younger draft pick out of high school — I’d just turned 18 a month or two prior — so I’m blessed to have been in the org for quite awhile and still be on the younger side. But yes, I’m just 22.”

Laurila: Had you been drafted out of college, the numbers you’re putting up this year would draw a lot more attention than they are. With that in mind, what might your development path been like had you gone the college route?

Brannon: “It’s hard to say, because one thing the Red Sox are — and it took me awhile to appreciate this — is very analytical. The way they approach hitting is like blackjack almost. It’s, ‘This is what is expected to happen, so we’re going to live and die on this hill. Mathematically, this should happen.’ Air-pull being the optimal launch angle, focusing on hitting the ball hard in the air, making the right swing decisions and drawing walks to get on base… that’s what you want. I always prided myself on being a hitter, so it took time for me to understand what the most optimal way is to help the team win games.

“This past offseason was the first offseason where I really bought in to everything they were preaching. It has helped me tremendously. So, had I gone to college… you know, a lot of colleges are still kind of on the old-guard way of hitting. I don’t think I’d have had the growth I’ve had, even though it admittedly took awhile for me to realize what was optimal.”

Laurila: This year was a turning point for your career…

Brannon: “Yes. My first couple of years I had a lot of injuries, and then for a few seasons I wasn’t doing what I knew I could do. I knew that what I was doing wasn’t working, so something needed to change. Having conversations with our hitting coordinators and coaches, learning who moves like me — how people who have my skills and strengths play the game — and molding that into my game to the best of my ability… I mean, I couldn’t have been able to do that without their help.”

Laurila: Approach aside, there would have been mechanical changes, as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Demetrio Crisantes is off to a hot start in the Arizona Fall League. The 22-year-old second baseman has gone 8-for-20 with a triple and a pair of doubles for the Salt River Rafters. That hardly comes as a surprise. As our own Brendan Gawlowski wrote prior to the regular season, “Crisantes has a case as the best pure hitter in the D-backs system.”

The Tucson native’s track record largely backs up that opinion. Since being drafted in the seventh round by his home-state team in 2023 out of Nogales High School, Crisantes has slashed .312/.399/.473 with a 125 wRC+. Moreover, this past season he batted .296 with 10 home runs over 335 plate appearances between three levels, topping out at Triple-A. Notably, Arizona’s No. 3 prospect played all but the final two weeks as a 21-year-old.

Staying on the field has been an issue. Crisantes has undergone a pair of Tommy John surgeries — the first at age 15, the second two years later — and he has subsequently dealt with hamstring and shoulder injuries. That makes his stint in the desert especially meaningful. Eric Longenhagen put it this way in his Fall League preview:

“He has really hit when he’s been healthy, and how he looks in the AFL might help inform whether the D-backs feel comfortable trading Ketel Marte this offseason. He’s arguably the most important eval in the entire league.”

Asked for a self-assessment of his strengths as a hitter, Crisantes cited the plus contact skills described in Gawlowski’s scouting report. Read the rest of this entry »

On the heels of an utterly spectacular Division Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres — a walk-off, a home run robbery, two paternity leaves, oh my! — I found myself chewing on two pervasive thoughts. One: that was a hell of a series, and it really deserved a fifth game. Two: how many other Division Series have been on that level?

Since the Division Series’ true birth in 1995 (the 1981 strike led to a one-off set of Division Series that autumn, which then went dormant until the next strike made them permanent) we’ve now had 128 of them, with 41 ending in sweeps and 39 going all the way to a do-or-die Game 5, with the ongoing White Sox-Guardians series becoming the 40th. While early-round series in any sport are bound to have some impossibly stacked rosters beating the brakes off ahead-of-schedule teams that are just happy to be cashing playoff bonuses, the history of the Division Series is also rich with indelible postseason memories. With baseball’s inherent small-sample wackiness often playing a huge role — in 2023, both the 100-win Dodgers and 101-win Orioles were swept out of the Division Series by the unlikeliest World Series participants of the decade — these series often shrink the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Sure, sometimes you get a quick sweep where all three games are forgettable, but if you take a fine-tooth comb through the LDS annals, you’ll also find some 3-0 sets that were dripping with tension. (In 1996, for instance, the Cardinals swept the Padres in a series where San Diego sent the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning of all three games.)

This ranking of the best Division Series ever does not include any of those sweeps, or even any four-gamers, though many tried their damnedest. Division Series touchstones like Pedro Martínez coming out of the bullpen for six untouchable innings or Todd Pratt’s improbable homer play well in a highlight reel, but one great moment does not make a great series. The same thing is true of remarkable Game 5s that capped off an otherwise blah affair. We all remember Howie Kendrick’s 2019 grand slam at Dodger Stadium, but forget that the average margin of victory in that Nationals-Dodgers showdown was 4.6 runs. The same thing is true of the Dodgers’ Division Series in 2021 against the Giants, which ended with Max Scherzer’s only career save and sparked the great check swing debate of our times, but also had games decided by four, five, and seven runs.

For a series to be wholly great, it needs start-to-finish drama, star power, and multiple classic games; a little sprinkling of narrative intrigue doesn’t hurt either. Here are the 10 best of the Division Series variety, presented in descending order.

10. All of 2012

This one is obviously cheating, but 2012 is the only year in which all four Division Series went five games, so it gets its own spot. The fact that shorthand is a sufficient way to summarize many of the key events — the Buster Posey grand slam, the Pete Kozma game, the Raul Ibanez game, Justin Verlander vs. Oakland Round 1 — is all you need to know about how spectacular the second week of October was in 2012.

9. 2016 – Dodgers Beat Nationals 3-2

There was a time in the not-so-distant past where the dominant conversation surrounding Dodgers playoff games was that Clayton Kershaw wasn’t very good in them, and that the Los Angeles bullpen was even worse. This narrative clung to the Dodgers as they entered the 2016 postseason having been bounced in the Division Series each of the last two years. This time, though, led by young first-year manager Dave Roberts, questions abounded regarding the team’s overall postseason mettle.

While those were somewhat quieted by Kershaw outdueling Scherzer to take a tight Game 1, the Dodgers dropped each of the next two games, one of which featured Kenley Jansen puking up four earned runs. Allow me to briefly remember some other Dodger bullpen guys who played a big role in this series: Luis Avilán, Pedro Báez, Joe Blanton, and Grant Dayton each made at least three appearances. Avilán, Báez, and Blanton were all dynamite, escaping the series without giving up an earned run. Dayton, however, was the reason the Dodgers nearly blew it again. He took the mound for the seventh inning of Game 5, the Dodgers holding a three-run lead. He was tasked with the bottom of Washington’s lineup, the type of thing that seems simple until you remember that absolutely nothing is simple in playoff baseball. He walked Danny Espinosa, gave up a pinch-hit bomb to Chris Heisey, and then let Clint Robinson reach on a single.

From there, somewhat famously, Roberts aggressively fired Jansen and Kershaw for the final nine outs. Kershaw not only logged his first and only major league save that night, he did so while coming into a messy inning with the tying run in scoring position. This brief but successful outing was as storybook as it gets, removing a fairly sizable monkey yelling about postseason shortcomings from his back. Let us also quickly pay respect to Chase Utley, whose game-winning hit in Game 4 saved the Dodgers’ bacon.

8. 2017 – Yankees Beat Cleveland 3-2

The 2017 Yankees remain the last team to lose the first two games of an LDS and still win the series, though the Guardians could change that on Saturday. Falling into that hole made for an exigent series in its own right, but the Yankees starting the comeback with seven shutout innings from Masahiro Tanaka and a left-on-left Greg Bird homer against a warlock reliever made it even more impressive.

Luis Severino pitched the game of his life to win Game 4, and Didi Gregorius thumped two homers off Corey Kluber, who’d go on to win his second Cy Young that year, to win Game 5. There are so many other things from this series to mention, like how Aaron Judge struck out 16 times, comfortably breaking the Division Series record, or how Cleveland committed a mind-boggling nine errors in five games. It would also be a tremendous oversight not to mention that Game 2 — a 9-8 win for Cleveland that took 13 innings — is one of the very best baseball games of this century, and contained this clip, which I would watch if I ever needed to summon the strength to lift a two-story home from its foundation.

7. 2011 – Cardinals Beat Phillies 3-2

On paper, the 2011 Phillies had everything. This was the fabled Four Aces team, and those four — Roy Halladay (twice), Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Roy Oswalt — made every start of this series. The offense still had its championship core intact as well, even if they were aging. Ryan Madson had an excellent year filling in for the injured Brad Lidge as the team’s primary closer, and on top of that, these Phils were battle tested, having participated in each of the previous four Octobers.

What they didn’t account for was the little guys.

Skip Schumaker and Ryan Theriot were as much of a reason the Cardinals won this series as their Hall of Fame teammates were. While Albert Pujols hit .350 and Yadier Molina threw out three would-be basestealers while masterfully guiding Cardinals pitchers through the vaunted Phillies lineup, Schumaker and Theriot combined to go 12-for-20 with four doubles and four RBI. The biggest of those RBI came in the decisive Game 5, when Schumaker flicked the 10th pitch of his first at-bat off Halladay into the right field corner. It wound up being the only run of the game.

That game is seared into the Delaware Valley’s collective memory for many reasons, the biggest two being Chris Carpenter bullying the Phillies all night en route to a complete game shutout, and Ryan Howard tearing his Achilles in the game’s final at-bat, which was the definitive and unfortunate end to that run of good fortune in Philadelphia. But that game was also one of three one-run affairs in this highly competitive series, including a Game 2 where the Cardinals clawed back from an early 4-0 deficit to beat Lee, and a nailbiter Game 3 where neither team scored until Ben Francisco lifted a pinch-hit homer in the seventh.

Apart from an 11-6 Phillies win to start the series, every game of this tilt was a box office spectacle.

6. 1997 – Cleveland Beats Yankees 3-2

The defending-champion Yankees squared off against Cleveland, with both teams right in the teeth of their ’90s revitalization. They were kind enough to only play bangers.

In Game 1 in the Bronx, the visitors jumped David Cone for five runs in the first inning, only to turn around and watch their bullpen give the Yankees five right back in the sixth. It wasn’t any ordinary offensive explosion either; the Yanks went back-to-back-to-back, marking the first time that had ever happened in a postseason game. If you like watching videos of old Yankee Stadium going ham, I highly recommend pressing play.

Cleveland roughed up Andy Pettitte to steal Game 2, but then lost Game 3 at home, setting up two win-or-go-home games. Because of the playoff format of the time, those were both in Cleveland, and while we will never be able to quantify home field advantage, the hometown nine did take both of them by exactly one run. In Game 4, Cleveland was four outs from elimination when Sandy Alomar Jr. took Mariano Rivera deep in the eighth and Omar Vizquel walked it off in the ninth.

After all that mayhem, there was still a Game 5, which Jose Mesa saved only after putting a runner on second. This whole series was littered with high leverage, and when you factor in the wattage of Derek Jeter, Rivera, Tim Raines, Wade Boggs, Bernie Williams, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, David Justice, Orel Hershiser, and several other household names, it easily cements its place in this ranking.

5. 2015 – Blue Jays Beat Rangers 3-2

To this day, Blue Jays-Rangers in 2015 is the series that felt the most like drugs. The energy from pre-renovation Rogers Centre was palpable through the television screen, and rightfully so. This was the Blue Jays’ first taste of October baseball since winning the title in 1993, and their berth in the postseason broke the longest active playoff drought at the time.

Naturally, the Jays lost their first two home games, getting dinked and dunked by Delino DeShields and Hanser Alberto. Game 2 was the real barnburner though, needing 14 innings and 37 total players to complete.

If you’re going to poke holes in this series’ status as an all-timer, it’s because Games 3 and 4 in Texas were relative snoozers. But Game 5 more than made up for them. It was not just a spine tingler, a national exaltation for all of Canada, and the moment that bat flips fully went mainstream thanks to José Bautista’s epic go-ahead home run, but it was also a reminder of what it means to truly be alive (and also that if a catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher and it doinks off the hitter’s bat, that’s still a live ball).

4. 2001 – Diamondbacks Beat Cardinals 3-2

If a series in which every game is decided by three runs or less, the teams alternate wins, and the final swing produces a walk-off hit doesn’t do it for you, this probably just isn’t your jam.

The Diamondbacks won this series despite getting outscored 12-10. They also lost the lone game that Randy Johnson started. The Cardinals, meanwhile, managed to hit a measly .191 for the series and relied heavily on their bullpen, which lacked a true alpha and wasn’t particularly strong in the regular season. Put all that in a blender and you get a weird, gelatinous substance that doesn’t quite feel right but is compelling nonetheless.

One man who was on top of his game was Curt Schilling, who has a case for the best Division Series performance ever. Schilling started two games and went nine innings in both of them, starting with a true masterpiece in Game 1 (nine strikeouts, three hits, zero runs). The encore in Game 5 came with a teensy blemish, but Schilling matched his nine strikeouts and finished with a record-setting 1.30 Win Probability Added for the series. His 18 innings pitched in a Division Series are also a record, and if you’re wondering about that solitary mistake, it was leaving this pitch to J.D. Drew over the plate.

Luckily for the neutral fan, Schilling’s poor location set up Tony Womack’s series-ending floater, foreshadowing more clutchness from him later that postseason.

3. 2003 – Red Sox Beat Athletics 3-2

If you sat down and watched every game of this series today, you’d probably say the worst one was the A’s 5-1 win in Game 2, which was the most lopsided of the series. But that would also mean you just watched Barry Zito twirl seven innings of poetry. Zito’s gem put the Athletics in the driver’s seat but unable to finish the race, as the Red Sox ran off a trio of wins to take the series. First in line to make Oakland slightly less romantic about baseball: Trot Nixon.

The very next day, the A’s lugged a lead into the eighth inning and hitched their wagon to Keith Foulke for the final six outs. He got the first two, then was interrupted by David Ortiz.

All good, Zito was on the hill for Game 5! What’s this, now? He faced Pedro? And gave Manny an 86-mph nothing ball right down the middle? Oh.

The Red Sox took that game in another white knuckler that put a period on an unfathomable streak for the A’s. The green and gold endured four straight ALDS Game 5 losses from 2000-03, with this one marking the second in three years after winning the first two games of the series. Tough for the East Bay baseball fans, cinema (literally and figuratively) for fans of exciting ball. And hey, A’s fans will always have Ramon Hernandez’s bizarre yet effective two-out, walk-off bunt from Game 1.

2. 2013 – Tigers Beat Athletics 3-2

It is not hyperbole at all to say every game of this series had a serotonin spike. If Scherzer and Bartolo Colon duking it out in Game 1 wasn’t enough for you, that game ended with the slimmest of margins as Joaquín Benoit had to slay Brandon Moss and Yoenis Cespedes to close it out. Game 2 was a scoreless tie into the bottom of the ninth — Justin Verlander and Sonny Gray, take a bow — when then-unknown catcher Stephen Vogt spanked a walk-off single. In Game 3, Grant Balfour and Victor Martinez screamed at each other real loud! The Tigers trailed 3-0 in Game 4, then 4-3, and still managed to pull out a win. That game deserves a closer look, because Scherzer came in for a relief outing that was this close to being a complete disaster.

To set the scene, Scherzer relieved Doug Fister in the top of the seventh, with the game knotted at three. Some small ball from the A’s spawned the aforementioned 4-3 lead, but the Tigers got it back in the seventh, partly due to a home run that may or may not have been interfered with.

When Scherzer came out for the eighth, he proceeded to load the bases with nobody out, grit his way to two massive strikeouts, then run the count full to Alberto Callaspo, who laced a line drive that hung up just long enough to be caught. It really was an absolute powder keg of a baseball game.

Game 5 was more tyranny from Verlander, who was just torturous to the A’s. At this point we’ll stop highlighting Oakland’s shortcomings and focus on Verlander, who is one of five pitchers to post a 0.00 ERA in an LDS while tossing at least 10 innings.

1. 1995 – Mariners Beat Yankees 3-2

I don’t need to explain why this series is paramount to the Seattle Mariners’ very existence, or how Ken Griffey Jr. chugging around the bases to win Game 5 is surely the best that any baseball player has ever looked while running.

What maybe does need explaining is everything that led to Edgar Martinez’s picturesque swing and The Kid’s wild ride. Like how Griffey (maybe the most beloved player the Mariners have ever employed) uncorked two home runs off David Cone in Game 1, only for reliever Bobby Ayala (maybe the least beloved player the Mariners have ever employed) to later serve up three runs that essentially sealed Seattle’s loss. Perhaps you were unaware that Vince Coleman and his .345 career slugging percentage hit a tater in Game 2, a sordid evening in the Bronx that lasted over five hours, culminating in Jim Leyritz’s walk-off dinger that nearly killed professional baseball in Seattle.

The Mariners bounced back to win a fun Game 3 and had to overcome a five-run deficit to survive Game 4. While Martinez’s legacy is tied to The Double in Game 5, the M’s aren’t even in that position if not for his less-heralded handiwork the day before. It is a marvel of human accomplishment that he kept the first one fair.

Game 5 was one for the books. While the heroics of both Martinez and Griffey are deserving of their own 20,000 words, and are the main reason why this series gets the top spot, let’s continue the education around the other parts of that legendary Sunday at the Kingdome.

Cone unleashed a legitimately reckless 147 pitches, the Yankees finished with six hits but 10 walks, and a rookie setup man named Rivera made his third straight scoreless appearance on his way to leading all pitchers in WPA for the series.

They were five close, high-scoring games that could never be replicated, have been slightly imitated, but are now forever vindicated with the top spot on this list.

Over the weekend, I graded the managerial performances of the two National League managers eliminated in the Wild Card round. Now, it’s on to the American League. Both Joe Espada’s Astros and Chad Tracy’s Red Sox lasted just two games in the playoffs and didn’t even make it to October, but each still had plenty of decisions to make in their 18 innings at the postseason helm.

I went over this in the NL rundown, but I’ll say again that like Ben Clemens, who originated this series, I care about process and not results here. It’s easy to say “that was a great move because it worked” or “that was a bad move because it failed,” but managers obviously can’t know the result of their decision as they’re making it. I’ve tried my best to transport myself back to the moment of each decision — taking into account the pitches, innings, and plate appearances that led up to it — while ignoring the outcomes.

Before we begin, I’ll also reiterate that while these are ostensibly manager report cards, there’s a much larger group of people behind the manager that helps to inform his decisions. Before the game, that includes discussions with the front office, which provides the reams of data that every manager has at his disposal during play; in-game, he’s getting feedback from his coaching staff and players on their levels of health and readiness. It really does take a village to get through a baseball game, and realistically, the praise and scorn doesn’t belong to the manager alone.

Let’s get into it.

Joe Espada

Batting: Incomplete

None of the managers who lost in the Wild Card round made fewer changes than Espada, who pinch-hit just once in two losses to the White Sox. That one substitution worked brilliantly, with righty Nelson Velázquez hitting for lefty Taylor Trammell against southpaw Sean Newcomb and promptly homering to give the Astros their first two runs of Game 1. That was a no-brainer of a decision for a team that needed runs; Velázquez had an 88 wRC+ against lefties this year to Trammell’s horrendous 12.

Espada’s ability to go to his bench was hamstrung in Game 2, as right knee soreness incurred in Game 1 limited Isaac Paredes to DH duty and forced Nick Allen into the starting lineup at third base. Letting Allen hit in the fifth inning down by a run with a runner on first and one out was understandable. Using a bat like Trammell or Joey Loperfido would have forced Raynel Delgado into the game at third, and no matter the leverage of the situation, Espada would have had to pinch-hit for him when his spot came up, with no backup infielders left at that point.

The overall lack of offensive mixing-and-matching from Espada was more of a roster construction problem than a manager issue, as was the club’s batting order. Espada’s lineup created a pocket of righties from spots three through six, with Yordan Alvarez batting second as the only hard-hitting lefty to plan around. Still, he really couldn’t have put his lineup together any better given the cards he was dealt.

Pitching: C+

When grading the Wild Card managers, I’ve tried to be sympathetic to those without much to work with, and that was absolutely the case for Espada and his pitching staff. I wouldn’t wish a Game 1 bullpen game on a manager even if he was my worst enemy, and especially not one with Houston’s pitching staff. And given that the Astros clinched on the last day of the season, they couldn’t have lined the pitching up any differently, either. But while a bullpen game was necessary, starting the game with AJ Blubaugh on the mound wasn’t.

Blubaugh, who led all relievers in innings pitched this year with 96, was an unsung hero for the Astros during the regular season. But his 2026 was marked more by quantity than quality; his 3.66 ERA outpaced his 4.25 xERA and 4.31 FIP, and he limped to the finish line with 10 runs allowed in his last 10 appearances. Fellow righty Miguel Ullola finished his season stronger and could have provided length similar to the best version of Blubaugh (as he showed later in the game). Or, given the White Sox’s penchant for aggressive in-game platooning, going with a lefty like Josh Hendrickson, Bennett Sousa, or Bryan King may well have forced White Sox manager Will Venable into aggressively substituting once a lefty was out of the game. That might have led to Randal Grichuk starting the game with the platoon advantage and then being pinch-hit for as soon as Espada brought in a righty. Once that happened, Espada would have had a clearer lane of lefty bats to manage against, allowing him to use a second lefty pitcher like Hendrickson, Sousa, or King. Venable may well have countered with someone like Tommy Pham, but getting Grichuk’s lefty-mashing bat out of the game after a single plate appearance would’ve been a big win.

Espada managed from behind for the rest of the game, and once Blubaugh exited, all of his decisions were logical but came too late for the offense to recover. King ended up with a logical pocket of four lefties in six batters before turning the ball over to Ullola, who was a godsend, providing length without Espada having to worry about left-right matchups. Once Ullola was done, it was the standard manager playbook of alternating lefties and righties to play matchups, before giving the ball to his highest-leverage arms in Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader in the eighth and ninth. Houston was down by four runs when Abreu entered and by three runs when Hader came in, but in a best-of-three series, chasing a Game 1 win by using your best arms is what I would have done, too.

Game 2 could not have started more disastrously, with the Astros’ best starter, Hunter Brown, unable to make it out of the first inning. While he was let down by his defense and didn’t pitch quite as badly as his line would suggest, I understand Espada’s urgency in pulling the plug and making it a second straight bullpen game. But Blubaugh again being the first reliever out of the ‘pen was puzzling, and my evaluation doesn’t care that it happened to work out. This was another chance for Espada to bring in a southpaw against a lineup with five lefties in its first six spots, and yet Blubaugh was called upon to face Sam Antonacci and the top of the White Sox lineup for the second time in two days. Doubling down by sending Blubaugh back out for the second was equally perplexing, especially with Peter Lambert available for length.

After the second inning, however, I thought Espada redeemed himself with a near-perfect set of moves given his personnel. Lambert was the best arm available for the middle frames, and with very few trusted arms on staff, I’m giving his manager a pass for allowing him to face more than nine hitters. Batters 10 and 11 drawing walks made it Bryan Abreu time in the sixth with nobody out, again the appropriate move given that the Astros were down by one at the time and it was a must-win game. Abreu is no stranger to coming in and cleaning up messes, and while Chase Meidroth took him deep, he carved through eight outs thereafter before turning the ball over to Hader for four outs.

After Meidroth homered, the Astros trailed by four for the remainder of the game, and knowing that the Astros would need Hader for a third straight game if they miraculously pulled off a Game 2 comeback, I think Espada struck the right balance between getting Hader into the game and being cognizant that he’d need his closer the next day. With the benefit of hindsight, that exposes the danger of chasing a comeback by using Hader in Game 1 — and I certainly wouldn’t have liked using him in that game if the Astros were down four or five — but as I’ve mentioned repeatedly during these report cards, the manager can’t know the future. The best chance of pulling out win in a Game 1 that was still within striking distance comes by using Hader in the ninth, and the same is true for a Game 2 comeback.

Chad Tracy

Batting: Incomplete

Tracy entered the Wild Card Series with his healthiest and most complete offense of the season, and he lined things up about as well as you can against a tough customer like Cam Schlittler in Game 1. The Yankees used two righties in relief of Schlittler, and the only move Tracy made was to pinch-hit Andruw Monasterio for the injured Roman Anthony in the sixth, with Schlittler still in the game.

Anthony was removed from the roster prior to Game 2 due to his hand injury, and the combination of that and a tough opposing lefty in Max Fried led to a very different lineup for Boston, though one that I also didn’t have any problems with. Tracy’s one pinch-hit move of the night was playing the platoon game by swapping Nate Eaton out for Jarren Duran against Will Warren in the eighth. There weren’t many moves, hence the incomplete, but the ones he made were good.

Pitching: C

Out of the eight grades I’ve given to the managers eliminated in the Wild Card round, this was the toughest one to sort out. In a nutshell, I loved what Tracy did with his starting pitchers and strongly disliked which relievers he chose to deploy when.

Payton Tolle faced 19 batters in his Game 1 start, and was presumably allowed to face Paul Goldschmidt for a third time because Tracy would’ve rather had that matchup than likely pinch-hitter Luis García Jr. against a righty pitcher. That allowed Tracy to deploy lefty Erik Miller against Ben Rice… which immediately backfired, as Rice homered. Still, I have no problem with that choice. Rice was worse against lefties this year, and while Miller struggled in September, I understand going with the big stuff against Rice’s big swing. The bullpen arms used after Miller, though, represented baffling choice after baffling choice.

Still down just two runs, Tracy used lower-leverage arms Greg Weissert and Alec Gamboa, with Gamboa, Wyatt Olds and Brayan Bello allowing the Yankees to blow the game wide open on their way to a 9-0 drubbing. In a postgame exchange with the Boston Globe’s Tim Healey, Tracy defended using the pitchers he did — thereby lowering his win probability for that game compared to using better arms like Garrett Whitlock or Aroldis Chapman — as being a consequence of an offense that was, in his estimation, unlikely to come back no matter who pitched.

While I understand taking the long view of potentially needing to play three games in three days, if you aren’t going to chase a win down two runs with Schlittler soon to come out of the game, when are you going to chase a win? A manager can only manage the game in front of him, and for all Tracy knew, the Red Sox could end up winning Game 2 without needing Whitlock or Chapman anyway.

Game 2 ended up having a similar inflection point, with starter Sonny Gray pulled after just 70 pitches and 19 batters. That led to quite the anti-analytics firestorm on social media, but here in my corner of the internet, removing Gray was a clear-cut decision. I don’t care about Gray’s third-time-through-the-order performance being really good this season; he was bad in that scenario last year, and the third-time-through penalty is always going to exist to at least some extent. Gray had also allowed four of the last eight batters to reach and was clearly losing effectiveness. But giving Cody Bellinger another look at Miller a day after the lefty’s own ineffectiveness wasn’t ideal; unless Garrett Crochet was completely uncomfortable coming in with runners on base, I’d have preferred him in that scenario.

Instead, Crochet came in to start the following inning and the game went sideways from there. Spencer Jones reached on a strikeout-wild pitch and the inning spiraled thereafter, and while it wasn’t all Crochet’s fault, his performance all but assured a loss. Tracy then proved my earlier point about not knowing what the next day’s game will hold by using Whitlock down two runs with the bases loaded in the sixth and Chapman down seven runs in the eighth. Using Whitlock there was a coherent attempt to keep the game close, while Chapman was a “well, we need a miracle” pitching change. Had the Red Sox used Chapman and Whitlock to chase a win in Game 1 and ultimately won, Chapman never would’ve pitched down seven runs in Game 2, since Game 3 would be on the horizon. In sum: Yes, it matters when there’s a game tomorrow, but tomorrow’s game can go any which way. If you’re only down a couple runs and have a rested leverage arm, use him.

Cam Schlittler threw the Red Sox a curveball in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series. Well, actually, he threw them a lot of curveballs — 32, to be exact.

In the Yankees’ resounding 9-0 win over their archrivals last week at Yankee Stadium, the 25-year-old flamethrower went 6 1/3 scoreless innings, giving up just two hits and one walk while striking out 10 and throwing a career-high 117 pitches. Except for the pitch count, his final line reflects the same dominance we’ve seen repeatedly throughout a 2026 season in which Schlittler went 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA, a 2.56 FIP, and 6.2 WAR across 193 2/3 innings. The difference this time was how he got there, and it poses a new challenge for opposing batters when he starts against the Rays in Game 2 of the ALDS on Monday night at Tropicana Field.

Schlittler turned to the curveball early and often, utterly baffling a Boston lineup that was geared up for his signature three-fastball repertoire. Instead, they got a heavy dose of the hook and couldn’t handle it. In Game 1, he threw his curveball 27.4% of the time. The Red Sox swung at 16 of the 32 curves they saw from Schlittler, whiffing on eight of them, fouling off six, and putting two in play; the first of those two fair balls was a softly hit lineout to shortstop in the fifth inning, while the second came when Wilyer Abreu lined the right-hander’s last pitch of the game to right field for a single. Four of Schlittler’s 10 strikeout pitches were curveballs, all during his first time through the order. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Lefty? Righty? The platoon-heavy Yankees will beat your frontline starter regardless of handedness, and their frontline starter will shut your offense down. That was the case, at least, in this year’s Wild Card Series between the Yankees and the Red Sox. After fireballing righty Cam Schlittler overwhelmed Boston in Tuesday night’s opener, lefty Max Fried stifled the Sox for six innings on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a lineup stacked with eight lefty hitters — and again, no Aaron Judge — pressed Red Sox manager Chad Tracy to pull starter Sonny Gray after just 70 pitches, trailing 1-0. As on Tuesday night, the Yankees broke the game open against Boston’s lefty relievers. New York cruised to a 9-2 victory and a series sweep.

As he did in Game 1 of the 2025 Wild Card Series against the Red Sox, Fried pitched brilliantly. He held Boston scoreless through the first five innings on just two hits before allowing a solo home run to Willson Contreras with two outs in the sixth. It wasn’t just Boston’s first home run of the series, it was the team’s first run in a playoff game since the sixth inning of Game 2 of last year’s series, a span of 26 2/3 innings. Fried struck out six while walking one; though he got just nine whiffs (18.8%) and a 23.5% called strike and whiff rate, he allowed just three hard-hit balls and an average exit velocity of 85.3 mph. He threw 98 pitches, and when the Yankees broke through for six runs in the bottom of the sixth inning, it was an easy call for manager Aaron Boone to go to his bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice may be Massachusetts natives, but the two Yankee stars did nothing to help the Red Sox during Tuesday night’s Wild Card Series opener against their archrivals. In a start reminiscent of his performance in last year’s do-or-die Game 3 between the two teams, Schlittler, the fireballing 25-year-old righty from Walpole, dominated the Red Sox hitters, throwing 6 1/3 shutout innings and striking out 10 while allowing just two hits. Rice, the 27-year-old slugger from Cohasset, picked up the slack for the injured Aaron Judge by going 4-for-5 with two homers and six runs batted in as the Yankees waited out Red Sox ace Payton Tolle, then broke the game open against the bullpen en route to a 9-0 romp.

This was the sixth time in 363 days that Schlittler faced the Red Sox, dating back to the aforementioned Game 3 of the 2025 Wild Card Series. At that point, the baby-faced rookie — a seventh-round pick in 2022 out of Northeastern University with just 14 major league starts under his belt — turned in eight brilliant shutout innings, striking out 12 without a walk and allowing just five hits, all singles. In his first full season, while leading the league in ERA (1.95) and WAR (6.2) and making an overwhelming case for the AL Cy Young Award, Schlittler started four times against the Red Sox, putting up a 0.74 ERA in 24 1/3 innings while striking out 27. Those numbers conceal a few minor blemishes; he did allow four unearned runs in five innings in a loss on June 25, the only time in those six starts that the Yankees were defeated, and he walked five in 5 2/3 shutout innings on August 28. But so far, the Sox have yet to solve him.

They certainly didn’t on Tuesday night, though they did make Schlittler work hard enough to run up his pitch count early and to throw a career-high 117 pitches. Though Schlittler struck out three in the first inning, he needed 22 pitches to complete the frame thanks to a 10-pitch at-bat by Adley Rutschman that culminated in a soft single to left-center. His next three innings were spotless and included five more stirkeouts, but he needed 44 pitches for those, then another 23 for a fifth inning in which he yielded a two-out, seven-pitch walk to Jarren Duran, and 18 for a 1-2-3 sixth that included two more strikeouts. The pesky Red Sox fouled off 24 of his pitches in all, including 14 with two strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

Credit the Phillies for trying. When I highlighted the worst defenses among contending teams in early July, they were the poster boys, scoring worse than any team besides the decidedly non-contending Rockies in the multi-metric methodology I’ve used for the past four seasons. But when the August 3 trade deadline arrived, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski took a step to improve that shoddy defense, acquiring second baseman Luis Arraez from the Giants and setting off a game of musical chairs that sent incumbent second baseman Bryson Stott to third base, third baseman Alec Bohm to first, and first baseman Bryce Harper to right field. The defense at those spots mostly improved, but last Thursday, with the Phillies in the midst of what would become a 2-6 skid that nearly cost them a Wild Card berth, Arraez sprained his left ankle while trying to avoid a tag at first base. On Monday, interim manager Don Mattingly announced that the 29-year-old infielder will be left off the roster for the team’s Wild Card Series against the Braves.

How Mattingly will proceed with his lineup is unclear. In the three games Arraez missed — including Sunday’s playoff berth-clinching win over the Rays — Edmundo Sosa started at third base twice while Stott returned to second, while in the other game, Bohm and Harper moved back to their original positions as well; they lost that one 12-1.

Below I’ll take a closer look at the metrics underlying the Phillies’ defensive configurations, but long story short, they rate as the playoff team with the worst defense, as they did last year and in 2023. Read the rest of this entry »

To little fanfare, Nick Sogard was a key contributor to a Red Sox regular season that began abysmally — “Sell the team” chants were heard nearly as often at Fenway Park as “Sweet Caroline” in the early months — and culminated in a Wild Card berth. Filling in wherever needed in a lineup that dealt with both injuries and uneven performances, the 29-year-old jack of all trades ended up starting 24 games at second base, 16 at first base, seven at third base, and four at shortstop. Moreover, he was solid defensively at each of those spots. He was charged with just four errors, none of them over his 302 innings at the keystone position.

The switch-hitter also provided value with the bat. Over 277 trips to the plate, he slashed a pesky .255/.342/.385 with five home runs and a 105 wRC+. Fitting well into the style of play that emerged after Chad Tracy replaced Alex Cora as Boston’s manager in late April, Sogard is not only fundamentally sound, he is also proficient at making contact and playing small ball. (These aren’t your stereotypical Red Sox; their 36 sacrifice hits were third most in the junior circuit, as well as five more than Cora’s club had in the previous three seasons combined.)

That said, Sogard is by no means a banjo hitter. While no one would ever mistake him for a basher, he can nonetheless impact a baseball, which is one of the reasons he is where he is. Not so long ago, he profiled as a fringe big leaguer at best — a Quad-A type whose value came primarily from his versatility — due to a lack of pop.

“Offensively, my foundation is still very similar to what it has always been,” Sogard told me recently. “I try to swing at strikes and put balls in play. I think those are my strengths. But this organization has put a pretty big focus on me hitting the ball harder and getting some power to my game. There was literally none of it when I got drafted.” Read the rest of this entry »