One explanation as to why the Red Sox are underachieving

So, why are the Red Sox underachieving? Today, we offer up just explanation, though it may be more like a collection of them that all fall under the same umbrella.

The devil, as always, is in the details.

Now 36 games into their 2025 season, the Red Sox are precisely 18-18 entering a three-game series with the Texas Rangers that begins tonight at Fenway Park. That performance makes the Sox 99-99 since the start of last season, an outcome that is perfectly and astonishingly mediocre. In between 81-81 and 18-18, the Red Sox brought in Garrett Crochet, Alex Bregman and Kristian Campbell, among others, and yet the end result remains the same.

But why?

My theory: because they're playing the game on paper more than they are on the field.

For example: baseball-reference.com has long had a metric called the Pythagorean W-L, which estimates a team's won-lost record based on run differential. (In this case, the 2025 Red Sox boast a plus-minus of +17.) According to the website/formula, that number should translate into a record of 20-16, which equates to a 90-win pace. That number of victories would almost certainly get the Red Sox into the playoffs, which is where we all expected them to be when the season began.

So why the 18-18 record that obviously translates into another 81-81 season? Well, the nerds/geeks/analysts/paper pushers would tell you that the discrepancy is largely the result of bad luck.

I beg to differ.

I would argue that the Red Sox stink at the details that can help shape a mediocre team into a good one.

Let me put this another way: a picture is made up of pixels, right? One distorted pixel on a page filled with them isn't going to change anything. But if you start starting stringing them together, well, then the final image is altered. So it is with the 2025 Red Sox, who are, in a word, blemished.

For all of the annoying metrics that now exist in a world of numbing, paralyzing numbers, there are some that resonate. ESPN and the Elias Sports Bureau track "productive outs," which hardly qualifies as particularly new. But it's nonetheless revealing. Let's say the Sox start with a leadoff double. If the next hitter hits a grounder to the right side, the runner advances to third. And if the next hitter generally puts the ball in play, the run scores. The runner advanced from second to home without the benefit of a hit, which makes either of those at-bats worthless.

Know where the Red Sox rank in this metric among the 30 major league teams? Dead last. By contrast, their opponents (when facing Red Sox pitchers) rank fourth-best. Those "productive outs" alone might very well explain why the Red Sox are 18-18 instead of 20-16, especially when the Red Sox have a major-league-leading nine losses by just one run.

That's right: the Sox are 4-9 in one-run games. The dorks - who analyze the game on paper - will tell you that total will even out over time. But in order to do that, the Red Sox actually need to get better at making contact, putting the ball in play, making even executing a few (gasp) sacrifice bunts.

Hmmm...

Could that be why manager Alex Cora and the Sox actually executed a pair of sacrifice bunts over the weekend, their first two of season?

After all, would you trust this lineups of whiffers to put the ball in play in a key spot?

Yes, it's true; the Red Sox lead the American League in strikeouts and now rank second in all of baseball to the Colorado Rockies, who are a woebegone 6-28 through 34 games, on pace for a 29-133 record that would make the 2024 Chicago White Sox look like the 1927 New York Yankees. But we digress. Overall, the Red Sox rank seventh in baseball in strikeout rate, which certainly makes them better than Rockies. But if that's your goal, well, you aren't aiming high enough.

Of course, the strikeouts and accompanying inability to move runners is just the beginning. (Remember, too, that the Red Sox have gone 18-18 against what baseball-reference.com deems to have been the softest schedule in baseball.) Red Sox pitchers have allowed the third-most hits in baseball; the defense has committed the most errors (shame on me for using a traditional, subjective stat). But the numbers that should really stick out to you are, again, the situational statistics, which reflect either an inability to execute or a lack of awareness.

For example: with two outs and runners in scoring position, the Red Sox have allowed a .288 average that is second worst in baseball to only the St. Louis Cardinals. (Yes, this is the same St. Louis team against whom the Red Sox scored 36 runs while the sweeping a three-game series in April; the Red Sox are 15-18 against everyone other than the Cardinals.) On the flipside, the Sox have batted just .227 with two outs and runners in scoring position (17th in the majors) with 51 strikeouts, the latter a total that - you guessed it - leads the majors.

Again, don't you see?

The big-picture numbers overall are decent, sometimes even good.

But situationally, when awareness and execution are paramount - and when both teams are theoretically bearing down - the Red Sox have been oblivious, inept or, worse, both.