By at least one measure, the Boston Red Sox of 2025 are doing just fine. They've outscored their opponents on the season, modestly, but at a better clip than that of, say, the Philadelphia Phillies, who are presently nine games over .500 and slotted into the final National League wild card spot. Their lineup has been impressive, notwithstanding the lingering hurt feelings of a thoroughly jerked-around Rafael Devers: Boston ranks in the top six among all teams in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging, yes with certain indications of batted-ball luck but nothing that would cause a Bostonian to assert any more than their usual dispensation of God's particular favor. Devers has been excellent; Carlos Narváez, Jarren Duran, and Ceddanne Rafaela have been productive; Kristian Campbell, a rookie, has cooled off some but has still performed pretty admirably for one who appears to be a lanky child. Alex Bregman has been an absolute stud.
By other measures, the Sox are feeling some mid-summer pressure. They're presently three games below .500, and are nine games back of the New York Yankees in their division, and are eighth in the wild card race, closer to the bottom than to the promised land. If the Baltimore Orioles were not cursed dog-doo, the Red Sox would almost certainly be last in the American League East, which incidentally is where they finished in consecutive seasons before seeming to take a step forward with 81 wins in 2024. This is not really a roster constructed to contend for a World Series, but the Red Sox have now hit a point in their rebuilding project where they will need to show some definite signs of seriousness in order to prove that they are not just settled into a condition of mediocrity, or worse. A fourth-place finish and 76-odd wins will be hard to explain as anything other than a stall.
Pitching is the primary concern. Only three AL teams—all of them profoundly crummy—have allowed more total runs this season, and Boston's pitchers rank in MLB's bottom third in batting average against and on-base percentage. It's not an outright disaster, although things do seem to be trending in a worrying direction: The Red Sox have allowed seven or more runs in six of the nine games they've played so far in June, which is not really what you want. Boston's pitchers pursued an interesting gimmick for a portion of last season, earning plaudits and a sparkling earned-run average by throwing a startlingly low percentage of fastballs, but by the end of the season they'd produced numbers that were middling or worse: a 4.04 ERA that ranked 17th in baseball, a .246 average against that was ninth worst, and perfectly average expected numbers, per Statcast.
So this season's tepid performance is a continuation of last's season's late-summer mediocrity, only now with Walker Buehler and Garrett Crochet sexying up the rotation. Buehler has been bad, and was horrendous in his last start, against the Yankees, giving up seven hits, two walks, two dingers, a hit-by-pitch, and five earned runs in just two feeble innings of work. Crochet has been excellent, although he also allowed five earned runs in his last start, albeit over six innings. Boston's team ERA in first innings this season is a hideous 6.91, better only than the performance of the execrable, morally repugnant, and very probably demon-possessed Colorado Rockies.
The Red Sox will solve that stuff in their own way, or not. If I may break away from this Sober Baseball Analysis for one moment, allow me to say that I don't care! As a fully curdled non-New Englander, allow me further to say that for all I give a damn the Red Sox can burn in hell. With that out of the way: Boston's offense is what is keeping it afloat these days, which is why I must now bring up the injury to Bregman. Bregman strained a quadriceps back on May 23, and manager Alex Cora says that his third baseman is still doing conditioning stuff but is otherwise "far away" from starting up baseball activities. The Red Sox have lost 10 of 16 games since Bregman went down, and have given starts at third in his absence to several well-meaning fellows who cannot under any circumstances be expected to provide Bregman-level productivity at the heart of Boston's lineup.
Roman Anthony cannot play third base, but hoo doggy can he sock that dang baseball. The Red Sox summoned Anthony, a beefy young outfielder, to the majors on June 9, and slotted him right in at fifth in their lineup. Anthony is baseball's consensus top overall prospect, and at 21 years and 27 days of age was the youngest player to debut for Boston since Devers, back in 2017. Woe unto these times that such a player should wear the jersey of the Red Sox, but here we are: Anthony is a masher of near Stanton-ian proportions. Don't take my word for it! Back on June 7, Anthony belted a grand slam in Worcester that traveled a preposterous 497 feet, which MLB says is the longest distance measured on any dinger at any level this season, and has been bested in the majors only four times since the advent of Statcast. Truly, that is a baseball that will take all the rest of its meals in baseball hell.
Anthony may not have the raw, almost vulgar power of Kansas City's Jac Caglianone—very few do—but he sure crushes the shit out of lots of baseballs. FanGraphs says more than 57 percent of Anthony's batted balls at Triple-A this year left his bat at at least 95 miles per hour, or what true baseball knowers refer to as "the owee zone." That monster dinger he socked in the last game before his call-up tore away from his fiery bat at a blistered 115.6 mph, a couple ticks out of the Oneil Cruz/Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Put-Them-In-Jail-Immediately echelon, but certainly more than hard enough to justify obscene klaxon noises blaring from the trousers of Red Sox front-office types. Only 18 big-leaguers have hit a ball harder so far this season.
Anthony has played two games so far for the Red Sox. In the first he walked, ripped a hard-luck 111-mph grounder off the pitcher, and recorded an RBI-groundout, all-in-all a respectable first day of hitting with the big club. Unfortunately the real memorable moment from Anthony's debut was an unbearably awkward two-base error he committed in right field, allowing a run across in a game the Red Sox would go on to lose.
"It just can't happen," he said after the loss. "It's tough when you lose a game like that, you feel like that's the reason we lost—little things like that. Just got to learn from it and be better."
He in fact was better, Tuesday night, in his second game. With his folks in the stands and with two runners on in the first inning, Anthony strode to the plate and punched a 1–2 changeup the other way for a two-run double, a very fine and professional piece of hitting that put the Red Sox out in front in what would eventually be a narrow victory. It was Anthony's only time on base, but also he did not commit any brutally little-league-ish errors in the field, so this was a much happier night of baseball for our young lad. Also his family lost it:
Anthony's double clocked in at a fine if sub-hard-hit 92 miles per hour, per Statcast, but the package with baseball's top hitting prospect includes a well-rounded two-strike approach, power that plays to all fields, and a sophisticated mastery of the strike zone. They won't all be sockdolagers, is what I'm saying. But there will be sockdolagers! Whatever else happens, God help us, Boston's mighty new lad is going to pulverize some damned baseballs.
