Red Sox Wednesday Report

Zak Drapeau
Jun 18
6 min read

by Zak Drapeau 6/18/25 FansOnlySportz

Week in Summary

In the last 7 days the Red Sox have gone 5-1 including a weekend sweep of the Yankees and completed a historic trade including sending Rafael Devers to the Giants for mostly prospects. They would also trade for RHP Jorge Alcala on June 12th for a Single-A infielder.

The trade of Rafael Devers is the biggest news of the week and a more in-depth analysis of the trade can be found here.

Their first game of the week was the third and final against the Tampa Bay Rays in a 4-3, home run-fest win. Marcelo Mayer would have his first multiple-home run game in the Majors when he blasted his first two ABs past the Pesky Pole. Walker Buehler would go 7 innings even though he gave up 3 runs on 6 hits. Opposing him, Zack Littell gave up 4 in 6 innings of work. Showing what was to come for the rest of the week, the Red Sox bullpen would shut down the Rays for the final 2 innings.

The sweep of the Yankees saw the best series of the year for the Red Sox, especially for their pitching. In 3 games against the Bronx Bombers who rank 1st in the AL in Runs Scored, Batting Average and OPS, they would give up 4 runs, 15 hits and would limit the likely-AL MVP Aaron Judge to 1-for-12 in the series.

All starting pitchers would go at least 6 innings and would only surrender 1 run between them. The 1 run coming from Garrett Crochet giving up Judge's lone Home Run of the series after a pitch that should have struck him out was called a ball. Aroldis Chapman would come in and shut down the bats for the second night in a row leading to a Carlos Narvaez walk-off in the 10th.

The final two games in the week would start a West Coast road trip for the boys in Seattle. Their first game would be their 2nd shutout in a row in a 2-0 win headlined by Lucas Giolito pitching a 6-inning gem with 10 strikeouts. Both teams would only have 4 hits for the game and that would include prized-rookie Roman Anthony's first Major League Home Run.

The final game was last night and after the Red Sox winning 8 of their last 9, was a drumming that the boys haven't seen since May, losing 8-0. Buehler would have one of his worst starts of the year, giving up all 8-earned runs and 12 baserunners in 3.1 innings. The bullpen would be flawless for the rest of the game but the damage was done; Cal Raleigh (Mariners C and best hitter) would bat-in 6 runs by himself. The Red Sox would only get 2 hits in the game, and only 3 baserunners against the starting pitcher Bryan Woo in his 7-inning gem.

3 Positives of the Week

The first positive of the week is sweeping the New York Yankees. We may have taken 2-of-3 in last weekend's series but most pundits including myself picked the Yankees to possibly sweep this one. Outscoring the best offense in the American League 8-3 in the series and limiting Aaron Judge to his worst 3-game series of the season, the Red Sox pitching and defense were immaculate.

The second positive of the week has to be the overall team pitching. For the 6 games of the last week, the TEAM'S ERA was 2.50 and the TEAM's WHIP was 1.02. Compared to last week's tallies of 6.56 and 1.69 respectively, it's safe to say the Red Sox emphasized this part of their game and followed through on it too. The pitching was so good, only 3 outings by individual pitchers accounted for 13 of the team's 15 runs allowed, (Buehler's 2 starts accounting for 11 and Guerrero's relief on Friday accounting for 2). The other 4 starters in the Red Sox rotation would account for 27.1 innings pitched and only 1 earned run. The other relief pitching stints for the team would account for 16 innings pitched and also 1 earned run.

The third positive of the week is the team's fielding. After last week's horrendous defense causing 7 unearned runs, the team would only commit 3 errors in the 6 games of the week and would not surrender a single unearned run. Unfortunately Kristian Campbell did surrender 2 of these errors, making for his second week in a row with 2.

3 Negatives of the Week

The first negative of the week is the trading of Rafael Devers. While the pure analytics show that Devers' "true value" and "wins-per-dollars" were below average and the "Red Sox are better without him", the fans of this team know how much this departure will hurt the team on the field and off the field. Again, I won't dive too much into this trade after already writing an article about it that you can read here, but more developments have surfaced about the trade possibly being made because of Craig Breslow's ego and if that's the case he deserves to be fired as the Chief Baseball Officer for the team.

The second negative of the week is the team's overall hitting.

After setting the league on fire with their hitting last week, the Red Sox bats came to a screeching halt. Here's a comparison of last week's well-above average hitting stats and this week's well-below average numbers:

Last Week: .300/.382/.446 slashline, 45 RBIs, 66 hits and 29 walks in 220 ABs

This Week: .188/.258/.354 slashline, 13 RBIs, 34 hits and 17 walks in 181 ABs

Part of this dip can go to the also-superb pitching of the Yankees last weekend but the noticeable drop in hitting from players like Jarren Duran and Trevor Story and the continued slump of Roman Anthony, their is no excuse for the worst hitting week of this club's season.

The third negative of the week has to go to Walker Buehler. After increasing his season-ERA for the 4th and 5th game in a row this week, Buehler's 11 earned runs in 10.1 innings pitched was awful. He would also allow 19 baserunners in the same amount of time and not surprisingly, would earn a 0-2 W-L record in those games. Buehler has had a rough bounce back after his injury in late-April but he's showing no signs of improvement and is DEFINITELY not earning his $21 million salary this season.

Next Week's Predictions

Tonight's game will finish the series with the Mariners before a needed day off on Thursday. The game will match Garrett Crochet and Luis Castillo on the mound in another pure pitching duel. Luis Castillo's 2.35 ERA in home games this season is incredibly similar to Crochet's 2.33 ERA on the road. The Red Sox bats will have to show up and give Crochet some support as they try to win a series for the 5th time in their last 6.

Starting on Friday, the Red Sox will face the San Francisco Giants and their new slugger Rafael Devers. The Giants are 41-32 on the season but have lost 4 of their last 5 games; those 5 games are against the league-best Dodgers in LA and the Guardians at home. This series will immediately pose a redemption arc for Rafael Devers who almost everyone who's in the know will expect Devers to have an incredible series.

The first game will have Hunter Dobbins (3.74) take on Hayden Birdsong for the Giants. Birdsong has given up 9 earned runs in 20 innings pitched in his previous 5 games which happen to be his only starts of the year. Birdsong's history of starts this season will indicate a winnable game for the Red Sox especially with Hunter Dobbins momentum as of late.

The second game will pit Brayan Bello vs Landen Roupp in a matchup of two pitchers with ERAs between 3.50 and 4.00. Roupp's 3.99 ERA doesn't tell you his full story as his ERA drops to 2.25 in 5 starts at home. Bello's last start was possibly his best ever and if he pitches like that again will be tough to beat.

In the final game on Sunday afternoon, Lucas Giolito will face the Giants' best pitcher, Robbie Ray. Ray's last 3 starts have him on a bad trajectory however, with 7 earndd runs in 17 innings. Giolito has come off the best start of his season but had the worst the start before that so he doesn't have too much momentum either. This game will be just like all 3 of this series, anything could happen.

The Red Sox will then have 2 games in LA against the Angels to finish off their week as they get closer to finishing their 9-game West Coast road trip. These games could be bad for the Red Sox after dropping 2 of 3 in their last series against the Angels and with Walker Buehler scheduled to take the mound on Monday's first game of the series.