BOSTON -- Over the course of an 162-game season, there are certain inflection points.
For the last-place 2022 Red Sox, some may point to July 17, when a comebacker broke Chris Sale’s hand in his second start back from the IL. Some might think it was the historic 28-5 loss to the Blue Jays to begin the second half. Another solid choice is when Boston lost all post-deadline momentum by dropping three of four to a bad Royals team in early August.
But the real turning point, in the mind of this writer who followed the team all-season, came earlier than all of those bad moments. One week in late June and early July sunk these Red Sox.
On June 25, Boston was riding-high, following up a 7-2 homestand with a three-game sweep in Cleveland that kicked off a nine-game, 10-day road trip. The Red Sox were 19-4 to that point in June. After a bad start, the club was back on track.
Injuries, though, were becoming a factor. Kiké Hernández, Nate Eovaldi and Garrett Whitlock were all lost during an otherwise-successful west coast trip in mid-June. Still, the Red Sox chugged along. Entering a key series in Toronto starting on June 27, Boston was back in the thick of the wild card race.
That all changed over the course of the six days that followed. The first loss was at least understandable, as the Connor Seabold-led Sox lost, 7-2, to a high-octane Jays offense. But the second in that series, a brutal 6-5 defeat on June 28, was perhaps the most devastating of the season.
With Tanner Houck (unvaccinated) ineligible to enter Canada, the Red Sox were tasked with protecting a close lead without the guy who had emerged as their lights-out closer. Tyler Danish, instead, took the ninth in a one-run game and allowed a single and a walk before Hansel Robles entered, pitching for the third day. A Bo Bichette single tied it. A Vladimir Guerrero Jr. single seconds later won it. Afterwards, the Red Sox clubhouse was like a morgue.
In a rare showing of frustration, manager Alex Cora lost his cool with the media in his postgame session, then later apologized for it during his weekly WEEI spot the next day, while (correctly) pointing out that the absence of Houck could not, alone, be blamed for the loss. Still, though, the story of the night was clear. As reporters asked Danish and Robles if the club missed Houck with a late-game lead, other veterans loudly bristled at the vaccine-related questions. Tensions, as they often had when the vaccine storyline came up, ran high. In the moment, the loss felt like much more than a regular-season defeat.
“It was a tough one,” Cora said recently “We had a chance to win it and we didn’t. You win that game and you have the chance to win the series the next day. We didn’t. We can go over stuff, but at the end, you have to execute. You have to pitch. You cannot assume that because this guy wasn’t there or this guy wasn’t there, they were going to pitch. Because maybe the night before, he pitches and we win it. It was a tough one because we felt like we were rolling.”
Boston showed some fight by beating the Jays by one run in the series finale the next day but got an uneven performance from Michael Wacha, who did not look like himself. Four days later, he’d be scratched from his scheduled start with a heavy feeling in his arm and he would end up missing six weeks with shoulder inflammation.
Friday brought one of Boston’s sloppiest losses of the year. In a matinee against a bad Cubs team, Rich Hill was lost to a left knee sprain and Sox pitchers combined to walk 10 batters in a late 6-5 loss. Cora has often pointed to that game as the point where the wheels started falling off for the Red Sox. Again, the clubhouse was not a particularly cheerful place postgame. Robles, who would be cut a week later, refused multiple overtures from team officials to speak to the media.
Boston lost Saturday, stole a win Sunday and returned home on July 4 with 44-35 record. Up next was a 14-game gauntlet against the Rays and Yankees leading into the All-Star break. The Red Sox went 4-10 during that stretch and stumbled into the second half of the season. But the root cause of those struggles could be found in Toronto and Chicago.
With Eovaldi (returned July 15), Hill (returned Aug. 1) and Wacha (returned Aug. 14), Boston’s pitching depth was stretched as thin as it had been in nearly 80 years. That’s no hyperbole. From July 6-9, the Red Sox started four rookie starters in a row for the first time since 1945. Against postseason teams like Tampa Bay and New York, it wasn’t enough. Seabold never pitched well in the majors this year. Josh Winckowski was hit hard after an impressive first handful of outings. Brayan Bello had early growing pains after coming up earlier than expected for his debut. And even Kutter Crawford, who stabilized the group with a great July, ended up hitting a wall and ended the season with a 5.47 ERA.
The injuries to Wacha and Hill caused a domino effect that threw the pitching staff out of whack for a month. It wasn’t just the reliance on rookies, who combined to make 42 starts in 2022. It also led to an increased strain on a bullpen group that was never particularly well put together anyway. And those factors led to many losses.
“I just feel like that week, we got hurt,” Cora said. “We became very short, pitching-wise.
“Those two guys got hurt and we had to go to Plan C and D,” Cora added. “It’s not easy, especially with those guys. Veteran guys, strike-throwers that can give you innings. It put us in a tough spot as far as the rotation. It puts everything else in a tough spot because of the bullpen.”
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