Red Sox Weekly Report

Zak Drapeau
Aug 6
8 min read

by Zak Drapeau 8/6/2025 FansOnlySportz

Week In Review

Well that came almost out of nowhere...

The Red Sox are once again one of the hottest teams in baseball after a 6-game win streak starting last Wednesday. After the week before this saw the Sox go 2-4 and struggle with their pitching, they would bring everything together and not only win out but really dominate everyone in the process.

The week would start in Minnesota for their 3rd game of the series where they would cruise to a 13-1 win to win the series, 2-1.

After that was over the boys would fly home to start a huge series with the AL West-leading Astros. The first game would be a pitching duel into extras where the kid Roman Anthony would walk it off to win 2-1, then lead to a dominant sweep for the Sox as Alex Bregman would laugh his former team out of Boston.

The final two games would be the start of another series against the Royals for the 4th and 5th game of the home stand. The Royals were a middling team heading into the series and most people assumed the Sox would win 2 or even 3 games of the series. True to their hype, the Sox would cruise to two wins in similarly easy fashion to make their win streak climb to 6 and finish the week off very strong.

In whole, the week would see the Sox go 6-0 while outscoring their opponents 42-13. As we'll come to see it wasn't a perfect week but it was nonetheless very important and one of their best 6-game stretches of the season.

Another huge part of the week we have to talk about is the Trade Deadline. After a swirl of rumors around the Red Sox that mentioned everyone from Jarren Duran to Chris Sale, the Sox were relatively quiet. They would bring in pitchers Steven Matz from the Cardinals and Dustin May from the Dodgers. Both are quality-veteran arms with rotation or bullpen versatility but neither were the huge splash Red Sox fans were hoping for.

Was the week perfect or was it a product of circumstance? Let's dig a little deeper.

3 Positives of the Week

The First Positive of the Week has to be the 6-game win streak and sweep of the Astros. As a whole, everything comes down to Wins and Losses and if that's all you care about this was a pretty great week. To say that these wins were as good as they look on paper would be stretching the truth though as the Twins and Royals are both below .500 in the AL Central and the Astros may be leading their division, but had lost 5 of their last 7 before the series started. This win streak is crucial for our standings and has even gotten us above the Yankees and within 3 games of the Blue Jays, but was still a product of a well-timed ease in the schedule.

The Second Positive of the Week is the bats of Trevor Story, Romy Gonzalez, Cedanne Rafaela and Jarren Duran. All hitting over the 1.000 OPS mark, these 4 raked this week to the tune of 6 home runs and 22 RBIs driving in over half of the team's total runs for the week.

Here's where t really gets silly though, the 4 would slash .390/.433/.731 for a combined 1.164 OPS. The best of the 4 would be Trevor Story who would by himself slash .500/.583/.950 with 2 home runs and 3 doubles. Story's OPS of 1.533 was almost a FULL POINT HIGHER than his total last week of .582. The MVP of this week has to go to Story and what a week it was.

The Third Positive of the Week is the team pitching. A huge part of their 2-4 disappointment last week was the team's 3.86 ERA and 2 quality starts in 6 games. This week would be a complete flip with a team 1.96 ERA and 5 quality starts in 6 games. It all started with the rotation who themselves pitched a 1.83 ERA and 1.17 WHIP in 39.1 innings pitched. Cooper Criswell started it off with a 7 inning gem in his first start of the season and the rest would follow. Fittingly, the only starter not to pitch a quality start would be Walker Buehler's 4.1 IP with 3 earned against the Astros but the team would still finish on top.

Not to be out done, the bullpen would also have a beautiful week, combining for 15.2 innings in 18 appearances for a 2.30 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. They would also strike out 7.5 per 9 innings in one of their higher marks of the season. Altogether this was one of their very best weeks of pitching for the season!

3 Negatives of the Week

The First Negative of the Week is the team's fielding. While the week was great, we have to be real and the biggest struggle of the entire season crept up again in the team's fielding. 7 errors in 6 games is unacceptable and should have led to a loss or two but thankfully only attributed to a single unearned run. With 7 different players combining for the stat, (4 fielders and 3 pitchers) the week could have seen even more but players like Duran and Abreu's outfield bobbles were called hits instead.

The boys got lucky this week as any time you see more than 1 error per game, you should have to swallow it at some point but they didn't. Hovering around 2-3 errors per week for most of the season, this was by far their worst week in the field and now has the team at .79 errors per game this season, only behind the Rockies at .8.

The Second Negative of the Week was the Trade Deadline. While I do like Matz in the bullpen and May in the rotation, (I'm not against both in the bullpen but we'll see how May does,) the team came up short of expectations by a bit. This isn't a huge issue for me as I'm a full-picture kind of guy and have been looking towards next year more than most. If you are all-in on a 2025 World Series though, you were heavily disappointed we didn't trade for another Ace or a Bat in the middle of the order. Players like Alcantara, Ryan, Cease and even Sale were all heavily rumored to be targets but instead we get two shaky, veterans.

I'm here to say they did okay though and if the fan base's expectations weren't so high you may even call it a good deadline. The Sox are building for 2026 and even though they've gotten white hot this year and should even make a playoff appearance they don't have the team this year to win it all. Get guys like Matz and May who will bolster the pen and don't trade guys like Duran until the off season for a better deal... they played this smart.

The Third Negative of the Week was the walk rate of the batters. While they batted very well I have to come up with 3 negatives and it was harder than usual this week. At a rate of 3.2 per game and with a BB/K of .5, they could have definitely tried to get more free passes. With guys like Duran and Toro not even getting 1 walk, the Sox didn't particularly need to walk when they hit for a .308 average on the week. This is grasping at straws and if they continue to barrel the ball, I'm fine with them not taking pitches.

Looking to the Future

The Sox will finish the 6-game home stand and the Royals series tonight with new acquisition Dustin May on the mound opposite Royals' Michael Wacha. With Wacha having a very good showing in each of his last 4 starts this one will eb the toughest of the series but one I still expect the bats to help out May for in his Red Sox debut. To close out the home stand I predict the Sox nab one more and extend the streak in what seems to be a high scoring affair.

After a day off Thursday, the Sox will travel to the West Coast for a 3-game series with the Padres over the weekend. In the two teams' first meetings of the year, they should have equal advantages and disadvantages on the mound. Friday will see the Sox's old friend Nick Pivetta have the edge on paper against Walker Buehler. On Saturday, Lucas Giolito will step up against the Padres' Ace Dylan Cease in what should be an advantage for the home team but an excellent pitching duel nonetheless.

For Game 3, Brayan Bello is scheduled to take the mound for the Sox with his momentum high after his recent performances but with an unknown pitcher taking the mound for the Padres. During the Trade Deadline the Padres were very active around their Starters by bringing in Brewers' Nestor Cortes. This move would send a ripple effect of moving players down and around so that the 5th man in their rotation, (scheduled to face Bello on Sunday) is up in the air. Whether it be the unlikely young arm like JP Sears or an "opener-bullpen" approach the advantage should go to the Red Sox.

The week will close out with another Houston-series taking place in Texas this time around. After getting swept in Boston the Astros will bring their A-game. For Game 1 they're scheduled to start Jason Alexander who is coming off a very good performance against the Marlins, giving up 0 runs and 4 base runners in 6 innings. He is scheduled to face the Cy Young Garrett Crochet who missed the last series between the teams due to a much-deserved day off and will look to make his mark this tine around.

Game 2 and the final of the week will see Dustin May make his second start for the Sox versus Spencer Arrighetti who will be making his first start in 4 months after breaking his pitching thumb in April. With both pitchers trying to just get back to the "swing" of things, this game could go anywhere which I believe gives the advantage to the Sox.

All in all, starting tonight the next week of games should be a lot tougher than this past one for the boys. The Royals game tonight should be the toughest of the series but one I still see the Sox outscoring them for the win.

The Padres series see a team equally as hot as the Sox with favorable pitching matchups in their stadium across the country from them. I can see us taking one of the games for sure, probably the third, but I'm not confident about the first two.

Going to Houston should be a very fun series with the Sox holding the mental edge before they even come to town. Crochet will do his thing in Game 1 and as long as the bats haven't cooled down they should have an outstanding Game 2 on Tuesday.

My prediction for the week is 4-2 with the crucial 4th win either coming by taking 2 in San Diego or both in Houston. The Padres may really give us a hard time but either way the Sox momentum is too high right now to predict anything less than another positive week!

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