This month will decide the direction of the Red Sox season

Deesha Thosar

MLB Writer

NEW YORK — Asked to characterize the first couple months of his club’s season, Red Sox manager Alex Cora looked down and repeated two barely-audible words.

“Not great,” Cora said in his pregame press conference on Friday, perched on a bench in the visitor’s dugout at Yankee Stadium. “Not great.”

Cora, typically animated and chatty with reporters, did not care to expand. From his hunched body language to the defeated tone behind his choice of words, the manager didn’t exactly give a vote of confidence for his flailing Red Sox team. It was an attitude that was poles apart from what Cora promised at the end of last year’s season. After Boston finished 2024 with an 81-81 record, Cora said, multiple times, “I think this is the last time we’re going to struggle.”

Boy, was he wrong.

And yet… Why bother making such a declarative statement without being one million percent sure the team was in a position to take a step forward? Fans are tired of the act. Once again, the Red Sox are overpromising and underdelivering. With just two months left before the July 31 trade deadline, the Sox are in danger of their season falling apart if they don’t figure it out soon.

The Red Sox (30-35) arrived at their rival’s house in the Bronx this weekend in fourth place in the American League East, struggling to prove that they’re good enough to be a .500 team, let alone a club that could seriously contend for the playoffs. Since third baseman Alex Bregman strained his right quad two weeks ago, they’ve gone 4-9 without their best hitter, playing uninspired baseball the whole way.

Alas, the Bronx is no place for a struggling team to find respite. Right-hander Walker Buehler, one of Boston’s offseason additions, found himself trailing the Bombers by a whopping seven runs as early as the second inning of the series opener Friday night. After allowing a pair of home runs as part of New York’s offensive onslaught, Buehler’s ERA skyrocketed to 5.18. Worse still, the starting rotation’s ERA plummeted to 4.53, which is ranked 26th in the major leagues, despite ace Garrett Crochet (5-4, 1.98 ERA) being in the conversation for the AL Cy Young award.

“This organization put a lot of faith in me,” Buehler said after the game. “And I’ve been f–king embarrassing.”

After allowing a pair of home runs as part of New York’s offensive onslaught, Walker Buehler’s ERA skyrocketed to 5.18. (Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

This Red Sox-Yankees matchup should be exciting; it is, after all, getting national network attention throughout the weekend. The Yankees (39-23) are doing their part, boasting a talented, well-rounded roster that represents one of the top teams in Major League Baseball. But the Red Sox aren’t holding up to their end of the bargain.

Boston’s start to the season has been headline-grabbing, to be sure. Just for all the wrong reasons.

The season kicked off with the drama surrounding slugger Rafael Devers and real questions about where he would play on the field after the club signed Bregman. After it seemed settled that Devers would transition to full-time designated hitter duties, Triston Casas’ season-ending injury prompted yet another conflict that seeped into the public landscape. Devers’ apparent refusal to play first base could’ve been avoided if the Red Sox had just been up front with the face of their franchise about their expectations for him.

Offensively, at least, Devers hasn’t let the drama affect him. He’s one of two Red Sox players among the top 15 hitters in MLB. The other player, Bregman, is idling away on the injured list. After that? The Red Sox’ next best hitter is right fielder Wilyer Abreu, sporting a 123 OPS+ that’s good enough for 68th in MLB, followed by left fielder Jaren Duran, who’s just barely hitting above league-average. Still, thanks to the overall mediocre level of competition in the American League — the Detroit Tigers and the Yankees being the exceptions — Boston’s lineup entered Friday having produced the third-most runs in the AL. So it’s certainly not all doom and gloom for this club.

But can they even capitalize on their remaining chances to move up in the standings? We’ll find out over the next handful of weeks, because this month will likely decide the direction of the Red Sox’ season.

Soon enough, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow will need to know whether he will be a buyer or a seller at the trade deadline. If it’s the latter, guys like Duran and closer Aroldis Chapman are already rumored to be on the trading block. And it’s possible Cora will be on the hot seat, even though last year he signed a contract extension that goes through the 2027 season.

“At some point, it has to be on me, I guess,” Cora said after the Red Sox lost, 4-3, to the Angels in extra innings on Tuesday. Boston’s 17 losses in one-run games are easily the most in baseball. The team’s 56 defensive errors also lead the majors.

It’s not ideal that the Red Sox are being asked to play their best baseball without Bregman and Casas, but every team has its setbacks. The Yankees lost their ace, Gerrit Cole, to season-ending Tommy John surgery in spring training, and New York’s rotation still rose to the occasion, manufacturing a top-five ERA in the big leagues to this point. So what’s stopping the Sox? The second half of Boston’s June schedule gets easier, but the team has yet to make a compelling case that it can even defeat the league’s basement dwellers.

The Red Sox need to be hungrier, sharper, and just plain better. Time is all but running out to save their season.

Deesha Thosar covers Major League Baseball as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.