Can the Red Sox fix what ails their broken offense?

New York Times

28-05-2025

As the Boston Red Sox continue to tread water, taking one step forward and two steps back, an inconsistent offense has undeniably been their biggest barrier to sustained success.
On more than one occasion they've shown monstrous outbursts of power like the 19-run blowout on Friday against Baltimore that was followed by a 6-5 walk-off win the next game. But too often this season, those strong showings were followed with meager results, as evidenced by four runs over their next three games.
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The trend continued Tuesday in Milwaukee. The Red Sox lost 5-1 to the Brewers in 10 innings after scoring just one run on a wild pitch in the sixth inning. Christian Yelich hit a grand slam for Milwaukee in the 10th, leading to another crushing loss for Boston.
The loss of Alex Bregman for the foreseeable future to a severe right quad injury only makes their offensive woes more dire. Without Bregman, Rafael Devers has little protection in the lineup and teams have no issue walking him to get to the next batter.
Even before Bregman went down, Devers was walking far more than he had in his career. He currently leads the American League in walks (43) and, with two-thirds of the season still left to play, is already just 25 walks away from eclipsing his career-high of 67 from last season.
As the Red Sox search for consistency, each player outside of Devers has had limited stretches of success, but have largely underperformed. The collective promise is there, but more than one-third into the season it's not enough.
After Monday's loss, veteran Rob Refsnyder didn't hold back his disappointment in the team.
'I don't really care about promise,' Refsnyder told reporters in Milwaukee. 'It's frustrating. Tired of losing. Tired of losing close games. We just need to figure it out and win some games… It's not for lack of effort, work ethic, or game-planning. It's just, we're not doing it. We suck right now. We've got to just be better.
'If we want to keep losing and making excuses, we can,' he added. 'But we're all big leaguers, we've all been in the minor leagues. We all know how to do the small things, steal bases.'
Rob Refsnyder after the Red Sox loss:
'I'm tired of losing. I'm tired of losing close games. We just need to figure it out… we suck right now.'
(via @NESN)pic.twitter.com/x2BI6KG4DL
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) May 26, 2025
The current Red Sox lineup regularly features three rookies (Marcelo Mayer, Kristian Campbell and Carlos Narváez) along with two more second-year players (Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu), so growing pains are to be expected. But that's still not an excuse for the team's overall performance.
Veterans like Refsnyder undoubtedly know the longer the team struggles and the players don't get their jobs done, the more likely it is that the jobs of hitting coach Pete Fatse and manager Alex Cora will be on the line. There's no doubt the coaching staff takes some of the blame in the inconsistent performance.
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Jarren Duran lamented the team's lack of focus recently, and as the leadoff hitter he was particularly critical of himself. Even still, Duran was hitting a respectable .277 with a .757 OPS through 56 games.
'For me, I just feel like we just put a lot of pressure on ourselves,' he said. 'Like everybody expects us to be this absolute powerhouse of an offense. So I feel like we get into our own mindset sometimes. I know I do, trying to get the big hit every single time.'
Without Bregman's veteran bat in the lineup and his attention to detail in preparation for games, the offense needs to find a way. Adding top prospect Roman Anthony and his .971 OPS through 47 games at Triple A might add a jolt to the club, but it would also add another rookie to the mix.
'We've lost some games that we should have won this year,' Bregman said earlier this month. 'We need to do a better job of executing, and preparing and just getting better as a team. And I know we hold ourselves to a high standard and when you play in this market, everyone holds you to a high standard.'
The Red Sox endured a similar self-inflicted malaise to start last season. They had a 28-27 record on May 28 last year before a hot stretch in June in which they went 13-5 to push to 10 games over .500 by the All-Star break.
It's not out of the question the team can finally end their season-long seesaw, but they haven't show many signs of snapping out of it so far and the frustration continues to mount.
(Photo of Abreu: Winslow Townson / Getty Images)