“My experience with Bauer is not anything remotely close to what everyone else’s experience is. I love him, I think he’s an awesome guy. The personal things? I have no control,” the former Red Sox star told the LA Times while at the World Series filming content for the league. “He’s an awesome pitcher. He’s a great guy.”

Betts and Bauer were teammates on the Dodgers in 2021, after Bauer signed a three-year, $102 million contract. That June, a San Diego woman sought an order of protection against Bauer, and alleged that he’d committed sexual battery against her on two occasions. MLB placed him on administrative leave – and extended said leave nine times – as they investigated.

In April 2022, the league handed down an unprecedented 324-game suspension, more than twice the length of the previous record, under their Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Child Abuse policy. After an independent arbiter reduced Bauer’s suspension to 194 games last December, the Dodgers released him. When no MLB team signed him, he spent the season pitching in Japan.

Bauer recently settled the sexual assault case in question, but he’s also been accused of similar behavior by three women in different states. Not long after the first woman came forward, news broke that an Ohio woman had obtained an order of protection against the pitcher in June 2020, for a similar incident in 2017. The Washington Post published disturbing messages Bauer allegedly sent the woman. “I don’t feel like spending time in jail for killing someone,” read one. “And that’s what would happen if I saw you again.”

The Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds, whom Bauer pitched for during those years, denied having any knowledge of the situation.

In June of this year, an Arizona woman filed a lawsuit against the pitcher, alleging that, in 2020, he’d raped her while holding a knife to her throat, choked her until she passed out, and that she became pregnant. She‘d previously filed a complaint against him in December regarding the incident, but no charges were filed. He countersued in April and claimed the encounter was consensual. While he alleged that the woman tried to extort him and that she terminated the pregnancy, he admitted to paying her $8,761 for “expenses.” Her complaint states that she miscarried.

Long before any of this began, Bauer already had a reputation for online harassment of women in sports. In the late 2010s, he made it a point to send his hundreds of thousands of followers after female reporters and fans, sometimes in retaliation for criticism, other times unprovoked. In 2019, the then-27-year-old pitcher spent over 24 hours harassing a college student because she tweeted that he was her “least favorite person in all sports.” He tweeted at and about her 80 different times, continuing to target her long after she stopped responding and blocked him.

Betts’ show of support for Bauer is a sharp pivot from several previous reports which described a disgusted Dodgers clubhouse that wanted nothing to do with their disgraced teammate. It was also met with scorn by many baseball fans on social media, who pointed out that, of course, Betts’ experience with Bauer wouldn’t have been “anything remotely close to” those of the women accusing him of assault.

Meet the press

The Red Sox are waiting until Thursday, an off-day in the ongoing World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers, to officially introduce Craig Breslow as their new chief baseball officer.

Monday was the 10th anniversary of the Red Sox winning it all in 2013, a championship to which Breslow was instrumental. Serendipitously, his reintroduction falls on Nov. 2, the 10th anniversary of the World Series parade.

Around the league

ALCS MVP Adolis García and Max Scherzer, who left Monday night’s start with back tightness, will miss the remainder of the World Series due to a strain and back tightness, respectively, the Texas Rangers announced on Tuesday evening.

In his first-ever postseason, García’s bat has impressed some of baseball’s greatest hitters, including David Ortiz. Over 15 games, the 30-year-old Cuban outfielder hit .323 with a 1.108 OPS, eight home runs (tied for second-most in a single postseason in MLB history) and 15 RBI. Losing him is a crushing blow to the Rangers, who are vying for their first championship.

Aaron Judge still hasn’t played in a World Series, but he can add the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award to his already-crowded trophy cabinet. After winning the American League MVP award and breaking fellow Yankee Roger Maris’ AL Home Run record in 2022, Judge was singled out as the Major Leaguer “who best represents the game of Baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field” this year.

The Yankees’ newest captain received baseball’s “highest honor” (commissioner Rob Manfred’s words) for his All Rise Foundation, which supports youth in New York and the San Joaquin and Fresno, California counties where he grew up.

After letting the Giants hire Bob Melvin, the Padres are in search of a new manager for the seventh time in nine years. According to Dennis Lin of The Athletic, Benji Gil, Phil Nevin, and Eric Chavez are among the external candidates, but former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt and Ryan Flaherty are still the favorites.

How very Red Sox of them, too.

Adolis García is having a David Ortiz-level October, and in Boston, that’s not a comparison made lightly.

Entering Sunday, García has homered eight times in 14 postseason games, the first of his five-year career in the Majors. That ties his teammate, Corey Seager (2020 Dodgers), Nelson Cruz (2011 Rangers), Carlos Beltrán (2004 Astros), and Barry Bonds (2002 Giants) for second-most homers in a single postseason in MLB history. Two more, and he’ll tie Randy Arozarena, who happens to be his best friend, former St. Louis Cardinals teammate, and the father of García’s goddaughter.

The two unexpected heroes’ origin stories are somewhat similar. Following the 2002 season, the Minnesota Twins famously tried and failed to trade Ortiz, and so, released him to save money. The Red Sox signed him to a non-guaranteed contract less than a month later, and he arrived in Boston as the championship drought was entering its 85th year. They clinched the American League Wild Card (it was a single-team format then) in each of his first two seasons.

This is the Rangers’ 52nd season, and they’re one of the last teams without a World Series trophy. In December ‘19, the Cardinals designated García for assignment, and traded him to Texas for cash considerations. The Rangers would also DFA García in February ‘21, but when no one claimed him off waivers, they were able to outright him to the minors.

Over three seasons since, García has been an All-Star twice. He earned American League Championship Series MVP by collecting 10 hits, five home runs (including a 9th-inning grand slam), and a postseason-record 15 RBI in the seven-game series.

Ortiz was a two-time All-Star and ALCS MVP over his first three seasons in Boston, too. He and García are two of 54 players who’ve homered at least five times over a postseason run.

But even Ortiz, the most clutch bat in the history of Boston playoff baseball, never hit five in a single postseason series. Back in the postseason as one of the faces of FOX Sports, he’s had high praise for the Rangers slugger.

“People talk about that, what he’s doing is not human, and I absolutely agree,” Ortiz said during the Game 2 pregame show. “Pitchers, look at me,” he added, gesturing to the camera. “Do not hit him! When you hit him, his evil side comes out, and then he gets more dangerous.”

“This guy, he’s hotter than a firecracker,” the Hall of Famer told the Boston Globe. “I love it, I love it because I know what it takes… I had my time and now it’s somebody else’s turn.”

In honor of the 2004 World Series anniversary over the weekend, here’s how García’s tremendous October stacks up against Ortiz’s greatest 2004 hits:

2023 AL Wild Card, Game 2 (Oct. 4)

García breaks the scoreless tie with a leadoff home run off Zach Eflin. Rangers go on to win 7-1 to advance to the division series.

2004 ALDS, Game 3

Ortiz’s walk-off home run and three RBI make the difference in the extra-inning victory over the then-Anaheim Angels, sending the Red Sox back to the ALCS.

2023 ALDS, Game 3 (Oct. 10)

With Texas up 1-0 on Baltimore, García hits a 2-run homer in the bottom of the second. He drives in 3, the difference in the 11-8 victory.

2004 ALCS, Games 4 and 5

Ortiz hits a walk-off home run and walk-off RBI single to end extra-inning stalemates (12 and 14 innings, respectively) and keep the Red Sox from elimination. He becomes the first player in MLB history to walk off two consecutive postseason games, and the Red Sox become the first team to ever come back from 0-3 to win a best-of-seven series. He homers again in Game 7 and is named ALCS MVP.

2023 ALCS, Games 4-7 (Oct. 19-23)

After taking a 2-0 lead in the series, the Rangers drop three straight games to the Astros, putting them on the brink of elimination. García homers five times and drives in 13 runs over the last four contests, including a four-hit, two-homer, five-RBI performance in Game 7 to send the Rangers to the World Series for the first time since 2011. He’s named ALCS MVP.

2004 World Series, Game 1

Ortiz sets the tone immediately, going 2-for-4 with a home run, four RBI, and two walks in the 11-9 victory over the Cardinals. St. Louis doesn’t win a single game, and the Red Sox finally reverse the curse.

2023 World Series, Game 1

García breaks the 5-5 tie with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th, giving the Rangers their first victory in a World Series since Game 5 in 2011.

Of course, Ortiz didn’t become Boston’s Mr. October after 2003 or 2004. He racked up 76 playoff games over eight Octobers between 2003-16, his clutch-ness consistent enough for three rings.

But if this is García’s idea of just getting started, how thrilling to imagine where he’ll go from here.

It should be a great series, but obviously for Red Sox fans the real show will begin once the final out has been recorded.

This has the potential to be a transformational offseason. The Red Sox have a new chief baseball officer in Craig Breslow, money to spend and big decisions to make. So what are the biggest storylines fans should follow once the Hot Stove starts heating up?

The Herald’s Red Sox beat writers debate.

Gabrielle Starr: Without a doubt, the top league storyline is Shohei Ohtani. He’s unlike any other player we’ve ever seen, so his free agency is sure to be one for the ages, and he’s all but guaranteed to get a record-breaking contract. Will he become baseball’s first $500 million player? With such a truly unprecedented player, it feels like there’s no way to really predict the outcome, but my gut is telling me that we’re all going to end up with our jaws on the floor one way or another.

Then, for this market, the storyline will be whether the Red Sox go back to really flexing their muscles on the free agent market and in trades. They’ve got the financial flexibility and farm system to really build up their roster this winter and make themselves relevant again. Plus, they have a brand new chief baseball officer in Craig Breslow, and it’ll be interesting to see how he tackles his first offseason in the driver’s seat.

Mac Cerullo: How Breslow makes his mark is the biggest thing for me. These past four years we’ve become accustomed to the Red Sox going about their business a particular way, and even now that Chaim Bloom is gone it feels like a lot of fans are assuming the club will stick to a similar methodical, forward-focused approach.

But what if they don’t? What if Breslow immediately starts shaking things up by swinging trades none of us could have ever seen coming? Right now the idea of the Red Sox signing a player like Ohtani seems outlandish, but is it really? We have no idea, and if you’re a Red Sox fan that’s got to be very exciting.

Starr: The Red Sox really struggle to develop pitching, so it makes sense that Breslow appeals to them; his crowning achievement as the Cubs’ vice president of pitching was their improved pipeline of arms.

Unfortunately, this is an area of need that he can’t transform overnight, and after three last-place finishes in four seasons (in large part due to lack of pitching), the Red Sox know they need to bring in some proven arms while Breslow figures out the farm. He’ll need to deviate from Bloom’s track record of short-term deals for veteran arms coming off injuries or in the waning years their careers, and actually part with a bundle of prospects in a trade or fork over a big contract to someone like Aaron Nola.

Which leads back to Ohtani. Should the Red Sox be the ones to sign him? Obviously, he’s Shohei Ohtani. Having him in Boston automatically refills the seats, which have been at record lows the last two years. That said, the Red Sox need starting pitching more than anything, and elbow surgery – his second since coming to the Majors in 2018 – will keep Ohtani off the mound in 2024. Doing it all is what makes him such a unique marvel. It also means signing him is an enormous, expensive risk.

Meanwhile, what about Juan Soto? He’s the biggest name on the trade market, but is he a fit for the Red Sox?

Cerullo: I touched on Soto in a recent column, but to put it simply, yes. Soto is a genuine superstar and boasts arguably the best combination of power and plate discipline we’ve seen in baseball since Barry Bonds. He’d instantly transform the Red Sox lineup and if they got him it would immediately flip the narrative that the organization is unwilling to invest in premium talent.

MLB Notes: Trading for Juan Soto would be risky, but Red Sox should still do it

There are others the Red Sox could get who'd make a major impact. You mentioned Nola, Japan's Yoshinobu Yamamoto is another, but are there any less obvious players you think could be interesting possibilities for this club? Either an under-the-radar free agent or an outside-the-box trade candidate?

Starr: My concern with trading for Soto is that it will require giving up a lot for what is likely a short-term rental. He only has one year of club control left, but the Padres’ asking price will be higher due the exclusive negotiating rights that come with him.

However, Soto is a Scott Boras client, which almost guarantees he’ll decide test free agency next year. As talented as he is, if the Padres ask for too much, the Red Sox should let another team give it up. They have promising outfield talent with far more club control, and should focus on their real areas of need.

What do you think about pursuing a reunion with Eduardo Rodriguez? The Red Sox already know he can handle pitching in Boston, and he and Breslow were teammates way back when.

Cerullo: I don't hate the idea, but he wouldn't be my choice personally. I'd rather Yamamoto or Nola, and if not them my preference would be a trade for someone like Corbin Burnes or George Kirby rather than signing a Blake Snell or Rodriguez type to a huge deal.

Beyond the big ticket items, a smaller deal I'd be interested in is a one-year deal for someone like Whit Merrifield. The Red Sox could use an upgrade at second base, and adding a short-term veteran who won't block Marcelo Mayer seems like a better plan than relying on Pablo Reyes and Enmanuel Valdez.

To put a bow on it, Breslow's going to have a lot on his plate this winter. Besides what we've covered, there's also the matter of Alex Verdugo and Justin Turner's future in Boston, potential contract extensions for Triston Casas and Brayan Bello, and who will become Boston's new pitching and third base coaches.

No matter what happens, these next few months are going to be interesting.

“They’re not going to have the essence of the franchise that we left, the culture that we left is going to be lost. And we don’t know when we’re going to get it back and how we’re going to get it back,” Martinez warned reporters.

“We need to bring back the culture,” the Hall of Famer reiterated at the end of September.

In hiring Craig Breslow, the Red Sox signal an attempt to restore that kind of culture, which made Boston the winningest baseball club this century.

How fitting that they made the official announcement on Wednesday, Martinez’s birthday.

By giving Breslow the keys to the kingdom, the Red Sox are repeating history and hoping to repeat history.

For the second hiring cycle in a row, they’ve eschewed leadership experience in favor of upside. Like Chaim Bloom, Breslow will be a first-timer in the driver’s seat; his most recent, highest-ranking position with the Chicago Cubs was assistant general manager and vice president of pitching.

But Breslow isn’t an unknown entity in Boston, far from it. His 12 seasons in the Majors included stints with the Red Sox in 2006-07, and 2011-15. In 2013, he posted a career-best 1.81 ERA in 2013, helping bring Boston its third World Series championship in a decade. Either by coincidence or fate, his introductory press conference is scheduled for Nov. 2, the 10th anniversary of the World Series parade.

Championships, the Red Sox claim, are still their North Star, but they need pitching to make it happen. It’s Breslow’s area of expertise; Chicago’s pitching development was woefully inadequate earlier in the decade, they won their long-awaited 2016 championship with a starting rotation full of acquired arms, not unlike a certain Boston baseball team’s most recent victory.

Finding someone to head up baseball operations wasn’t exactly a walk in the ballpark. Expectations are higher in Boston, and the safety net is virtually nonexistent.

“This is the Boston Red Sox,” team president and CEO Sam Kennedy said during the end-of-season press conference. “If you want to run a baseball organization, this is where you want to be. You want to be in Boston. Why? Because it matters here more than anywhere else.”

Who understands that better than a lifelong New Englander who’s already brought a trophy to Boston? (Other New Englanders, including Phillies GM Sam Fuld and Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes, turned down the Red Sox’s interview offers, though.)

Intelligent and thoughtful, Breslow comes highly recommended by, well, everyone. It’s about as easy to find someone with a bad word to say about Breslow as it is to find a needle in a field full of haystacks. One member of the organization described him as the “most truly decent man.”

“The praise from fellow baseball executives was impressive,” Kennedy said in the press release. “But what truly distinguished him were the resounding character references from former teammates, including David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, David Ross, Brock Holt, and Kevin Youkilis.”

Game recognizes game. Winners recognize a winner.

A source echoed Alex Speier’s and Michael Silverman’s report in the Boston Globe on Tuesday evening: the club offered Craig Breslow the job as head of baseball operations and he accepted.

Breslow had two stints with the Red Sox during his 11-year Major League career. He was instrumental to the 2013 championship, anchoring the bullpen with a career-best 1.81 ERA over 61 regular-season appearances. He made 10 relief appearances during that year’s postseason, including nine scoreless outings (eight consecutively).

In his post-playing career, the 43-year-old found a different way to impact a franchise’s pitching; as the Cubs’ assistant general manager and vice president of pitching, he’s transformed their farm system into a well-oiled arms development machine.

Breslow is widely respected in the baseball world. Sources within and outside of the Red Sox organization described him as brilliant and an “incredibly decent human being.” For the Red Sox, who seek new leadership but want much of their internal structure to stay the same, he seems to make the most sense. He and Alex Cora were teammates in Boston in 2006-07, and many of the other executives have been with the organization since before he signed his minor-league contract with the team on February 1, 2006.

His New England roots run deep, too. A New Haven, Conn. native, Breslow was a star pitcher at Yale (and the Bulldogs’ team captain) before embarking upon his professional career. Though employed by the Chicago Cubs since 2019, he lives in Newton, Mass. and often works remotely.

After firing Gabe Kapler with three games left in the regular season, Bob Melvin will leave San Diego for San Francisco. The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly broke the news on Tuesday afternoon, two days after the outlet reported the Padres had granted the Giants permission to interview Melvin, who had one year remaining on his contract.

Melvin, who turns 62 this week, only managed in San Diego for two seasons, but his departure isn’t exactly a surprise. Increasing tensions between him and general manager A.J. Preller made headlines throughout the 2023 season; that the Padres were willing to let a National League West rival interview and hire their manager indicates a manager-GM relationship eroded to the point of no return. Preller will now search for his seventh Padres manager in nine years.

It’s also a homecoming for the three-time Manager of the Year, who grew up in the Bay Area and managed the Oakland A’s from 2011-21. In 20 seasons as a Major League manager, Melvin has a 1,517-1,425 record, with eight trips to the postseason.

Melvin, who caught for the 1993 Red Sox during his 11-year playing career, wasn’t the only former Red Sox catcher interviewed for the Giants gig. The year Melvin played in Boston, the Minnesota Twins drafted a star catcher who opted to finish college and re-enter the draft in 1994. The Seattle Mariners made an identical selection in 1994, and in 1997, traded a young Jason Varitek to Boston.

Varitek has been on the managerial track for most of the last decade, with the Mariners interviewing him in 2015. The longtime Red Sox captain is a year into a three-year contract extension as a member of the coaching staff, but the club granted the Giants permission to speak with him, which they did by phone last Friday.

“He will manage in the big leagues,” Alex Cora told reporters in February 2021, after Varitek became a full-time member of the coaching staff. “I think, with time, somebody’s going to give him a chance and he’s going to kill it, he’s going to be great.”

The three-time All-Star won two World Series during his 10-year MLB career, but he’s always tried to be a team player.

“I’m not an attention guy,” he told the Herald. “I think most people know that I don’t seek it. Like, I do the (Red Sox) broadcast because I love baseball, but I don’t really crave the attention or all that stuff.”

But over the past two weeks, he’s stepped into the spotlight he never sought to support Israel and condemn anti-Semitism. On Oct. 7, terrorist organization Hamas invaded Israel. They entered towns, Kibbutzim (egalitarian communes, often agriculture-focused), and a desert music festival near Gaza, the territory they’ve governed ever since 2006, assaulting and slaughtering over 1,300 civilians, mostly Israelis, but also citizens from over a dozen countries. Hamas also took over 200 hostages.

For the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War – the 50th anniversary marked just the day before – Israel declared an official state of war.

“(My) Initial response was pure anger and sadness,” Youkilis said. That day, he posted a photo of himself coaching Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, writing “I stand with Israel.”

Another text-only Instagram post stated, “Antisemitism is on display for the world to see. Many have had their eyes opened while others turn a blind eye because they don’t want to believe it. It goes against the ideological beliefs of their peers. I’ve never been more proud to be Jewish than now.

“Be proud and never let hate and evil make you hide your Jewish heritage.”

According to Baseball Reference, 23,115 men can say that they played at least one Major League game. Youkilis is in a much smaller subsection, the list of Jewish players only recently crossed the 200-player threshold, or approximately 0.86-percent of MLB’s all-time population. It’s only a slightly larger percentage than that of the global population; at just over 16 million, Jewish people currently account for just 0.2-percent of the world’s 8 billion people.

“I think it’s a special fraternity,” Youkilis said. But, he said, he also wanted hard work and results to be the reason people admired him as an athlete.

“I think people around me know how proud I am of my Judaism, my heritage, my people,” he said. “But I’ve never really handled being a public figure very well because I don’t see myself as any label… I just don’t want to be the central focal point of anything, I’d rather be a part of the group.”

On one occasion during his nine years with the Red Sox, he attended high holiday services at a local synagogue, and tried in vain to blend in. “Next thing you know, everyone’s coming up to me,” he chuckled, “I’m like, oh my God, I don’t think you’re allowed to do this on the High Holidays, you’re supposed to be praying!”

He credits his involvement with Team Israel for making him realize how meaningful representation is to Jewish people.

“Team Israel opened my eyes to that,” he explained. “It just never hit me until Team Israel how special that is. Sandy Koufax before us, and Hank Greenberg. Many of the Jewish baseball players that come through, there’s someone that a young Jewish ballplayer is connecting with currently and striving to become them some day.

“Just one of you being in the major leagues and having success is a huge deal, for not just the baseball players, but the whole Jewish population.”

Outside the group is another story. Many people have never met a Jewish person. Fewer still can relate to the unique experience of being born into a people that has been persecuted, forcibly converted, exiled, and massacred over and over throughout history.

“The hard part of our lives is trying to explain our heritage, explain our religion, the variations within the Jewish religion, to other people,” Youkilis said. “I’ve always stood for my heritage, for the people, my friends, family, the State of Israel, and that’s based on my ancestors, people before me that have died, were put in horrible situations, forced to move because of who they were.”

In 1941, British prime minister Winston Churchill described the ongoing catastrophe that would later be known as the Holocaust as, “A crime without a name.” It would be none other than a Jewish person who gave it one. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, who’d fled Nazi-occupied Poland that same year, also sought to find a word that described the atrocities committed against his fellow Jewish people and by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians during the first World War. Finding none that sufficiently conveyed the horror, he combined the Greek “genos” (race or tribe) and Latin suffix “cide” (killing) in 1944, and defined it as “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.”

Oct. 7, 2023 is the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust. In the subsequent weeks, antisemitic incidents and attacks have increased exponentially. Great Britain reported more than a 1,350-percent increase. Last week, homes in Germany were marked with the Star of David to identify Jewish inhabitants. A Berlin synagogue was firebombed, and one in Tunisia burnt to the ground. Across the United States, synagogues are crowd-funding to raise money for additional security. There’s been a shocking amount of Holocaust denial at protests and rallies worldwide, as well as use of Nazi swastikas and pro-Hitler sentiments and slogans voiced and displayed on signage.

“We’re a minority,” Youkilis said, “And I’m just very confused. People say they are for the minorities and fight for minorities, but then they are so anti-Jewish.”

“It’s evil versus good, and I think the hardship is, people don’t see it as that,” he added. “A lot of people say something is simple when it’s actually really complex, and then people use, ‘It’s really complex’ when something’s very simple. When this happened, I felt it was very simple, that this is an atrocity, but people like to say it’s complex, and it’s wrong.”

Many Jews feel helpless, trying in vain to get the world to care.

“We are 0.2-percent of the entire population,” Youkilis said, when asked what message he’d want to send to non-Jews around the globe. “Jewish people aren’t trying to run the world, they’re just trying to keep their family and heritage alive.

“And I think to the Jewish people, it’s that we need to be united. Be there for each other, protect each other mentally and physically. Figure out, mentally, how to get through the day and physically, how to keep yourself protected and out of harm’s way.”

Youkilis and close friends from the fraternity put out a request to fellow active and former Jewish Major Leaguers: help us humanize this.

Last week, they posted the video to Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kevin E Youkilis (@kevinyoukilis_ggoh)

“My name is,” Alex Bregman, Ian Kinsler, Ryan Braun, Garrett Stubbs, Ty Kelly, Brad Ausmus, Shawn Green, and several others each stated their names, their homemade videos spliced together, “And I am a Jew.” Together, one of baseball’s smallest minorities asked fans to stand up for one of the world’s smallest minorities, to be against anti-Semitism and support Israel.

“What I’ve learned was, my voice is actually bigger than I would ever think my voice would be within the Jewish baseball community,” Youkilis said. He knows it won’t fix everything, but silence won’t fix anything.

“I’ve never really been very vocal, but I felt this was the time to be very vocal.”

In part because, apparently, they have to.

There’s a bevy of options, but the talk-to-strikeout ratio isn’t balanced in Boston’s favor. With Kim Ng officially taking herself out of the running, the list of “No’s” balloons to at least 10. (That’s not including former GM Theo Epstein, either.)

While Mike Hazen and Amiel Sawdaye received extensions from the Arizona Diamondbacks, and former Astros GM James Click dropped out after his interview, Ng and the other six known candidates turned down the Red Sox in the interview invitation stage.

In the hours following their firing of Chaim Bloom on Sept. 14, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy said he anticipated “a broader search” this time around.

“One that, frankly, could take a while,” he cautioned.

But did the brass expect this level of disinterest? Red Sox assistant GM Raquel Ferreira is one of several executives who cited family reasons when turning down the club’s invitation, but other internal options are among at least seven candidates currently in consideration. Assistant general managers Eddie Romero and Michael Groopman, and VP of amateur scouting and player development, Paul Toboni, are in the mix, along with current Minnesota Twins GM Thad Levine and former Pittsburgh Pirates GM Neal Huntington.

Likewise for two of Boston’s World Series champions.

Craig Breslow, who pitched for Boston in 2006 and 2012-15, is considered a top candidate. He’s currently a Chicago Cubs assistant GM and vice president of pitching, and he’s transformed their minor league pitching development, an area in which the Red Sox could certainly use some help. Nicknamed “the smartest man in baseball,” he majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry while leading the Ivy League with a 2.56 ERA his senior year at Yale.

Breslow, who lives in Newton and often works for the Cubs remotely, is a natural fit for the Red Sox in many ways. The surprising, controversial name that popped up late this week is Gabe Kapler, who brings a diverse resumé with a few suboptimal highlights to the table.

Kapler, who played for the Red Sox from 2003-06, has leadership experience at both field and front office levels. He’s spent the last six seasons managing the Philadelphia Phillies (2018-19) and San Francisco Giants, who fired him during the last week of the season, but his first professional managing gig was with the Red Sox.

When he retired for the first time in December 2006, he managed their Single-A affiliate Greenville Drive for the 2007 season. He un-retired and spent the 2008 season with the Milwaukee Brewers, and the following two with the Tampa Bay Rays, then he retired for good in 2011 when the Los Angeles Dodgers released him at the end of spring training.

Over the last decade and change, Kapler has done everything from coach Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic to working as a television analyst for FOX Sports and writing for Baseball Prospectus.

But during and after Kapler served as the Dodgers’ director of player development from 2014-17, his tenure was marked by accusations – including from Nick Francona, Terry Francona’s son and former assistant director of player development, reporting directly to Kapler  – that he mishandled assault allegations. In February 2015, a 17-year-old girl first accused two Dodgers prospects and two older women of domestic violence in a third Dodgers player’s hotel room near the team’s spring training complex in Arizona.

A week later, the girl told police she had also been sexually assaulted by one of the players, something Kapler maintains he was never made aware of. In lieu of traditional punishment, Kapler required (the players) to undergo training for “being a good teammate,” reported Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim in 2019. “Specifically, the players were assigned to write essays about Dodgers history, take nature walks, practice yoga and meditation, clean the team’s weight room and watch motivational videos.”

The club later released the player, but he was never charged. (Alex Verdugo was among those present at the first incident, but cleared of wrongdoing.)

Less than a year later, another Dodgers minor leaguer was accused of sexual assault at the same Arizona hotel. Once again, the player was released. The following spring, several Dodgers players, including a top prospect, were caught on surveillance tapes harassing female guests at the same hotel.

Throughout, Kapler reported up the chain of command, something confirmed by the league’s investigation and the Giants’ additional vetting before hiring him. But Major League Baseball only became aware of these incidents when law enforcement informed them in April 2017. The league investigated Kapler, and by the following month, had quietly cleared him of wrongdoing.

In general, Kapler is a curious candidate to captain Boston’s baseball operations. He’s gained a plethora of experience in his post-playing years, but little success to date, and it’s been over half a decade since he worked on the baseball operations side. With the Dodgers, he was known for a unique leadership style, “instituting no rules, but rather expectations,” wrote Wertheim.

Would that work for the Red Sox?

He’s also the only Red Sox player up for the prestigious defensive award this season.

Verdugo is up against Adolis García of the Rangers and Kyle Tucker of the Rangers, but has a strong case to take home the gold. He finished the season plus-1 in Outs Above Average (70th MLB percentile), behind García’s plus-3. His plus-9 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) tied for the lead among AL right-fielders, as good as García (plus-7) and Tucker (plus-2) combined.

Statistically, this should come down to Verdugo and García. Though Tucker led the AL with 13,23.5 innings in right field, he was minus-4 OAA and only plus-2 DRS. Verdugo was in the 95th MLB percentile in Arm Strength, and his 10.6 Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) outranked all AL right-fielders (minimum 140 innings) by a wide margin; García placed second with 6.4, but Tucker came in at minus-1.1.

Gold Gloves are awarded through a combination of manager and coach voting (they cannot vote for their own players or players in the other league), and the SABR Defensive Index (SDI), which accounts for approximately 25 percent of the finalist tabulations. The SDI is a combination of play-by-play records and batted ball location-based data. Defensive Regression Analysis (DRA) and Total Zone Rating (TZ) are included in the former. The latter, which is weighted 70 percent, takes DRS, UZR, and Runs Effectively Defended (RED) into account. Several position-specific defensive elements are also factored in.

The Red Sox struggled defensively across the board this season, especially in the infield. As of the last published SDI rankings on Aug. 13 (final rankings come out after Gold Glove winners are announced in November), Rafael Devers’ minus-4.6 SDI put him at the bottom of the AL third-base rankings. Triston Casas’ identical mark was third-worst among AL first basemen. Devers finished the season with 19 errors, tied with Javier Báez for most in the AL; Kiké Hernández made 15 errors (14 at shortstop) before the Red Sox traded him to the Dodgers before the deadline.

Verdugo, however, had a 7.0 SDI at that point in the season, which ranked second to García (7.8) among AL right-fielders, eighth overall.

The only potential snub is Connor Wong, who led AL catchers with 11 errors, but was also a strong defender by several metrics. He wouldn’t beat out Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk (plus-17 DRS) for the award, but provided solid coverage behind the dish. Wong’s 2.3 SDI ranked fourth-best among AL catchers and he finished the season plus-4 DRS, tied for fifth, well ahead of finalist Adley Rutschman (0.6 SDI, plus-2 DRS). His plus-5 Catcher’s Caught Stealing Above Average put him in the 92nd MLB percentile and tied finalist Jonah Heim, among others, for the second-best mark in the AL.

On the whole, however, revisiting the team’s defensive skill (or lack thereof) is moot; most Red Sox players didn’t even play enough to qualify for the award, which is an indictment unto itself. Per Gold Glove requirements, players must reach the following totals through their team’s 138th game of the season: a minimum of 138 innings pitched, at least 50 percent of games caught, or at least 698 innings fielded at one’s primary position. (Rawlings also added a Utility Gold Glove to each league last year.)

Trevor Story led the team with plus-8 OAA – the only mark better than Verdugo – but his January elbow surgery kept him off the field until Aug. 8, the team’s 113th game of the season. Nick Pivetta and Brayan Bello were the only two pitchers to clear 138 innings by the end of the season, let alone Game 138. Bello, who actually started that contest, finished the night exactly one frame shy of the requisite 138 innings pitched.

How fitting for an indefensible Red Sox season.

Like the team overall, the outfield was a mixed bag. Unlike the roster as a whole however, which is a giant question mark heading into the offseason, the outfield is set up for success for several seasons to come.

After making a bold declaration at spring training, Alex Verdugo followed through with a strong defensive campaign. He led the Red Sox with plus-9 Defensive Runs Saved, and ranked in the 95th MLB percentile in arm strength. His plus-1 Outs Above Average tied for sixth among Major League right fielders, an improvement over minus-1 OAA in two seasons prior.

Unfortunately, the 27-year-old still struggled to maintain consistency at the plate. There was a slight increase in power – he matched his career-high 13 home runs – and his walk rate jumped to 7.5 percent, up from 6.5-percent in 2022. However, his batting average and on-base percentage dropped while his strikeout rate climbed to 15.5 percent, a full 2.1 percent increase over last season, and he struck out seven more times in 10 fewer games. Though he was still in the 88th MLB percentile in K%, it can’t be described as an improvement.

Verdugo hit .290 with an .817 OPS in the first half of the season (83 games). That, coupled with a remaining year of club control, made him a prime trade candidate at the deadline. Teams were interested, and the Red Sox signaled that they were open to hearing offers, even discussing a swap with the Yankees. Ultimately, they hung onto him and watched as he hit just .225 with a .635 OPS in his remaining 59 games.

Though his trade value is lower, Red Sox may end up trading Verdugo this offseason; there’s been no indication he’ll get the extension he approached them about last February. He’ll be a free agent next fall, and they have enough club-controlled talent to go on without him. Alex Cora also benched him multiple times throughout the season for various reasons, including for lack of hustle and arriving several hours late, which may turn interested teams away.

Meanwhile, Masataka Yoshida’s “rookie” year was one of adjustments, but he handled the jump from Nippon to the Majors fairly well. He hit .289 with a .338 on-base percentage, collecting 155 hits, 33 doubles, three triples and 15 home runs in 140 games. He scored 71 times, drove in 72, and stole eight bases.

Where he struggled was plate discipline. Known for walking (427) more than he struck out (307) in the NPB, Yoshida only drew 34 walks to 81 strikeouts. That may not be good enough by his own standards, but it still put him in the 93rd MLB percentile in K%.

Yoshida didn’t exactly excel defensively, though he was known as a bat-first player before the Red Sox signed him. He was worth minus-9 OAA, minus-4 DRS, and ranked in the 52nd MLB percentile in arm strength. Learning the complexities of the Green Monster will be an ongoing process.

Managing the unfamiliar 162-game workload and frequent travel was a key issue for Yoshida, who wasn’t accustomed to jet lag; the entire NPB shares the same time zone, with no team farther away than a three and a half hour flight. As summer turned into fall, it became clear he was losing steam. Over 70 games between May 1 and July 31, he hit .313/.364/.487. From Aug. 1 on, his numbers dropped significantly, only slashing .257/.276/.371 over his final 47 games.

Adam Duvall, in Boston on a one-year deal, got off to a scorching start that came to a screeching halt in the form of a broken wrist eight games in. He returned exactly two months later, and still managed to play 92 games and hit 21 home runs. He was a strong addition to the clubhouse, and though they may not need to sign another outfielder for next year, his veteran presence was valuable to a young department.

In Duvall’s absence, Jarren Duran made the most of a bad situation. His turnaround, after struggling through two partial, up-and-down seasons between the Majors and Triple-A, was one of the most uplifiting stories of the season. He’d debuted in 2021 and hit .219 with a .622 OPS over 91 career games between his first two seasons, struggling both offensively and defensively.

Duran didn’t make the Red Sox Opening Day roster, but quickly rose to the occasion when called up in mid-April. He hit .295 with a .828 OPS over 102 games, collecting 98 hits, 34 doubles, two triples, eight home runs, 46 runs, and 40 RBI. He led the roster with 24 stolen bases, led qualified Boston batters in average, and his doubles tied Rafael Devers for second on the team (though Devers played 51 more games). According to Stathead, Duran is the ninth player in franchise history to collect as many as 34 doubles and 24 steals in a season but the first to reach those totals within 102 games.

Though his defense was about average – 55th percentile in OAA, 61st percentile in arm strength, he and Duvall were each worth minus-5 DRS – Duran compensated with fast footwork; his 29.5 Sprint Speed ranked in the 96th percentile. Even though turf toe and surgery cut his campaign short, his was one of the most impressive turnarounds by a Red Sox player in recent history.

Rob Refsnyder’s overall offensive numbers took a dip in his second Red Sox season, but he continued to slay southpaws. He only hit .159 with a .466 against right-handed pitchers, but demolished lefties to the tune of a .308 average and .828 OPS, and he drew more walks than he struck out against them. The Red Sox have already bypassed his final year of arbitration by extending the versatile defender for $2 million in 2024 with a 2025 club option.

Towards the end of the summer, the Red Sox called up top outfield prospects Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela within a week of one another, and each made an impact. Cora raved about Abreu’s power in the early days of spring training, and the 24-year-old outfielder lived up to the hype, hitting .316 with a .862 OPS in 28 big-league games, collecting 24 hits, six doubles, and a pair of home runs.

The Red Sox saw Rafaela as a Major League-caliber defender long before they called him up on Aug. 28. He’s considered a future perennial Gold Glove center fielder. He can also play shortstop and second base, and spent time at all three positions. He was worth plus-2 OAA, the third-best mark on the roster. Abreu, known more for his bat, also had plus-1 OAA and plus-2 DRS.

Plate discipline has been the sticking point throughout Rafaela’s minor league career, but the 23-year-old Curaçao native managed 20 hits, six doubles, and two home runs in his 28 games. He and Abreu stole three bases, and were the first two Red Sox rookies to collect five or more doubles in their first 18 career games since Sam Travis in 2017.

The Red Sox enter the offseason with an outfield full of promising young talent, most of whom are under club control for many years to come. Meaning they can devote this offseason to bringing in some starting pitching.

The International Olympic Committee announced the approved additions, as well as cricket, flag football, lacrosse, and squash, in the early hours of October 16. Flag football and squash are newcomers to the international event, but it’s been over a century since cricket (1900 Paris Olympics) and lacrosse (1904 St. Louis, 1908 London) made the cut.

Baseball has occupied an inconsistent place in Olympic history. It technically made its debut at the 1904 event in St. Louis, but wasn’t played as a demonstration sport until the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. In that first contest, the United States bested Sweden – a team filled out by several Americans – 13-3 in a six-inning contest that inexplicably included the Swedes having a six-out sixth inning. Brief exhibition and modified games were featured at the Paris Summer Olympics in 1924, Berlin in ‘36, Helsinki in ‘52, ‘56 Melbourne, and ‘64 Tokyo before a tournament format was implemented for the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

Despite its long Olympic history, Baseball didn’t become an official medal sport until Barcelona 1992. The relationship between the Olympics and Major League Baseball only began in this century. Professional ballplayers weren’t admitted until 2000, and MLB wouldn’t allow members of the 40-man roster to participate in that year’s event, 2004, or 2008.

In 2005, the IOC voted to remove baseball and softball from the 2012 slate, something not seen since polo was removed in 1936. After a baseball-less Berlin Olympics in 2016, the sport returned to the 2020 games in Tokyo, which ended up taking place in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. It won’t be on the docket for the 2024 games in Paris, but Los Angeles isn’t too far off.

“The (World Baseball Softball Confederation) firmly believes that baseball and softball will help millions of fans engage with the Olympic Games,” said WBSC president Riccardo Fraccari in a statement on Monday. “Especially with (the United States) being home to many of the sports’ best players and biggest stars from across the world. It is going to be an electric atmosphere in L.A., where the best baseball and softball athletes in the world will have the opportunity to play on the biggest stage in front of a global audience of billions.”

In the past, several current and former Red Sox players have represented Team USA and other countries. Before they became teammates in Boston, Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida faced off in Tokyo in 2021, with Yoshida’s Team Japan defeating Casas and Team USA to take home the gold. Zack Weiss, who briefly pitched for Boston this season, was a member of Team Israel in that year’s Olympics, playing alongside former Red Sox catcher Ryan Lavarnway and infielders Danny Valencia and Ian Kinsler, who was a member of the 2018 championship team. Former Red Sox prospect Denyi Reyes was a member of bronze-winning Team Dominican Republic.

Former Red Sox World Series champions Daisuke Matsuzaka (2007) and Koji Uehara (2013) won the bronze medal with Team Japan in 2004. Doug Mientkiewicz was already a gold medalist when he arrived in Boston at the 2004 trade deadline and helped reverse the curse; as a minor leaguer, he’d played for Team USA at the 2000 games in Sydney. And long before that, two young college baseball stars, Georgia Tech teammates Jason Varitek and Nomar Garciaparra, were members of the fourth-place Team USA in Barcelona 1992.

Unfortunately, the Summer Olympics’ overlap with MLB’s intense 162-game schedule makes it difficult for teams to lose players. Instead, Boston sports fans can look forward to Paris 2024, which could feature several Celtics stars, including Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday.

Likewise for a team that collectively finishes last, especially when it’s the third time in four seasons; the parts may be great, but they’re obscured by their sum.

In a rebuild, a general manager-type leader’s true impact is often felt later. When the farm system Bloom replenished produces strong Major League talent in coming years, the Red Sox will benefit, but he won’t be around to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

For now, at least, give Bloom credit for the bullpen he made over.

After the ‘pen blew 29 saves (fourth-most in MLB) in 2022, the Red Sox made three significant changes. They signed Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen to two-year deals, and cut bait with Matt Barnes, designating him for assignment and trading him to the Miami Marlins for left-hander Richard Bleier.

It’s been a long time since the Red Sox had a one-two punch like Martin and Jansen for the eighth and ninth innings. Martin finished the season with a 1.05 ERA (434 ERA+) and 1.032 WHIP across 55 appearances, including 12 games finished and three saves. At the end of the season, he’d only given up six earned runs, two homers, eight walks, and had struck out 46 batters over 51 ⅓ innings. Two of those earned runs came within the first month of the season; between July 30 and season’s end, he didn’t allow a single run over his last 20 outings.

Not since Brandon Workman in 2019 had a Red Sox reliever posted a sub-2 ERA over at least 50 outings. Martin is only the 12th reliever in franchise history to put up such numbers, and he’s only outdone by Jonathan Papelbon, who posted a 0.92 ERA in 2006.

Martin, 37, was the ninth-oldest pitcher in the American League this season, but ranked alongside not only the best relievers, but the best starting pitchers in several metrics. His ERA outranked all pitchers (minimum 30 innings), and his 3.8 Win Probability Added (WPA) ranked fourth among AL arms. If teachers gave out A-plus-pluses, Martin would deserve an even better grade.

Despite some injuries, Jansen continued on his Hall of Fame trajectory. Early on, he converted his 400th career save, becoming the seventh player in MLB history to join that exclusive club. His 29 saves were eighth-most in the Majors this year.

Throughout the season, too, the Red Sox made improvements to the relief core. They claimed Brennan Bernardino off waivers from the Seattle Mariners, and designated Ryan Brasier for assignment and released him in mid-May. Ahead of the trade deadline, they acquired Mauricio Llovera from the San Francisco Giants, who didn’t have room for him on their roster.

Despite only 2 ⅓ career Major League innings under his belt when he arrived, Bernardino proved to be one of this season’s unsung heroes, a strong addition to the bullpen and clubhouse. The 31-year-old rookie did whatever was asked of him; his 55 outings (all with Boston) included six starts and eight games finished, and he ended the season with a 3.20 ERA.

Llovera was better than his 5.46 ERA suggests. A few rough outings, including giving up five earned runs to the Toronto Blue Jays in a 13-1 loss, marred what was a mostly solid 25-game stint with the team. Though opposing batters hit .265 against him, it was mostly weaker contact; lineups slugged only .364 against him, with six doubles and two home runs among the 32 hits he gave up.

The Red Sox also benefited from several long-relief options. Josh Winckowski, who debuted as a starter in 2022, spent the entire 2023 campaign in the bullpen, save for one start. He appeared in 60 games, finished eight, and converted three saves. His 2.88 ERA ranked second to Martin among the team’s qualified pitchers.

A struggling Nick Pivetta found himself bounced from the rotation early on, but fueled the demotion into a strong season, and ended the year as a starter once more. His 142 ⅔ innings ranked second on the pitching staff, a combination of 16 starts and 22 games in relief. Dominant relief performances aren’t exactly new for him, though. Remember the 2021 ALDS?

Kutter Crawford also moved back and forth between the rotation and bullpen; he and Pivetta finished the season with identical 4.04 ERAs. However, Crawford spent most of the season in the rotation. His 129 ⅓ innings ranked third on the roster, his 23 starts second only to Brayan Bello. Between the start of August and season’s end, he held opposing batters to a .210 average and .650 OPS. He finished the year on a high note, pitching at least 5 ⅓ innings in each of his last three starts.

While Bleier struggled and didn’t last the full season, the trade didn’t turn out well for Miami, either. Barnes posted a 5.28 ERA, the second-worst mark of his eight-year career, and only pitched 21 ⅓ innings, his lowest season total since his debut in 2014.

Brasier, however, got his revenge. After putting up a 7.29 ERA over 20 games in Boston, he landed in Los Angeles, and posted a 0.70 ERA across 39 outings in Dodger blue, including a scoreless inning at Fenway at the end of August. He, Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, and Joe Kelly became NL West winners together, but the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks did sweep them in the first round of the postseason.

Even with a starting rotation that couldn’t stay healthy or pitch deep into games and an infield that couldn’t defend on even the most routine plays, this was a stronger bullpen than Boston has seen in a long time, with some historically good pitching. Collectively, they only blew 16 saves, the best mark in the Majors; in 2021 and 2018, their most recent postseason years, the bullpen blew 27 and 20 saves, respectively.

It was a welcome change to be able to watch later innings of close games without the usual sense of impending doom. If the Red Sox spend this offseason making serious upgrades to the starting rotation, they’ll put a very solid bullpen – and the team as a whole – in a position to succeed in 2024.

But after firing their last three top baseball operations executives – Chaim Bloom, Dave Dombrowski, and Ben Cherington – during each one’s fourth season at the helm, the curtain has been pulled back, the illusion shattered.

The Red Sox are having a hard time finding someone to head up baseball ops, and they may be the only ones surprised.

Not only are people not jumping at the chance to run Boston’s storied baseball team, several external candidates have actually turned them down flat, sources tell the Herald. One likened it to a fishing rod loaded with bait fooling no one into biting.

This is a high-paying position, and in previous years, one of the most prestigious jobs in professional sports. Imagine someone turning the Red Sox down a decade ago.

Firing one top executive within four years is an isolated incident; three consecutively is a pattern. It’s due in large part to their ongoing identity crisis; are they still committed to winning?

The Red Sox will have to convince someone that they’re done vacillating between building to fill out the roster and building to win, but that’s only the first roadblock to filling the position. Besides the lack of job security, anyone looking to put their own stamp on this operation won’t be enthusiastic about the current state of affairs. Alex Cora is set to return next year, likewise for several top executives. Despite Sam Kennedy’s claims to the contrary at the end-of-season press conference, the job description reads like the Red Sox are seeking a figurehead, not a leader who can reshape and recalibrate one of the biggest franchises in professional sports.

The circumstances are vastly different than October 2019, when they hired Bloom to replace Dombrowski less than a year after he’d built a team that won a franchise-record 108 regular-season wins and third consecutive division title en route to their fourth championship in 15 years. The job came with different strings attached: Bloom inherited the worst-ranked farm system and Red Sox wanted him to cut payroll, so four months into the job, he became this century’s Harry Frazee, trading away Mookie Betts.

This time around, the Red Sox have plenty of roster, financial, and farm flexibility at their disposal, and a burgeoning young core of talent. It’s an offseason in which they could go out and make a statement, even one as enormous as signing Shohei Ohtani. In theory, whoever takes the reins will be in a similar situation to Dombrowski when he signed on in August 2015 and set about giving David Price the richest pitching contract in baseball history, giving up top prospects for Craig Kimbrel and Chris Sale, and doing whatever it took to build a winner.

This may all be moot if the Red Sox promote from within. They’ve interviewed assistant general manager Eddie Romero, and MassLive’s Chris Cotillo reported that Romero won’t be the only internal candidate.

For now, what the Red Sox have going for them – a fruitful farm, young core, financial flexibility – doesn’t outweigh what’s missing: lack of vision, job security, actual control. Until they tackle those issues, they’ll be beggars, not choosers.

According to Bonaci’s player profile on MiLB.com, he was placed on the restricted list on Oct. 4. He’s been sent home from the Arizona Fall League after two games. Tyler McDonough will take his place.

It’s the second abrupt pause in the 21-year-old infielder’s playing career this year; weeks after his promotion to Double-A Portland, he was placed on the reserve list on Aug. 30 and sent home to Venezuela. According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, it was unofficial administrative leave.

How he violated the policy is not yet known, nor is the length of his stay on the restricted list.

Both MLB and SoxProspects.com rank the infielder as the organization’s No. 11 prospect.

In other news

The Red Sox played Kaleb Ort on outright waivers on Wednesday. The 31-year-old right-hander made his Major League debut in 2021, pitching one scoreless appearance in which he faced three batters, gave up one hit, one walk, and recorded one out in 2021. Over the subsequent two seasons, he owns a 6.31 ERA and 1.70 WHIP over 46 appearances, including 21 this year.

Kyle Barraclough is the latest Red Sox player to elect free agency, following Christian Arroyo and Caleb Hamilton on Oct. 2. Barraclough, a 33-year-old journeyman, sacrificed his stat line in Boston’s 13-5 loss to the Houston Astros at the end of August. Over the last 4.1 innings, he was shelled for 10 earned runs on 11 hits, two homers, five walks, and one strikeout. In the later frames, Alex Cora offered to use a position player, but Barraclough refused. It was his third and final appearance for the big-league club.

Nathan Eovaldi pitched another postseason gem on Tuesday night. Over seven innings, the former Red Sox ace held the Baltimore Orioles to one earned run on five hits, struck out seven, and didn’t issue a walk, leading the Texas Rangers to an ALDS sweep.

Eovaldi hasn’t issued a walk over his first two playoff starts. According to Stathead, he’s the 11th pitcher in MLB history to make at least two starts in a single postseason and issue zero walks. David Price and Luis Tiant are also on the list, but it’s never been done by a Red Sox pitcher.

Red Sox fans should be immensely grateful that Brian Cashman didn’t think Bryce Harper was a fit for the New York Yankees. The two-time MVP homered twice in Philadelphia on Wednesday night, the first multi-homer and 14th multi-hit postseason game of his career.

Boston baseball remains the same.

It was evident at The Sports Museum on Tuesday, when members of the 1967 Red Sox reunited at the non-profit inside TD Garden to celebrate and reminisce about “The Summer of Love.”

There are some differences. Baseball has more stats, more technology, and more money than it did during the Impossible Dream season.

“I don’t even know what WAR is!” Jim Lonborg said.

“I go crazy when the players come back off (the field) after having an at-bat or something and they’ve got a tablet out there,” said Lonborg, the 1967 American League Cy Young winner. “Their heads are so filled with numbers.”

He, Rico Petrocelli, and Gary Bell made up the event’s memorable panel. Teammates Darrell “Bucky” Brandon, Dave Morehead, Billy Rohr, José Santiago and George Thomas were seated throughout the room. Carl Yastrzemski even made a brief surprise appearance to reconnect with his teammates before the panel, clad in a Red Sox jacket.

But in essence, the Red Sox playoff formula, the recipe for doing the impossible, requires the same ingredients:

Doing the little things right

“My first year, Yaz and I, we lost 100 games, and then we put it together the next year and lost only 99,” Petrocelli joked.

Things changed with the arrival of Dick Williams, who’d finished out his 13-year playing career in Boston. He was a rookie all over again in 1967, promoted from managing Boston’s Triple-A affiliate to manage in the Majors on a one-year contract.

“One of the things he said right away is, ‘We’re not going to rely on home runs, we’re going to do the little things: Bunting, hit-and-run, and let the home runs take care of themselves,’ ” Petrocelli said. “We worked a lot on that, and we came out, we started out a little slow, and then gradually, we started doing the things right that he was telling us and teaching us to do. And then we started winning ballgames.”

Throughout his tenure – and countless times during the most recent season – Alex Cora has emphasized the importance of doing the little things, playing what he calls “fundamental baseball” or “old-school baseball.”

“We won the ALDS playing good fundamental baseball,” he told reporters during the 2021 postseason.

Conversely, not doing so consistently this year resulted in Boston’s third last-place finish in four years.

Staying loose

“I thought we were a loose team,” Petrocelli said. “We were having fun, we weren’t expected to win.”

“Gary was great, he kept us loose. And José,” Petrocelli pointed to Santiago, “One time at home, he came in with a tape recorder, and he was interviewing guys in Spanish! Stuff like that, you know, we were just loose.”

Decades later, members of the 2004 team would describe themselves in similar fashion. They were the lovable “Idiots,” a team no one expected could do what hadn’t been done by their predecessors for 86 years. There’s even footage of Kevin Millar in MLB’s official World Series film about that historic season, roaming around the clubhouse with a camcorder like a modern-day Santiago.

Learning from greats

After getting off to a slow start by his standards, Yastrzemski completed a Triple Crown season and won American League MVP.

“Bobby Doerr changed his batting stance,” explained Bell.

“Bobby helped all of us,” added Petrocelli. “He brought Yaz’s hands down, and it was just amazing to see, every time, it really seemed like every time he came up with men on base, he knocked in runs.”

The Hall of Fame infielder also took on an unusual project with the ‘67 team.

“Bobby Doerr would work with all the pitchers in spring training,” Lonborg said. “He said, ‘If you want to win some ballgames, the manager has to have faith in you as a hitter, to not pinch-hit for you when you get there.’ And so, he really worked hard with us, and he knew I could run, and he taught me how to drag bunt, and I did it two or three times during the summer. Thanks to him, we were all a threat at the plate.”

On the final day of the regular season, Lonborg not only pitched a complete game, but also successfully actualized Doerr’s lessons. Trailing the Minnesota Twins 2-0 the sixth inning, he bunted 50 feet down the third-base line for a hit, igniting the comeback.

MLB no longer requires pitchers to hit, but the tradition of Red Sox mentorship lives on. In 2019, Dustin Pedroia taught Eduardo Rodriguez a new grip for his slider.

The rivalry

“I had the misfortune of being Billy Rohr’s roommate at the time in the hotel in New York,” Lonborg joked. “He kept me up all night long, I don’t know how he had enough energy to even pitch the game the next day, with questions: ‘Well, how do you pitch Mickey Mantle?’ ‘I don’t know, I can’t get him out myself! I can’t tell you!”

That day in April, Rohr got a strike away from pitching a complete-game no-hitter in his Major League debut, but Elston Howard’s single ruined the fun.

“We wanted to kill him,” Petrocelli said. “Tony Conigliaro was in right field, he looked like he wanted to throw it, throw the ball at Elston … that got us going, that really did.”

Almost 51 years to the day, Joe Kelly’s bench-clearing brawl with Yankees infielder Tyler Austin had a similar effect on the 2018 Red Sox.

Of course, older fans will remember the ironic twist that came later that season: on Aug. 3, the Red Sox acquired Howard.

Winning fixes everything

The 1967 season reignited fans’ love for the Red Sox.

“New England was on fire that year,” Bell said. “Kids had transistor radios in the classrooms. It was, everywhere you went, it was Red Sox. It was beautiful.”

“The biggest moment was when we went on a 10-game road trip and we won 10 games in a row,” Lonborg said. “We came into Logan Airport, before there was any security, and there were 10,000 people at the airport, on the runway. They couldn’t let us get off the plane.”

“Boston had the greatest fans that I’ve ever been around,” Bell said.

“They would thank us, you know, for the excitement,” Petrocelli recalled of getting recognized around town. “People started coming to the ballpark.”

On Opening Day 1967, Fenway took in 8,324 fans. On Oct.

1, there were 35,770 people packed into Boston’s baseball cathedral, watching Lonborg pitch and bunt the pennant home.

The world is different now. You can’t get to any gate at Logan without a ticket, let alone wait for a plane on the tarmac. But what has endured, before 1967, during that season, and since, is how much this city loves when its baseball team attempts to do the impossible.

They say change is the only constant.

But winning will always bring even the most beleaguered Boston fan back.

Tom “Satch” Sanders, winner of eight NBA championships, paid a visit, and 2008 champs Paul Pierce, Eddie House and Leon Powe made appearances. Of course, there’s also assistant coach Sam Cassell, who won a ring with the aforementioned trio, the third and final championship of his 15-year playing career.

They were invited by Joe Mazzulla, who wants to build a bridge between championships past and a season he hopes will culminate in another one.

“I sent an email out to all the Celtic former players because I felt like it’s important that we share this experience together,” the head coach told reporters. “They started the tradition, they kept it going, and now it’s our responsibility as an organization to keep it alive.”

Former Celtics have an open invitation to practices, games, even team dinners and flights, the second-year head coach said.

“The past should be the banners, but should (also) be (about) the people, so I thought it was extremely important that any and every Celtic is welcome.” Mazzulla said.

It’s a fitting mindset for a city overflowing with history, and home to some of the most historic and decorated sports teams. The Celtics have played and won more games than any other NBA franchise, and their 17 championships were the most by any team until the Los Angeles Lakers tied their mark in 2020.

For Pierce, who spent the first 15 years of his 19-year Hall of Fame career in Celtics green, Mazzulla’s way is a welcome return to how things used to be.

“I think that’s what it should be all about. It’s always been that way since I’ve been in the organization, and I love that Joe has reached out to me and some of the other guys to be around more,” Pierce told reporters. “Every time I looked up, Tommy Heinsohn, he was always there. And then we look up and see John Havlicek, Bill Russell, (Bob) Cousy. It just brought a certain energy to the building whenever I saw those guys in practice or at the game. So, I think it kind of continues the brotherhood. It’s all part of our culture and that is something that the Celtics have always been about.”

Intangibles, aspects that can’t be measured in stat line, spreadsheet, or payroll, matter in Boston more than almost any other sports town in the world. The fans’ energy, the ghosts at 111-year-old Fenway Park, the banners swaying in the TD Garden rafters, are all part of the equation.

Likewise, having former players around – especially the ones who’ve won it all here, of all places – can be impactful. It goes beyond the simple fact that winning energy is alluring. In Boston, players and teams are competing not only in the highest-stakes games, but under the most intense microscope, watched vigilantly by fans and media. It helps to hear and learn from someone who’s run that gauntlet and emerged victorious.

Perhaps the Red Sox should listen to their champs, too; this is exactly what David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez keep saying the Red Sox have been missing in recent years.

“Playing in Boston is not for every type of player,” Ortiz explained to reporters at Cooperstown last summer. “I played there for so long. It’s a distraction for a lot of players. They don’t know how to handle it.”

“They’re not going to have the essence of the franchise that we left,” Martinez told reporters last October, concerned the Red Sox were on the precipice of losing both Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers. “The culture that we left is going to be lost. And we don’t know when we’re going to get it back and how we’re going to get it back.”

He made the same refrain last week, two days before the Red Sox completed their third last-place finish in four years. “We need to bring back the culture,” he told Boston Globe Today.

“I’m part of the Red Sox,” he added. “But I also understand my fan base better than probably anybody, except for maybe Tim Wakefield. We know what having success here in Boston can feel like. We know exactly what needs to be done, and we know what we can do and what the players need to do.”

By the time the Celtics set up shop in June 1946, the Red Sox were well into their fourth decade of play. An original American League franchise, born in the inaugural 1901 season, they’d won the first-ever modern World Series in 1903, and four more by 1918. They’ve won three World Series since Ortiz and Martinez snapped the 86-year drought in 2004.

Maintaining a link to the past is a key reason why. Ortiz and Martinez, both employed by the Red Sox in various capacities, including working with current players during spring training, are among the many Boston baseball legends who’ve brought their expertise to the table. For years, the late Johnny Pesky inspired and motivated Red Sox players to achieve what he never could: end the championship drought. When they finally did in 2004, players handed him the trophy, and the present healed the past.

But the Celtics know that championship culture goes beyond inviting Satch and The Truth to team dinner. It’s about mortgaging the future, like sacrificing top draft picks, and making tough decisions, like saying goodbye to Marcus Smart, Grand Williams and Robert Williams. It’s about opening the purse strings for Jaylen Brown, and paying him more than any other player in NBA history. It’s about doing anything and everything if it puts that trophy in their hands at the end of the season.

The Red Sox used to know this too, back when they gave David Price the richest pitching contract in Major League history, and parted with top prospects for Chris Sale.

What will they do to get back to where they claim they want to go?

Corey Kluber and James Paxton are about to become free agents, and even though that still leaves Chris Sale, Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Garrett Whitlock among the internal rotation candidates, it’s clear that the Red Sox still need at least one starter.

If they need a blueprint for their latest pitching search, Zack Wheeler is the model pitcher.

He isn’t on the market, unfortunately. The Red Sox should’ve followed through on that at the July 2019 trade deadline, when they reportedly spoke to the New York Mets about acquiring him, or gone after him when he became a free agent that fall.

Yet if the Red Sox were to zero in on someone like Wheeler – someone itching to prove they’re more than what people see – they might strike gold.

Since signing his five-year, $118 million contract with the Phillies at the end of 2019, Wheeler has consistently been one of the most dominant and durable pitchers in the game. Through four years in the City of Brotherly Love, the 33-year-old right-hander owns a 3.06 ERA across 101 starts, with 675 strikeouts and only 135 walks issued over the course of 629.1 regular-season innings. In 2021, he led the Majors with 213.1 innings, was the National League Strikeout Leader (247), and finished runner-up to Corbin Burnes in NL Cy Young voting.

While Phillies have made several big additions over the last half-decade, including Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos, starting pitching is what makes or breaks a team. (Compare the 2018 and 2021 Red Sox to every other season since the former and there’s really no debate.)

When they ended their postseason appearance drought last fall and went all the way to the World Series, Wheeler posted a 2.78 ERA across six starts. This week, the “Fightins'” began their second consecutive playoff run with “Wheels” pitching 6.1 innings of one-run ball in Game 1 of the Wild Card series on Tuesday night. He held the visiting Miami Marlins to one earned run on five hits, struck out eight, and didn’t walk a single batter, lifting the Phillies to a 4-1 victory.

What a difference starting pitching makes.

What a difference the years make, too. This signing wasn’t exactly seen as a slam dunk at the time.

“The selling point for Wheeler—one that’s been parroted throughout free agency—is that he carries the potential for ace-level performance without an ace-level price tag,” The Ringer’s Michael Baumann wrote on Dec. 4, 2019. “But outside of his exceptional fastball velocity and impressive underlying numbers, according to Statcast, he’s good but not great.”

Wheeler was considered the No. 3 starter on that market, the more affordable arm in a free-agent class headlined by Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg, the two aces fresh off dueling in the World Series.

“Compared to Cole and Strasburg, the actual aces on the free agent market, Wheeler has a lower ceiling and a lower floor,” Baumann continued. “If they’d been willing to increase their offer to $30 million a year, they could have walked away with Cole or Strasburg, both of whom have higher upside than Wheeler with almost none of the question marks.”

While Cole has undoubtedly been the ace of the Yankees rotation since signing later that month, posting a 3.08 ERA, 1.011 WHIP, and striking out 816 batters over 108 regular-season starts (664 innings) and earning AL Cy Young votes every year, the Phillies have gone farther with Wheeler than Cole and Co. The Yankees have only made it as far as the American League Championship Series once during his tenure thus far, and didn’t reach the postseason this year at all. Which isn’t to say Cole alone shoulders the blame for the franchise’s downturn – far from it – but he’s still costing them a lot more, and the Yankees don’t have much to show for it.

In Strasburg, the Phillies avoided an expensive and tragic turn of events. Five days after Baumann’s piece went live, the reigning World Series MVP signed a seven-year, $245 million extension to remain with the Washington Nationals. His $35 million annual average value (AAV) set a new record for pitchers.

Unfortunately, a plethora of injuries and surgeries pulled Strasburg back to the sidelines over and over in the last four years. He’s only made eight Major League starts totaling 31.1 innings. There was talk of the now-34-year-old retiring at the end of this season, one in which he didn’t step on a Major League mound once.

Of course, hindsight’s vision is perfect, foresight less so. Still, the Red Sox may be wise to pass on more pricier free agents in favor of someone flying a bit under the radar.

Other than Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell is this offseason’s top free-agent starting pitcher, and as he’s in line to win his second career Cy Young Award – which would make him only the seventh player in MLB history to win one in each league – he’s primed for a big payday. The presumed Qualifying Offer from the Padres means Snell will cost a team at least one draft pick as well as.

Why not look at Wheeler’s teammate, Aaron Nola, instead? The homegrown starter doesn’t overpower hitters with velocity, but well-honed command gets the job done. Most appealing to the Red Sox, who’ve weathered too many starting pitching injuries over most of the last four years, is his health. The 30-year-old right-hander is an innings-eater who’s racked up at least 180 frames in each of the last five seasons. He’s not unlike Rick Porcello, who wasn’t always effective, but was always available for at least five innings.

With the Phillies ending their playoff drought with back-to-back Wild Card berths, Nola has also added postseason experience to his resumé. Of course, depending on how their playoff run pans out, his asking price could go through the roof.

Lucas Giolito could fit the bill. Not long ago, he was the ace of the Sox rotation in Chicago. Between 2019-21, he posted a 3.47 ERA and 1.076 WHIP over 72 regular-season starts, with 526 strikeouts across 427.2 innings. This season, however, the White Sox traded him to Anaheim, where, barely a month later, he suffered the humiliation of being placed on waivers by a collapsing Angels team that decided to dump salary. Thus, the righty finished the season back in the Midwest, where he made six starts the Cleveland Guardians. Still only 28 years old, he must be itching to prove himself after all that.

If the Red Sox are serious about becoming contenders again, they’ll need to be spenders first. But as they know firsthand, and from their view on the sidelines, they’d do well to spend wisely.

Hours after their first postseason win since the 2017 National League Wild Card, the Arizona Diamondbacks agreed to an extension with Mike Hazen.

Hazen’s previous deal ran through 2024 with a club option for 2025, but his contract is now guaranteed through 2028, reports Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic. His assistant general managers, Amiel Sawdaye and Mike Fitzgerald, also received extensions of the same length.

With Hazen’s long history in Boston – he spent 12 years with the Red Sox before going to Arizona in October 2016 – he was immediately connected to his former organization once they fired Chaim Bloom in mid-September.

The Red Sox would’ve needed the Diamondbacks’ permission to interview him, but their president and CEO, Derrick Hall, wasn’t interested in opening that door. So much so that he revealed previous extension discussions with Hazen, strongly suggesting what became reality on Wednesday.

A native of Weymouth and Abington, Hazen was a star player at Princeton University. He had a brief minor-league career in the San Diego Padres’ organization before an injury put him on a different baseball path. In five years in the Cleveland organization, he rose from intern to assistant director of player development, before joining the Red Sox as their director of player development in February 2006. In September 2015, Dave Dombrowski appointed him Red Sox general manager, replacing Ben Cherington.

Hazen left for Arizona the following October. In his first season, the 2017 Diamondbacks went 93-69, their fourth-best regular-season record in franchise history, and clinched their first-ever Wild Card. They had three consecutive winning seasons in Hazen’s first three years at the helm, but under the previous two-team, single-game Wild Card format, fell short of the postseason in 2018 and 2019.

Unlike Hazen’s first Diamondbacks postseason team, which was full of inherited talent, this year’s squad is one he built, largely from the ground up. Through drafting, trading, and savvy free-agent signings, Arizona is playing October baseball once again.

It’s no wonder the Red Sox would be interested in bringing Hazen back. Several of his draft picks are now talented Major Leaguers on his roster, and though his risky trades of Paul Goldschmidt and Zack Greinke didn’t quite pan out, he’s been willing to be aggressive in a way that Bloom typically wasn’t. The erstwhile Red Sox executive drew repeated criticism for being too restrained in that regard, not willing to give up enough to bring someone to Boston, or asking for too much in return for a player.

When Hazen sent his young outfielder Daulton Varsho to Toronto last winter, he parted with an elite defender with some serious bat power and four years of club control. But in exchange, he got veteran outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and the Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect (and Top 10 MLB prospect), catcher Gabriel Moreno. Hazen took a significant risk, but already, the Diamondbacks are reaping their reward: playoff baseball.

The Red Sox will have to find someone else to take them back to the postseason; Hazen is already there.

Nasty Nate

Nathan Eovaldi continued living up to his postseason reputation on Wednesday afternoon, carrying a shutout into the seventh inning of the Rangers’ second Wild Card game against the Rays. The former Red Sox ace pitched 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball, and over 98 pitches, held the Tampa Bay bats to six hits, struck out eight, and didn’t issue a walk. His career postseason ERA improves to 2.90.

Eovaldi, who became a Boston legend with a heroic relief performance in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, signed a two-year, $34 million contract with Texas last December.

“We’ve had a very modest, low single-digit increase on season ticket prices,” team president and CEO Sam Kennedy confirmed during Monday afternoon’s end-of-year press conference.

With that, the Red Sox extend their streak of upping the cost of admission to four consecutive seasons. Not exactly an olive branch to the Fenway Faithful after the team’s third last-place finish in these four years.

Hours before Kennedy and manager Alex Cora fielded questions from the media, Major League Baseball announced that the 2023 season drew 70 million in collective attendance for the first time since 2017, with a 9.6-percent increase over 2022. Not including the COVID-impacted 2020 and 2021 seasons, it’s the highest percentage growth since 1983.

The Red Sox are among the 24 teams that saw attendance rise this season, and one of 17 teams that exceeded 2.5 million. For some clubs, that’s a great achievement.

For this one, not so much. According to Baseball Reference, America’s Most Beloved Ballpark finished the year with just over 2.672 million. That’s about 47,000 more than last season, when the Red Sox posted their worst home attendance since 2000, previous ownership’s penultimate season.

“We actually are incredibly appreciative of the fan support that we had this year,” Kennedy said. “Our attendance was slightly up, which is somewhat remarkable if you consider coming off of a last-place finish in 2022, and obviously, we know where we are in 2023. So, we’re incredibly grateful for the support that we had night in and night out… For a team that fell short of our own expectations, it’s something we’re incredibly grateful for.”

Of course, the increased attendance included droves of visiting fans who packed Fenway all season long. At times, it felt like there were more Mets, Dodgers, and Astros fans in the stands.

As for non-season ticket numbers, that’s a more fluid situation. “We price the rest of our ticket inventory dynamically,” Kennedy explained. “Prices change based upon market conditions over the course of the year, so we don’t have set prices as we enter the year other than the season ticket packages.”

Indeed, by mid-September, Red Sox-Yankees tickets were going for a mere dollar plus fees on apps like Gametime, leading legendary outfielder Fred Lynn to write on X (formerly Twitter), “They are literally selling tickets for $1. Got more than that when I played.”

Normally, though, Fenway is quite a pricey experience, and has been for close to three decades.

It was expensive before current ownership arrived. In May 2000, the Society for American Baseball Research announced that the Red Sox were MLB’s most expensive ticket for the fifth year in a row. In those glory days of Pedro Martinez, the average ticket rang in at $28.33, a whopping 17.8-percent jump from 1999, and more than double the cost just five years earlier.

In 2011, the average price was up to $52.32, second only to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. By April 2015, Team Marketing Report’s MLB Fan Cost Index® announced that even without raising prices after a last-place finish the year before, the Red Sox were the most expensive game in the league. The report also revealed that while a “small” beer cost $7.75 at Fenway, the Cubs’ Wrigley Field, and Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park, Boston’s idea of a small beer was only 12 ounces, compared to 16 in Chicago and 21 in Philadelphia.

Less than two weeks ago, Statista announced that even though the Red Sox were the third-most expensive average ticket in baseball this season (behind the Dodgers and Yankees), the Fan Cost Index still had them as the most expensive day out in the entire league, with the cost of taking a family to Fenway coming in at over $396. (Their calculations include “four average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one hour, two game programs and two least-expensive, adult-size adjustable caps.”)

The Red Sox are currently a team without a top baseball operations executive, one day removed from their third last-place finish in four seasons, and sitting on the sidelines while other teams play postseason ball. On Monday, Kennedy acknowledged that a lot needs to change.

“There’s a desire to compete. You’ve heard us say it,” he reiterated. “And sometimes, those words ring hollow when you’ve had two very disappointing seasons, but there’s just nothing like winning in Boston, and we need to get that back.

“We want to get back. Forget the championships of the past. We need to focus on what’s in front of us, and we want to get that feeling. We want that winning feeling, and our fans deserve that, so we’re going to have to do what it takes to get there, and that’s what we’re committed to do.”

However, Kennedy also acknowledged that the Fenway Faithful are a powerful variable in the equation.

“We’re always concerned if we’re not performing on the field and what that might do to our attendance,” he said. “We need to have a packed house each and every night. It’s a competitive advantage, what it does for the environment and what it does to create resources that can be reinvested back into the team.”

If that’s truly the case, then it would be wise to give fans more reasons to pack the house.

Instead, Kennedy wouldn’t confirm (or deny) that the Red Sox plan to spend big this offseason, claiming that such a declaration would reveal their hand, and he was similarly noncommittal when asked if this offseason is an “all-in” situation.

“No, I don’t really even know how to define ‘all-in’,” he said. “Maybe it’s just ‘cuz on the inside, we feel like we’re all-in every year in terms of the work, and the preparation, and the commitment, and the dedication. So I feel like we’re all-in from that perspective each and every year.”

The Red Sox organization is full of hard-working individuals whose contributions aren’t always adequately reflected in the team’s final product. Nonetheless, the only thing this franchise has consistently gone all-in on in recent years is raising the cost of admission for those still devoted enough to pay for season tickets.

If they want more money from their fans, they should have to prove they’re worth it first.

He and his wife, Stacy, had both been battling different cancers, a fact made public without their consent by a former teammate just three days ago. He is survived by Stacy, son Trevor, and daughter Brianna.

One of baseball’s greatest and last true knuckleball pitchers, the man affectionately known as “Wake” spent the last 17 seasons of his 19-year MLB career with the Red Sox. He was a member of nine postseason teams, and won rings with the club in 2004 and 2007. At 42 years old, he became a first-time All-Star in 2009, just two years before his final season. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest active Major Leaguer.

Tim Wakefield will be remembered for many reasons.

His 186 wins are the second-most in franchise history (Roger Clemens and Cy Young are tied for first), as are his 2,046 strikeouts. He pitched more seasons and innings (3,006) and made more starts (430) than anyone who wore a Red Sox uniform, records unlikely to be broken; only Carl Yastrzemski, Dwight Evans, and Ted Williams played more years for the team.

As the man who gave up the walk-off home run to Aaron Boone in the 2003 ALCS, Wakefield endured the ultimate Red Sox heartbreak. The following October, he helped Boston get their revenge, and his heartbreak rewarded with the greatest triumph. Scheduled to start Game 4, he volunteered to eat innings in Game 3 to save the rest of the pitching staff from working what would become a 19-8 loss. After falling behind the Yankees three games to none, the Red Sox won the next four (with Wakefield making another heroic relief performance of three shutout innings in Game 5), becoming the first team in MLB history to complete such a comeback.

That comeback really began with Wakefield in Game 3, not Kevin Millar’s walk and Dave Roberts’ pinch-running stolen base in Game 4, their manager, Terry Francona always said. That Wakefield won’t be with his teammates when the Red Sox celebrate the 20th anniversary of that miraculous postseason next year is unbearably sad.

Following his retirement in February 2012, Wakefield joined NESN as one of their Red Sox studio analysts, a role he continued through this season. During and after his playing career, he was one of baseball’s most philanthropic figures; he was the Red Sox’s Roberto Clemente Award nominee eight times and won the prestigious accolade in 2010, an achievement he called the highest honor of his career. He was especially devoted to several children’s charities and causes, and served as the inaugural Jimmy Fund Red Sox co-captain. When the team ended their 86-year drought in 2004, he brought the World Series trophy to patients at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Above all, Tim Wakefield will be remembered for the person he was: a kind, generous, caring, hardworking, persevering man. It was evident when he played, when he was on the air, and when he was out in the world. It’s evident in his passing, and the tributes that are pouring in.

“Tim’s kindness and indomitable spirit were as legendary as his knuckleball,” said Red Sox Principal Owner John Henry in a written statement. “He not only captivated us on the field but was the rare athlete whose legacy extended beyond the record books to the countless lives he touched with his warmth and genuine spirit. He had a remarkable ability to uplift, inspire, and connect with others in a way that showed us the true definition of greatness. He embodied the very best of what it means to be a member of the Boston Red Sox and his loss is felt deeply by all of us.”

“It’s one thing to be an outstanding athlete; it’s another to be an extraordinary human being. Tim was both,” said Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner. “He was a role model on and off the field, giving endlessly to the Red Sox Foundation and being a force for good for everyone he encountered. I felt fortunate to call him a close friend and along with all of us in Red Sox Nation, I know the world was made better because he was in it.”

“I can’t describe what you mean to me and my family, my heart is broken right now because l will never be able to replace a brother and a friend like you,” David Ortiz wrote on Instagram. “Rest and peace my brother.”

“Tim Wakefield was a respected competitor, a generous soul and a beloved member of the baseball community for more than three decades as a player and a broadcaster,” MLBPA executive director (and former Red Sox infielder) Tony Clark said in a written statement honoring his 2002 teammate.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Wakefield, one of the most unique pitchers of his generation and a key part of the most successful era in the history of the Boston Red Sox,” Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred’s statement read. “In 1995, he began a 17-year tenure in Boston, where he made a mark that will be remembered forever.”

The league’s account and several MLB teams sent condolences on X as well, including the Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies, and Pittsburgh Pirates, who drafted Wakefield and with whom he made his Major League debut on July 31, 1992.

“This is heartbreaking news,” Roger Clemens wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “A great person, great teammate, and great golfing companion for many of our playing years. I told him many times playing along side of him what a great competitor he is. Hugs to his family and extended family. Miss you pal.”

“Devastating news about Tim Wakefield,” former Red Sox outfielder Fred Lynn posted. “I only knew him off the field, but he was a very good guy. Class act. Gentleman. Our thoughts go out to his family and all those who knew and loved him.”

“My heart is broken and I have no words,” Mike Lowell posted on X. “RIP Wake. You were one of the good ones and a great teammate. Red Sox Nation will forever be grateful. Thank you for your friendship.”

“Absolutely heartbroken,” fellow Red Sox player-turned-NESN analyst Will Middlebrooks wrote. “Wake was a good man. This is awful.”

“I’ve worked with Wake for the past 12 years, and had the honor of covering him for 17 seasons before that,” shared Tom Caron. “I’ve never met anyone who loved the Red Sox more, or who better understood how to use the power of sports to help those in need. Absolutely gutted by his loss.”

Kevin Youkilis, in the booth for the Red Sox’s final game of the season, choked back tears as he paid tribute.

“He was a great competitor when he took that mound. He was just a great teammate, and just a great friend,” he said. “Just glad that I had the opportunity over the years to be alongside him.

“Today we lost one of the good ones.”

The 2023 Red Sox are a not good-enough team with quite a few good players.

They’ll be remembered for their lackluster, last-place sum, but many of the individual parts weren’t all that terrible. Some were even excellent.

Kutter Crawford is the perfect example of a player who deserves more credit than he’ll get. He spent the season contributing in every way asked of him, making 23 starts and eight relief appearances, including five games finished. He capped off his season with an excellent final start, shutting out the Orioles for six nearly perfect innings in Baltimore. He gave up one hit, but the Red Sox still fell to the Orioles 5-2.

Entering Saturday night’s contest, he ranked second in the Majors in batting average allowed on four-seam fastballs. Though his velocity was down across the board, that particular pitch worked to his advantage on Saturday night. Of the 76 pitches he needed to get through his outing, 37 were four-seamers, and the Orioles swung at 23 of them, whiffed seven times, and saw five called strikes.

The right-hander’s contributions to this lost season shouldn’t go unnoticed. Only Brayan Bello made more starts, and Crawford’s 129.1 innings of work rank third, behind Bello (157) and Nick Pivetta (142.2). Crawford’s seven strikeouts brought his season total to 135, overtaking Bello (132) for second on the pitching staff.

By the time Crawford walked off the mound after his final frame, he’d lowered his ERA to 4.04, tied with Pivetta for the best mark in the rotation. Saturday night had been his third outing of at least six innings, no more than one hit, and zero runs; Pivetta’s July 17th relief appearance was the only other such performance by any member of the staff all year. Moments later, Red Sox media relations announced that Crawford is the first player in franchise history to record as many as four outings of at least six innings with no more than one hit allowed in a single season.

Unfortunately for Crawford, he received the customary zero runs of support that accompanies a stellar Red Sox pitching performance. By the end of their half of the fifth inning, the Red Sox had out-hit their hosts 7-1 and wasted every base runner. Thus, Orioles starter Kyle Gibson exited unblemished.

To add to the Red Sox starter’s misfortunes, the bullpen wasted another excellent start. Josh Winckowski took over for the seventh, and immediately made a mess. He gave up a leadoff single to Adley Rutschman, only the second Orioles hit of the contest. As Winckowski worked back-to-back strikeouts, Rutchsman’s pinch-runner, Jorge Mateo, stole second, then scored on Ryan Mountcastle’s double. Mountcastle promptly scored on Heston Kjerstad’s single, putting the Orioles up 2-0 before Winckowski got the third out.

Mauricio Llovera pitched the bottom of the eighth, and allowed three earned runs on three hits, putting the game further out of reach.

The Boston bats only cobbled together two runs in their penultimate game. In the top of the eighth, Adam Duvall, whose second-inning triple had been Boston’s first hit, singled for his team’s 10th hit. The Red Sox entered the night 44-18 in double-digit hit games, and hadn’t been shut out in any such contest. With two outs in same inning, Trevor Story ensured that streak would continue; his two-out single finally plated a run. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Masataka Yoshida’s single brought home one more.

It’s funny to think back to the first series of the season, when the Orioles lineup dominated Corey Kluber and Chris Sale in the first two games, and the Boston bats answered back. This weekend – and for much of September – the Red Sox got excellent outings from their starting pitching, and nothing from their offense.

How many times could this team only manage to fire on one or two cylinders, with the others sputtering and fizzling out? Too many times to count.

The good news is that you only have to watch them do this one more time.

In fact, he’s looked more like the Chris Sale of yore quite a bit recently, going at least five innings and allowing no more than one earned run in four of his last five starts; he finished September with a 2.88 ERA for the month.

“It was nice,” Sale told reporters. “Still wasn’t enough.”

The southpaw’s efforts were for naught. Just after 9 p.m, the Orioles won 2-0 and Camden Yards became the home of the new champions of the American League East.

Hours after Alex Cora announced Sale was his intended Opening Day starter for the 2024 season, the 34-year-old left-hander pitched five innings against the Orioles, a team he used to dominate, but has struggled against this year.

Save for a solo home run to Anthony Santander, the Orioles got nothing off Sale. He held them to three hits, walked one and struck out two.

“My hope is for him to be the Opening Day starter,” Cora reiterated to reporters postgame.

“I appreciate that,” Sale said in response to his manager’s plan for him. “It definitely gives me something to chase this offseason, which is good.”

He listed “lower body strength, shoulder strength, and mobility” as the three keys to coming back stronger next year. He plans to go to Fort Myers early and get right to work.

“I gotta get my shoulder stronger, that’s for sure,” he said. “Starts from the top, so I think for me, it’s going to be long-tossing. I just need reps, I need to throw more.”

Josh Winckowski, Brennan Bernardino, and Zack Kelly took the rest of the workload, giving the Boston bats even more time to put something, anything together. Only Kelly, who gave up an earned run on one hit and two walks, allowed the Orioles to reach.

Their teammates, however, are already deep in offseason mode. The Red Sox, already shut out in their final home game on Wednesday night, got nothing in Baltimore, either. Dean Kremer shut them out easily, and his bullpen kept it rolling.

The Red Sox collected three hits – singles by Rafael Devers, Trevor Story and Connor Wong – and a walk (Devers), going 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position, leaving five men on base. They’ve lost 17 of their last 21 games, and been shut out 10 times this year, including three of their last five games.

In the top of the ninth, Tyler Wells got Adam Duvall, Alex Verdugo, and Story 1-2-3 for Baltimore’s 100th win of the year and the division title, their first since 2014. For the second night in a row, a Red Sox opponent ended the night popping champagne. “That’s what you call a double whammy,” Jim Rice said on NESN’s postgame show.

But for the Orioles, who cemented their glorious season just two days after losing Brooks “Mr. Oriole” Robinson, there’s much deeper meaning to this hard-earned victory.

Baltimore’s ballclub lost at least 108 games three times between 2018-21 (they went 25-35 in 2020). It’s a well-deserved turn in the sun; they have the best record in the American League, second only to the Atlanta Braves (102-56) in the Major Leagues. According to MLB’s Sarah Langs, the Orioles are the first team in MLB history to go from losing at least 110 games to winning at least 100 games in the span of three seasons. The 1967-69 New York Mets are the only other club to even swing from 100+ loss to 100+ wins in such a short span.

“Projects like that are always interesting,” Cora said of the division rivals’ turnaround. “What they did, it was from, from scratch.”

At times over the last several years, Red Sox brass have hesitated and even downright refused to call these post-2018 years a rebuild. But while discussing the Orioles’ makeover, Cora alluded to his team’s own tumultuous journey.

“It’s not easy. We live it in our city, right? That balance of building something from scratch and winning at the big-league level, it’s hard to do,” he explained. “We’ve been through that the last two years, right?”

After such a grueling transformation, the Orioles are built to win and there to stay. Hours before Thursday’s game, the team announced a lease extension with the state of Maryland and Maryland Stadium Authority that will keep them at Camden Yards for another 30 years.

“Nobody gave us a chance at the start of this year, nobody,” an emotional Brandon Hyde told his players as they celebrated in the Orioles clubhouse. “We just won the AL East!”

“It seems they were the best team in the American League East,” Cora said. “It was pedal to the metal all the way to today. It was a great season for them, and from all of us, congratulations.”

There are three games left in the season, and then, the postseason awaits for the O’s.

For Boston, the sweet reprieve of the offseason beckons.

Throughout endless rain delays, suspended games, and subsequent doubleheaders, Fenway Park’s senior grounds director is a ray of sunshine.

“If it’s not the rainiest, it’s certainly one of the rainiest (seasons) in my Red Sox career and 39 years in the Majors,” Mellor told the Herald on a brisk but mercifully sunny Wednesday afternoon, hours before the team’s final home game of the year.

This was one of the rainiest summers on record for the city. Between June and August, Boston took on over 20 inches of rainfall, the second-highest total since the National Weather Service’s records began in 1872. Eight of the first 13 weekends of the baseball season included at least one rainy day, and made this year even busier for Mellor and his crew.

Earlier on Wednesday afternoon, Alex Cora singled out Mellor, praising him for keeping the club afloat.

“Shoutout to Dave again,” Cora said. “I think the grounds crew this year, they deserve a standing ovation, because it’s been crazy.”

The venerable grounds director, however, was far too humble to take all the credit when he heard what the manager said. In fact, he’d rather give credit to his co-workers and the technology that helps them do their job.

“I’m humbled by his kind words and support,” Mellor said. “I’m blessed to have incredible colleagues and co-workers, Derek Gauger, Jedi Saverse, Devin Fitman, and our crew. Their dedication, hard work, their attention to detail, the pride that they put into the crew and the field day in and day out, really makes all the difference. And our vendors who help us. It’s a lot of teamwork, and I’m really fortunate to have that support.”

This was an incredibly busy season for Mellor & Co. The number of rain delays were well into the double digits, with multiple games suspended midway or postponed altogether. The grounds crew ran through quite a few bags of drying agent.

“We buy it by volume, in bulk,” Mellor said with a chuckle.

However, things could’ve been worse, if not for certain ballpark renovations last winter. Fortuitously, perhaps even clairvoyantly, the team renovated the field to improve the drainage.

“We did put some new drainage in, especially right behind where we dump the tarp, so that certainly helped this past year. It got a lot of work,” he laughed.

However, keeping field operations running smoothly is about so much more than drainage or drying agent. It’s also about trust between his crew and the umpires. Their weather cohorts, Fox 25 and DTN Weather Service, are “great allies,” he said.

“During the innings, talking to the umpires and sharing that information, that really helps provide the proper information and earn their trust,” Mellor said. “And that is vital, earning people’s trust.”

It’s fitting Mellor is known for making Fenway beautiful even in the worst conditions; it mirrors his own life, and the challenges he’s overcome and still grapples with, including this season.

Before he became renowned in his field, gaining recognition for stunningly elaborate field designs and writing two books on gardening and landscaping, David Mellor was a teenage pitcher with dreams of playing in the Majors. At 18 years old and about to begin college, he was hit by a car, which crushed his legs and forced him to find a new dream.

Instead, he started his groundskeeping career with the Milwaukee Brewers. He beautified the home fields of the Los Angeles Angels, San Francisco Giants and Green Bay Packers before arriving in Boston in 2001.

But during his time with the Brewers, Mellor had been hit by a car for the second time. The accidents caused him to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for decades. Yet once again, he found a way to bring some light out of the darkness; in 2019, he wrote a book about his PTSD journey and the four-legged friend who made all the difference.

Since 2014, his beloved service dog and companion, Drago, had been a fixture at Fenway. When he wasn’t by Mellor’s side, the majestic German Shepherd could be seen playing with the players and the baseballs they gave him, or enjoying a patch of sunlight on the Fenway grass.

“Drago literally saved my life,” Mellor said. “He changed my life.”

Drago sadly passed away last June after having a stroke at the ballpark. He’d been such a special part of the Red Sox organization the team paid tribute to him online and on the field the next day. Two months later, his son, Keeper, one of several puppies from a litter Drago fathered in 2018 – former Red Sox players Rick Porcello and Ian Kinsler adopted others – took up the service dog mantle.

But this season, the young dog has been noticeably absent from the ballpark, and Mellor explained it had nothing to do with the bad weather.

Last fall, not long after Keeper made his Fenway debut, “some overzealous drunks” in the concourse ran up to Mellor and Keeper, wanting to meet the duo and take a picture. They were screaming Keeper’s name, Mellor said, and when they started stomping their feet, they lost their balance and knocked over a trash can, terrifying the dog.

“They startled Keeper so severely, he’s too startled to work in the crowds now,” Mellor said. “He’ll always be a part of my family, he lives with us at home.

“But even though our trainer came in to try to desensitize that startle reflex, Fenway just has so much stimuli, especially the day in and day out exposure he has to have with me, being on the field, the crack of the bat, loud noises, sound system, being in the concourse, the equipment, it was just too much for him to live a happy life in this exposure. He’ll always be an important part of our home life, but he just can’t help me as a service dog in this environment.”

Mellor got through the season without Keeper, but Fenway hosts various events all season long, so the Red Sox’s final home game doesn’t mean his work is done. Far from it. He’s hoping to have a new service dog at his side by the time a new baseball season begins.

With Keeper waiting to greet them when they come home from work, of course.

Particularly, Tanner Houck and Zach Eflin, whose lopsided starts set a 9-7 Rays victory in motion.

Last offseason, the Red Sox and Rays made identical three-year, $40 million offers to Eflin, a free agent coming off a pennant season with the Philadelphia Phillies. Eflin, a Florida native, said it was a difficult decision, but chose to play in his home state.

On the mound at Fenway for the penultimate home game of the season, he showed the Red Sox exactly how different this season might’ve been, and what the organization needs to prioritize this offseason in order to turn the page next year.

Coming into his 31st start of the year, Eflin’s 3.44 ERA, 30 starts, 172.2 innings, and 182 strikeouts would’ve led the Red Sox rotation, and by a comfortable margin in most metrics. On Tuesday night, he added five innings to his season total, and held the Red Sox to three earned runs on five hits, struck out four, and didn’t issue a walk.

Almost every ball the Red Sox hit found a Rays glove, and they erased the baserunners they managed to put on. Eflin held them scoreless through four, with only two hits to their name; only twice this year had a Red Sox starter taken a scoreless game that deep without allowing more hits.

In the bottom of the fifth, Eflin allowed back-to-back singles to Wilyer Abreu and Bobby Dalbec, then gave up a three-run homer to Enmanuel Valdez, putting Boston on the board and cutting the Rays’ lead to four. Far from rattled, the visiting starter retired the next three batters, ending his night with a strikeout of Rafael Devers.

Meanwhile, Houck began the night by hitting Rays leadoff man Jonathan Aranda. Moments later, he became the first Red Sox pitcher since Clay Buchholz in 2016 to allow the first six batters of the game to reach.

Houck ended up facing all nine Rays batters in the top of the first, allowing three runs, two earned, on four hits before getting out of the inning. By the time he walked off the mound after his third and final frame, he’d had been charged with seven runs (six earned) on 10 hits, including a home run.

“Fastball command was off, the slider wasn’t great, 0-2 breaking ball right away hit-by-pitch,” manager Alex Cora said. “A lot of pitches in the middle of the zone.”

Houck summed it up more succinctly. “Terrible,” he said solemnly.

“Slider wasn’t very good, kept leaving it up (in the zone), and that’s one of my main two pitches. Didn’t execute it as well as I should’ve,” the 27-year-old right-hander said.

“Like I said, terrible,” he said. “Lot of learning lessons in it, and that’s what failure does … I got one more after this, come back, bounce back, and finish the year on a high note. Flush this one today, and come back tomorrow.”

While Houck’s struggles reached new extremes on Tuesday night, Eflin’s performance was far more painful in that it highlighted exactly what the Red Sox have been sorely missing all season. It was the Rays righty’s 25th start of at least five innings with a maximum of three runs allowed this season, and the 12th in which he’d done the aforementioned without issuing a walk. The Red Sox rotation combined has 75 and 14 such contests, respectively.

The remainder of the contest was a different kind of reminder that with a stronger starting rotation, this Red Sox team could’ve been so much more than they’ve been. Zack Kelly took over for Houck and pitched a 1-2-3 fourth inning in his first appearance since getting injured in an early April game and undergoing elbow surgery. It turned out to be the first of four consecutive 1-2-3 innings by the Boston bullpen, who suffocated their guests, giving the lineup time to battle back.

The Red Sox pulled within one thanks to a two-run double by Wilyer Abreu in the sixth and Justin Turner’s RBI single in the seventh, but Chris Murphy and Josh Winckowski gave the Rays two more in the top of the eighth. Around the same time, Dave Dombrowski’s Philadelphia Phillies punched their ticket to the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Trailing 9-7 in the bottom of the ninth, the Red Sox were unable to complete the comeback. Devers, Turner, and Masataka Yoshida struck out swinging to end the team’s penultimate home game. With a better start, seven runs and a mostly-effective bullpen could’ve gotten the job done.

If there are three takeaways from this microcosm of the 2023 Red Sox they are as follows:

First, that trading Christian Vázquez, while painful, has paid dividends. The Red Sox received then-prospects Abreu and Valdez in return for the longest-tenured member of their organization, and they combined for the first five runs batted in. Valdez’s fourth RBI in the eighth set a new career-high.

“Bittersweet because of the situation,” Cora said, “but at the end, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I think Chaim (Bloom) did an outstanding job getting those two players.”

Both rookies plan to play Winter Ball this offseason, and their manager envisions Valdez staying at second base moving forward.

Secondly, age is just a number: 35-year-old Duvall got on base with a pinch-hit double off the Green Monster and scored to put his team within one; he was 38-year-old Turner’s 96th RBI, adding on to what’s already a career-high season total. Only David Ortiz (2014-16) and Bob Johnson (1944) have plated more runs at his age or older.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Red Sox cannot skimp on starting pitching this winter.

At 64 years old, the man known as “Tito” has spent his entire life in baseball, first as the son of Major League outfielder John Patsy Francona, who went by the same moniker, then as a big-leaguer in his own right for a decade. When years of playing in Montreal, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Milwaukee came to an end in 1990, he joined the ranks of minor league coaches. By 1997, he was the Philadelphia Phillies rookie manager. The gig lasted four seasons, during which the Phillies never finished better than 77-85.

The second time was the charm for Tito. After a brief hiatus during which he spent a year as special assistant to Cleveland’s GM and a season apiece as the Rangers’ and Athletics’ bench coach, he took over the Red Sox in 2004. By season’s end, he’d led a beloved “Band of Idiots” to a one-of-a-kind historic comeback over the New York Yankees and finally brought an end to the championship drought. Three years later, his team triumphed again, sweeping the Colorado Rockies for their second trophy. Ultimately, the Red Sox posted winning records in each of his eight seasons.

In his 11 seasons at the helm in Cleveland, the Guardians have won the pennant (2016), four division titles, and earned two Wild Card berths, but their drought, now the longest in the Majors, persists.

Francona’s impact on the Red Sox lasted far longer than his tenure, and will continue beyond his retirement. Several of his former players are managing in the Majors now, including 2004 ALCS hero Dave Roberts (Dodgers), Twins skipper Rocco Baldelli, Kevin Cash of the Rays, and of course, Alex Cora.

It won’t be long before Tito joins countless former teammates and players in the Baseball Hall of Fame; he’s eligible in three years, so enshrinement in 2027 is likely.

On Tuesday afternoon, Cora preemptively declared that he’ll need to take that day, whenever it comes, off to attend.

MLB mourns passing of Mr. Oriole

Beloved Baltimore Orioles legend Brooks Robinson passed away this week, the team announced on Tuesday evening.

“We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of Brooks Robinson,” the team said in a joint statement with Robinson’s family. “An integral part of our Orioles Family since 1955, he will continue to leave a lasting impact on our club, our community, and the sport of baseball.”

Robinson spent his entire 23-year career with the Orioles, making his Major League debut less than two years after they relocated from St. Louis, where they’d been the Browns. He helped the newly-minted Orioles win the World Series in 1966 and 1970, taking home MVP honors for the latter.

A stellar defender, the third baseman won an astounding 16 consecutive Gold Gloves between 1960-75. Several of his records for the position still stand, including games at third base (2,870), putouts (2,697), double plays turned (618), assists (6,205), and total zone runs (293). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot, receiving 91.98 percent of the vote.

Future at Fenway

Winners of the Red Sox Minor League Awards descended upon Fenway Park on Tuesday afternoon. Outfielder Roman Anthony (Offensive Player of the Year), infielder David Hamilton (Defensive Player of the Year), right-handers Wikelman Gonzalez (Starting Pitcher of the Year) and Luis Guerrero (Relief Pitcher of the Year), infielder Yoeilin Cespedes (Latin Program Position Player of the Year), and righty Gilberto Batista (Latin Program Pitcher of the Year).

It’s been a little over a year since Anthony was in town. Last summer, he was the organization’s compensation pick (79th overall) in the draft.

In his first full professional season, the 19-year-old outfielder earned two promotions, becoming the first teenage player to reach Double-A since Xander Bogaerts in 2012. Even though he’s confident in his ability as a player, he admitted that being at Fenway still feels surreal.

“Being here, not even here, just being in Boston, it feels great,” Anthony said. “The fans and the fanbase that this place has, the history that this place has, it’s amazing being here. It’s a different type of feeling when I’m actually here.”

For others, it was an introduction to America’s oldest ballpark, and possibly, their future place of business.

“It’s the first time that I step into Fenway,” Gonzalez said via translator Carlos Villoria Benitez. “I cannot describe the feelings that I’m going through. I’m really happy to be here and very honored for this opportunity.”

Of the many players and personnel in the organization, he singled out Brayan Bello as a role model and mentor.

“I have a great relationship with Brayan,” he said. “I always try to watch his outings, and I spent a lot of time with him, talking, and for me, to have somebody coming from the academy all the way here, gives an extra motivation, because I know that I can do the same. I know that I can be out there in the future.”

Moments later, Bello made his way down the steps to embrace Gonzalez before walking down the tunnel to the clubhouse they may share someday soon.

Hurry up and wait

The pitch clock made a huge difference this season, but it couldn’t completely change the Red Sox’s slow ways. On Monday, MLB announced that only nine nine-inning games around the league had eclipsed the 3:30 mark this season, a sharp drop from the 231 last year, and the league-record 390 in 2021.

How many of those nine games belong to the Red Sox? Five.

Only hire a replacement for Chaim Bloom, overhaul the roster (again), and reestablish themselves as a legitimate force in the league.

It’s a bit like saying “all” a broken-down car needs to run is a new engine, tires, and brakes.

While giving themselves what should be an extreme makeover, the Red Sox should also make re-endearing themselves to their fans a priority.

Last February, amidst growing perception that the team was losing relevance with its fanbase, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy stood in the Florida sunshine and declared, “If we’re competitive, it’ll take care of any lack of interest.”

Days away from their third last-place finish in four years, they now have to work even harder to become relevant and worth fans’ while again.

Here are seven ways – ranging from silly to serious – that the Red Sox can get their fans to come back next year and every season after:

1. Roof, roof, roof for the home team

It’s been a long season of bad weather.

A whopping 10.43 inches of rain fell on Boston in July (the month averages less than four), and by the end of the month, the National Weather Service announced that Boston weathered more than 20 inches of rainfall over a three-month period, the second-highest total since their records began in 1872.

By now, the total hours of Fenway rain delays may be triple digits. The Red Sox had at least four games postponed and turned into doubleheaders, including two during this month’s four-game series with the Yankees. That week, weather warnings for the area included multiple Flood Watches, a Tropical Storm watch, and a Hurricane Local Statement.

Could some kind of clear, retractable top be added to America’s oldest ballpark? A fancy bubble setup may cost more money in the short term, but in the long run, updating the fancy drainage system, all those bags of the drying agent they use to sop up the field, and additional pay to staff the stadium really adds up.

2. Bark in the park

Several MLB and minor league teams have dog-friendly games throughout the season, including the Red Sox’s Triple-A affiliate WooSox, who had several “Bark in the Park” days this year. Why doesn’t their parent team open their gates to four-legged friends at least once?

3. Empty the bank for Shohei Ohtani

Sure, he won’t pitch at all in 2024, and injuries will be an ever-present concern until the end of his career, but if the Red Sox want more Boston butts in those ancient Fenway seats, the second coming of Babe Ruth is the most obvious way to make it happen. The team that signs Ohtani is guaranteed a sold-out home opener, the next game, and probably every one thereafter.

4. Earlier starts

Games are faster this year thanks to the pitch clock, but 7:10 p.m. starts are still too late for young children to get the full ballpark experience. If the Red Sox want to draw in the next generation of fans, they should consider some earlier contests. They visited several teams this season who got things started just around 6:35 (Orioles) or 6:40 p.m. (Rays, Twins) local time, and even that half-hour or so makes a difference.

5. Expand concession options for the dietary-restricted

The Red Sox are one of the biggest markets and richest organizations in professional sports, but their ballpark concession options leave a lot to be desired for those with dietary restrictions. Compared to over 40 places to purchase meat hot dogs at Fenway, there are two Kosher vending machines, often not fully stocked. The ballpark used to offer veggie burgers and portobello burgers, but they seem to have disappeared after 2017.

Even the Oakland A’s, ranked the worst concessions in MLB by Thrillist last year, offer a veggie burger at the crumbling Coliseum.

A 1994 poll by the Vegetarian Research Group found that barely one percent of Americans were vegetarian, but younger generations are making the country more health-conscious, focused on animal welfare and environmental impact. A Statista survey of over 50,000 between 2021-22 showed that seven percent of adults in the United States aged 18-39 and 6-percent of age 40-49 consider themselves vegetarian, compared to only two percent of those between the ages of 50-64. This spring, their research department found that 14-percent of the country’s consumers following a meat-free diet, spurring the rapidly-growing industry: a $2.33 billion meat-substitute market and $3.6 billion milk-substitute market, with plant-based foods sales increasing seven percent between January 1, 2022 and 2023.

Clearly, even one more health-conscious, plant-based option at the ballpark wouldn’t hurt.

6. Lower ticket prices

Know what fans love? Getting upcharged for a decreasingly appealing product.

As of Monday, Baseball Reference listed Fenway attendance at 2,603,447. With two home games left, it’s likely that the Red Sox will surpass last year’s total of 2,625,089.

This is only a victory in the loosest sense of the word. 2022 saw Fenway’s worst attendance under the current ownership, the lowest number since 2000. If the Red Sox eke out a better attendance record this season, it should come with not one, but two asterisks. The first due to the abysmal weather, which ensured that while the club may have sold as many tickets as listed, they certainly didn’t have that many spectators in the seats. Endless rain delays, suspensions, and postponements, which turned night games into the daytime halves of doubleheaders, resulted in a lackluster showing.

The second caveat is that too often, fans of the visiting teams such as the Blue Jays, Dodgers, and Astros padded total ticket sales and filled the ballpark; it often felt like there were more visitors than hometown folk in the crowd. Fenway has always been a tourist attraction; by definition, being MLB’s oldest ballpark isn’t exactly breaking news. The difference is, there didn’t used to be enough room for visitors, because the home crowd filled the joint.

The Red Sox are about to have their third last-place finish in four seasons, yet they’ve raised ticket prices in each of the last three years. It’s going to be hard to sell this winter.

7. Go hard this offseason and be consistent about winning

Last winter, the Red Sox gave Rafael Devers the largest contract in franchise history by a mile and made a few strong additions, headlined by Chris Martin, who’s been one of the best relievers in the game this season.

They also lost out on several free-agent targets with whom they could’ve been more aggressive, such as Zach Eflin, who chose an identical offer from the Tampa Bay Rays. His three-year, $40 million contract makes Eflin the highest-paid free agent in Rays history.

Which isn’t to say that the Red Sox should go throwing money around, only that it’s pretty embarrassing to lose a very affordable, solid arm to one of the cheapest teams in baseball. Eflin enters Tuesday with a career-best 3.44 ERA across career highs in starts (30), innings pitched (172 ⅔), and strikeouts (182). He’d lead Boston’s starting rotation in all of those metrics, most by a wide margin.

The Red Sox can claim they’re always trying to win, but their actions (and inaction) over the past several years suggest otherwise. They fired the economical Ben Cherington and let Dave Dombrowski spend big, then tightened the purse strings once again with Bloom. Presumably, whoever replaces him will be instructed to do what it takes to put Boston back on top, and everyone knows, contending requires some spending.

But when the next luxury tax bill comes due, it’ll be tempting to swing the pendulum back to pinching pennies and/or trading generational talents. Past precedent suggests that doing so will only land the Red Sox exactly where they are right now: desperately trying to right the same ship they’ve sunk and raised from the depths several times over the last two decades.

While lowering ticket prices will certainly turn some heads, consistently fielding a home team worth watching would ensure they don’t have to. (They still should, though.)

Indeed, it was a mediocre pair of Sox that faced off at Fenway Park on a rainy first day of fall.

The pitchers’ duel, however, was anything but. For seven innings, Nick Pivetta and Dylan Cease shut out one another’s offense. Cease notched his 200th strikeout early on, and finished the evening with 11 punchouts and zero walks. Of course, he had some help from a Red Sox lineup that continues leaving men (10) on base as if they’re allergic to driving in runs; Boston was 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position, stranding six during Cease’s portion of the game, and finished the day with eight hits and nothing to show for them.

As the Boston bats took and quickly gave back their chances, Pivetta held down the fort. He needed just 92 pitches to mow down the White Sox, striking out seven and allowing just three hits and walking one. He was economical, only exceeding 14 pitches in one frame; he needed 21 to get through a dicey fourth, and emerged unscathed.

For just the second time this season, the Red Sox got at least seven scoreless innings from one of their embattled starters. Forget runs or any other offensive metric; this was only the 16th time this team got any kind of seven-inning start. They’re 10-6 in such contests, including three shutouts.

Surprisingly, the 16 games with starters going at least seven innings is an improvement over the last two seasons (14 in 2022, 13 in 2021). Though it’s a somewhat flawed metric given how bullpen-heavy MLB has become in recent years, there’s also no denying the Red Sox have fallen off a starting pitching cliff in the last half-decade. Between 2007-17, the rotation put together at least 40 seven-inning starts each year, and 33 in 2018. They haven’t cracked 20 such games in season since.

Starting pitching certainly deserves a portion of the blame for the way this season went down the drain, but not on Saturday. Red out-hit White 8-5, yet couldn’t manage a run.

Josh Winckowski took over in the eighth, and breezed through the White Sox lineup. He retired the first five batters before Luis Robert Jr. broke the scoreless tie. With two outs in the top of the ninth, he hit the most Fenway home run possible: a 311-foot line drive just inside the Pesky Pole in right field. The round-tripper tied none other than Rafael Devers for the shortest home run in the Majors this season.

The Red Sox put two runners on again in the bottom of the ninth, but couldn’t get a single run across the board. For just the fourth time this season, an MLB team lost 1-0 when their starter pitched at least seven shutout innings.

What does the future hold for Pivetta?

On Opening Day, he was a member of the Red Sox starting rotation, and in these final weeks of the season, he is once again. But in between, he swung like a pendulum, riding the highs and lows of the season seesaw, shuttling back and forth between the rotation and various bullpen roles. He excelled in the long relief, bridging the gap between too-short starts and the elite late-game likes of Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen. He’s also finished three games and successfully converted a save.

Saturday was his 15th start of a season, the second-lowest total of his career (not including the shortened 2020). But based on his success juggling various roles, that shouldn’t be held against him. His 3.07 ERA out of the bullpen ranks third on the staff, his 173 strikeouts and 11.48 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rank first. He’s second to Brayan Bello in innings pitched.

In sum, in a season full of unrelenting inconsistency, he’s been a constant.

“I think it’s a level of consistency I always expect for myself day-to-day,” Pivetta told reporters.

It hasn’t always been pretty, but Pivetta has always taken the mound and either dominated the opposition, or at least, fallen on the grenade for his teammates. The best attribute is availability, and in recent years, Pivetta has been more available than any pitcher on his team. His 179 ⅔ innings led the 2022 roster by a wide margin, at least 52 innings more than anyone else on the staff, and though he owned a 4.56 ERA, he also made 33 starts, tying Corbin Burnes, Gerrit Cole, and Merrill Kelly for the Major League lead.

“I think it’s life or death,” Pivetta said. “I mean, always, it’s win or loss. I’m always trying to go as deep as I can into a baseball game, contribute in any single way I can with the team, whether I’m in a relief spot or a starting spot, to put my team in the best position to win.”

“I’ll carry that energy all throughout the year,” he continued. “I know how lucky we are to be in this situation, how lucky I am to be in the big leagues every single day. Very grateful always.”

“He likes to compete,” Alex Cora affirmed to reporters. “Always available.”

If Pivetta, like most of his teammates and the organization to which they belong, is unclear about what’s ahead, he’s certainly making the most of the present.

“I feel super confident,” he said, adding, “I still have a ton to work on. I still gotta be more consistent in the zone.”

As evidenced by too many wasted games, this club needs as much consistency as it can get.

The Red Sox reinstated their veteran closer from the Covid-related injured list on Saturday morning.

Jansen last pitched for the Red Sox on Sept. 12, when he left the game after facing two batters. Over 51 appearances this season, the team’s lone All-Star owns a 3.63 ERA with 52 strikeouts across 44 ⅔ innings.

Though Jansen has 42 games finished and 29 saves in 33 opportunities, he hasn’t looked like himself recently. He’s been dealing with a lingering hamstring ailment, and though he avoided a stint on the injured list in that regard, it’s impacted his work. After racking up six saves and only allowing one run in nine August games, the 35-year-old right-hander allowed five earned runs in his four September outings and blew his one save opportunity.

In order to reopen a spot on the roster for Jansen, the club optioned Zack Weiss back to Triple-A Worcester.

The Red Sox claimed Weiss off waivers from the Los Angeles Angels in late August, and added him to their active roster on Sept. 9. Since allowing two earned runs on two hits (both solo homers) in his Red Sox debut that same day, Weiss has only allowed one hit and an unearned run in his subsequent five appearances. Overall, he’s held opposing batters to a .107 average and .212 on-base percentage.

NOhtani

2013 World Series champion and current NESN broadcaster Will Middlebrooks made waves on Friday when he dropped a free-agent bombshell on his “WAKE and RAKE Podcast,” which he co-hosts with Danny Vietti.

While Middlebrooks led off with a disclaimer. “There’s only so much I can say,” he began. “That front office, right now, at this moment, is trying to find a way to get (Ohtani).”

However, Middlebrooks also pumped the brakes and offered his own take on the superstar.

“With that said,” the former third baseman posted on X (formerly Twitter), “This will come down to where Ohtani WANTS to go. Only so much an organization can do. Even with his 2nd major elbow surgery, the guy still has more leverage than I’ve ever seen in Free Agency.”

““Personally, I’d say no Ohtani,” Middlebrooks wrote in a separate post. “I know he’s fun and the most talented ballplayer to walk this year… but, for his price I’d rather spend that money on two frontline starters. Plus, who knows how that arm bounces back after the 2nd major elbow surgery.”

Coming home

The venerable Peter Gammons reported Saturday that Craig Breslow could be leaving the Chicago Cubs to rejoin the Red Sox and head up their pitching development program.

Breslow spent 12 years in the Majors, five of those years in Boston, where he was a member of the 2013 championship team. After his pitching career came to an end in 2018, Breslow joined Theo Epstein in the Cubs front office the following January. He’s been their assistant general manager and vice president of pitching since November 2020.

During his pitching career, reporters labeled Breslow “the smartest man in baseball,” and with good reason. Captain of the Yale baseball team, the New Haven, Connecticut, native graduated from the prestigious Ivy League university with a bachelor’s in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He then deferred his admission to New York University School of Medicine four times during his baseball career.

Once, fellow Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett made a bet with another teammate that Breslow was smart enough to calculate how many times a baseball thrown at 90 mph would spin between the mound and the plate on different pitches. Breslow called the exercise “rather simple,” and Beckett won the bet.

However, while regaining the brainy Breslow might be a coup for the Red Sox, sources tell the Herald that there’s been zero discussion about him returning to the organization.

Pigging out

With a 3-2 win over the Lehigh Valley IronPigs on Friday night, the Worcester Red Sox eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies Triple-A affiliate from playoff contention.

The WooSox faced top Phillies pitching prospect Mick Abel, who allowed two runs on five hits, struck out six, issued three walks, and hit three batters in his Triple-A debut. Brandon Walter, who made his Major League debut on June 22, and most recently pitched three scoreless innings against the Yankees on Sept. 14, held the Iron Pigs to one run on three singles, struck out four, and didn’t issue a walk in his final start of the Triple-A season, which ends on Sunday. Entering Saturday, WooSox pitching had only allowed three runs over their last 19 innings.

Hey now, you’re an All-Star

After bringing home a collective victory earlier this week in the form of the Southern Atlantic Championship, several Greenville Drive players earned individual honors.

Starting pitcher Isaac Coffey, third baseman Blaze Jordan, and outfielder Roman Anthony were named SAL All-Stars on Saturday.

Jordan and Anthony are the No. 12 and No. 2 prospects in the organization. All three players earned promotions to Double-A between mid-June and early September.

Coffey, Boston’s 10th-round pick in last summer’s draft, posted a 3.43 ERA across 11 starts for Greenville before moving up to Portland.

Jordan, the 20-year-old corner infielder selected in the third round of the 2020 draft, hit .324 with a .918 OPS, 93 hits, 22 doubles, and 12 home runs in 73 Greenville games before his own promotion.

Anthony’s sensational breakout season put him on the map as one of the most promising talents in all of the minor leagues. In his first full professional season, the 19-year-old outfielder earned two promotions, becoming the first teenage Red Sox player to reach Double-A since Xander Bogaerts in 2012. By August 2013, Bogaerts was in the Majors, and by that October, he was a World Series champion.

After hitting .294 with a .981 OPS in 54 games with the Drive, Anthony is 12-for-35 (.343) with four doubles, a home run, 10 runs, eight driven in, eight walks, six strikeouts, and three stolen bases in his first 10 Portland games.

Then, like almost every other member of the 2018 team that won a franchise-record 108 regular-season games, a division title, and a World Series ring, Nasty Nate was gone. He signed a 2-year, $34 million contract with the Texas Rangers, and proceeded to have one of the best seasons of his career.

The 33-year-old workhorse entered his Tuesday night start against his former team with a 2.96 ERA across 22 starts, by far the best mark of his 12-year career. Before going on the injured list in late July with a forearm strain, he was in the midst of a Cy Young-worthy season, posting a 2.69 ERA across 19 starts (123 ⅔ innings).

The Red Sox scored three earned runs off Eovaldi in the third, pushing his ERA up to 3.05 by the end of his five innings. He issued three walks and struck out three, but on the whole, his former teammates did minimal damage against him in a 6-4 loss.

Meanwhile, after four consecutive quality starts, the Red Sox looked like their old selves again on Tuesday: a too-short start, a shaky bullpen, and not enough offense to power them to a win.

Tanner Houck gave up two earned runs on three hits, including a solo home run, walked four, and struck out four. Though he didn’t record an out in the fifth inning, he still managed to extend the team’s streak of starters not allowing more than three runs to 10 games.

The starter and bullpen played with fire all night. For the seventh time this year, the Red Sox pitching staff combined for at least eight walks. They only had two such games in the first half of the season – Opening Day and once in May – but now have five since the All-Star break, including three in September.

“We were off,” Alex Cora told reporters. “Command was off.”

They were helped along by a Rangers team that failed to capitalize on most of their opportunities. Sound familiar?

Tied entering the bottom of the seventh, the sloppiness finally boiled over, but only just. Chris Murphy began the frame by hitting Marcus Semien with a pitch and giving up a single to Corey Seager. After getting the first out, Alex Cora replaced Murphy with John Schreiber, who promptly gave up a go-ahead RBI single to Josh Jung, walking Robbie Grossman to load the bases, and after striking out Adolis Garcia, walking Jonah Heim to bring in a run.

Once again, the Rangers shot themselves in the foot. With the bases still loaded and a chance to really put the game out of reach, Loedy Taveras struck out looking to end the inning.

Masataka Yoshida gave Boston a 3-1 lead in the top of the third, and remained on top until the bottom of the sixth, when Texas plated two. After re-tying the game in the top of the seventh, the Red Sox couldn’t overcome the two runs the Rangers added in the bottom of the frame. Facing a bullpen that’s struggled mightily of late, the Red Sox went quietly into the night.

Ten games left before the offseason.

When their pitching is on, their hitting is off. When their lineup is hot, it’s often because their pitching is ice cold.

But on Monday night in Texas, the Red Sox managed to pitch and hit, and as a result, overcame an early deficit and snapped their four-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over the Rangers.

Kutter Crawford’s excellent night was bookended by trouble, but he was able to work his way out of both jams with minimal damage. The series opener’s starter began the bottom of the first by giving up a first-pitch leadoff home run to Marcus Semien, putting Boston in an immediate 1-0 hole. The Red Sox entered the series 26-52 when opponents score first, so the early deficit didn’t bode well for their starter or the game’s outcome.

But after a one-out single in the first, the 27-year-old right-hander settled down and retired the next 14 batters en route to a quality start. In front of a crowd that included former President George W. Bush, Crawford pitched four perfect frames, including a four-pitch fourth inning, before allowing another Ranger to reach base.

“Kutter’s been throwing the ball so well,” Rob Refsnyder told NESN’s Jahmai Webster. “He’s been so consistent. We love it when Kutter’s on the mound. The guy works his tail off.”

For the fourth time this season, Crawford got through six full innings. He exited charged with two earned runs on four hits, with seven strikeouts, and zero walks. His performance extended the rotation’s streak to nine consecutive games in which one of the team’s starting pitchers allowed three earned runs or fewer.

“He was really good,” Alex Cora told reporters. “He was able to elevate his fastball, expand with the slider, the cutter was good. He gave us six strong innings, and the bullpen did the rest.”

If only they’d gotten starts like these a month ago.

“That’s what we need,” Cora said. “We need these kids to keep pushing to go deeper into the games. The 4 ⅔ , the 4 ⅓ (innings) over and over again, at this level it’s hard to win ball games on a consistent basis, and they understand that, and they’re working hard to get over the hump.”

The lineup is also working to get over their own hump, and after a long weekend of leaving runners on base in Toronto, they had a better night in the Lone Star State.

Early on, it seemed like the same old struggle. While videos of Kyle Schwarber’s 45th home run of the Phillies’ season, a cool 483-footer, filled social media, his former team continued leaving runners on base. Entering the eighth inning, the Red Sox were out-hitting the Rangers 5-4, but were 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and had left three men on base, and thus trailed 2-1.

The top of the eighth began like so many of their innings lately. The Red Sox put their first two runners on base – Luis Urías led off with a walk and Connor Wong doubled – then began the arduous process of trying to actually bring a run across the plate. Past precedent – a 6-66 record when trailing after seven innings – didn’t inspire confidence.

Luckily for the visiting team, the home team’s bullpen is a mess lately. After striking out birthday boy Ceddanne Rafaela (23 years old), Rangers reliever Will Smith intentionally walked Rafael Devers to load the bases. Who can blame him? Devers is one of three American Leaguers with double-digit intentional walks, had received AL Player of the Week honors just hours before, is hitting over .350 this month, and already had two hits in the game.

For some reason, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy opted not to bring in a right-hander to face Refsnyder, who absolutely dominates lefties. Since the start of 2022, the Southpaw Slayer’s .426 on-base percentage and .330 batting average rank fourth and six in the Majors, respectively (minimum 200 plate appearances).

Refsnyder’s single brought Urías and Wong around to score, putting Boston on top 3-2, their first lead of the game. According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, it was the first time a Red Sox hitter turned a deficit into a lead in the eighth inning or later since July 30.

Refsnyder admitted that he was surprised Bochy didn’t put a righty in for him. “I was just trying to see the ball… I was a little too aggressive with curveballs down in the zone today, so just trying to get ‘em up, and was fortunate to come through.”

Bochy then made a pitching change, but that didn’t stop Adam Duvall from scoring Devers with a sacrifice fly to increase their lead to 4-2.

Boston’s bullpen held down the fort for the last third of the night. Josh Winckowski, Garrett Whitlock, and Chris Martin each took an inning in that order, and limited the Rangers to one hit (Martin), two walks (Winckowski), and struck out five.

With Kenley Jansen still on the Covid-related injured list until later this week, Martin was in the save situation. His shutout ninth inning clinched the game, earned him the save, and lowered his ERA to a minuscule 1.07, the second-lowest season ERA ever by a Red Sox pitcher (minimum 50 games).

At this point, it would take a miracle for the Red Sox to grab one of their league’s three Wild Cards. Now 75-76 on the season, they’re 7 ½ games back and five away from elimination.

Still, it’s fun to mess with Texas.