93 games into the season, the Red Sox sit at 48-45 in 4th place in the East and 2 games behind the Blue Jays for the final wild card spot. Not the first half the team or fans had in mind coming into the season. The roster still has the pieces to make a run and adding at the trade deadline can set the team up to make a deep run in the playoffs.

The Good

There hasn’t been much of this lately, but I guess the best place to start is Rafael Devers play throughout the first half. He started at third base and batted third for the AL this week. Devers is hitting .324 with 22 Home Runs and 55 RBI. His OPS is just south of 1.000 at .980 all while leading the AL in hits (Xander is third with 104). At this pace he’ll finish in the top five in MVP voting. He has arrived as a full fledged superstar in this league and he’s only 25. It’s time to pay the man, but I’ll get to that later.

John Schreiber has been a pleasant surprise for a bullpen that has struggled as a unit this year. Outside of a rough mop up inning against the Yankees on Sunday and allowing some inherited runners to score versus the Rays he has been virtually unhittable since coming up. He boasts a 1.60 ERA with a 0.71 WHIP over 33.2 innings. Cora has entrusted him with facing the heart of the opponents order many times thus far. With the exception of Garrett Whitlock I can’t think of anyone I trust more than him in a big spot.

Kutter Crawford and Josh Winckowski have done a great job recently to keep the rotation afloat. Crawford has looked great in the month of July going 5.1 scoreless against the Rays on the fourth, tossing 5 innings of 1 run ball versus the Yankees on 7/9, and throwing 6 scoreless before coming back out for the 7th and allowing 3 runs in a comeback win for Tampa Bay on 7/14. Winckowski hasn’t necessarily set the world on fire, but what he has done in most of his starts is give the team a chance to win. In two of his last three outings (all losses) he’s allowed 2 and 3 earned runs. The problem is the Sox offense let him down in both of those starts only scoring one run in each game. That’s not going to get it done. These two have given the team a real chance to win in most of their starts while the likes of Eovaldi, Sale, and Wacha have been on the IL.

The Bad

Where do I even start? I guess I’ll start with the obvious and that’s ownerships blatant disrespect for the teams best player, Rafael Devers, and de facto captain and All-Star, Xander Bogaerts. Much has been made about the Red Sox using Matt Olson’s contract (8/$168M) to mold Devers deal, and I don’t even have much to say other than that it is absolutely ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, Olson is a great player, but with Devers we’re talking about a guy who’s going to be a perennial MVP candidate and All-Star. What is the point of drafting and developing guys if as soon as they turn into the stars we all want them to be ownership throws their hands up and cries poor? What happens in a handful of years if Marcelo Mayer has a Devers-like start to his career are we going let him walk too? They already traded Mookie Betts which sucked, but you felt good about where the team was still because of guys like Bogaerts and Devers. Now we’re looking at a potential future without both? No that can’t happen open up the damn checkbook John Henry and as David Ortiz would say “PAY THE MAN.”

The bullpen has been downright terrible all season. I’m not going to carry on about it here, but something needs to change. Whitlock coming back to the pen will help immensely. John Schreiber needs to continue to be lights out. Tanner Houck needs to clean up his act. If you can add an arm at the deadline to go along with these guys that can only help. Maybe Kutter Crawford moves to the bullpen full time when the rotation comes back together. All I know is something needs to change; your move Chaim.

Injuries have plagued this team so far this season, especially the pitching staff. Just when it seemed like everyone was making their way back Story takes a pitch in the hand (thankfully it wasn’t serious), Wacha misses his last two starts before the break because of a tired arm, and of course Chris Sale has one solid outing before taking a comebacker off his pinkie, and breaking it, in his second start. You can’t make up luck that bad. If they can stay healthy in the second half that’ll go a long way.

What’s Next?

The first one is pretty simple. RESIGN DEVERS AND BOGAERTS.

Alright now that I got that off my chest, now what can the Sox do at the deadline? It’s pretty simple they need to add an arm. Whether its a starter, think a non rental like Frankie Montas or Luis Castillo, a bullpen pitcher with some control, like Gregory Soto, or a rental like Daniel Bard (remember him?). The pitching staff isn’t the only part of the team with faults, adding a true first baseman with a good bat is also a massive need. You’ll hear a lot about acquiring guys like Josh Bell and CJ Cron, but I see Bloom rental shopping here, so he doesn’t have to dip into his precious farm system. I’m not really sure where that leaves us maybe go after a guy like Jesus Aguilar or Seth Brown (maybe as part of a Montas package). The point is Bloom needs to make a move. This team is still built to win now and has plenty of chips to bargain with to get something done.

So there you have it an in depth comprehensive state of the Red Sox from an incredibly frustrated fan, can’t you tell?

After sleepwalking through Monday’s contest the Rays bats woke up tagging Nick Pivetta for 7 earned over 5.2 innings. It all started in the top of the 1st after the first two reached for Tampa a controversial ball four call to Wander Franco loaded the bases which were cleared two batters later by Red Sox killer Kevin Kiermaier. After a Kiermaier baserunning error lead to an inning ending double play the Sox responded in the bottom of the inning on a two run shot to center from Xander Bogaerts.

Pivetta seemed to settle in and cruised through the next four innings. In the bottom half of the 2nd Trevor Story knotted the game at three with his second home run in as many days and it felt as if the Red Sox were back on track. Then in the bottom of the 5th an 0-2 single from Refsnyder followed by a JD Martinez double had the Sox looking at second and third with nobody out an opportunity they would squander as the next three batters were set down.

That proved costly as the Rays were able to push three more across to run Pivetta from the game. Jake Diekman allowed an inherited runner to score to widen the gap to a four run lead. Pivetta finished the day giving up seven earned runs his most of the season.

After Boston was set down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the frame Alex Cora ran out his proverbial white flag in Hansel Robles who gave up another to run which extended Tampa’s lead to 8-3. Allow me to rant here for a bit: why is Hansel Robles still on this roster? Better yet why is he being used in any situation that isn’t a mop up role? Now I imagine when the rotation comes together with the likes of Sale, Eovaldi, Whitlock, and Paxton all on their way he’ll be DFA’d ,but that still doesn’t explain his use in any winnable game. While he did have a solid month of April he’s been basically unusable ever since. Giving up 7 ER in only 6 innings in June alone shows where he is at. Okay enough about Robles and back to this very uneven performance from the Red Sox.

As the rain started to come down at Fenway the Red Sox were able to cut the deficit back to 4 on a Bogaerts sac fly and Tyler Danish was solid for 2 innings to keep the score at 8-4 heading into the 9th. After Duran and Refsnyder singles followed by Martinez and Bogaerts strike outs Christian Vasquez had a pitch hit him in the helmet setting up a bases loaded two out situation for Trevor Story. Unfortunately he was unable to capitalize and popped out to shortstop and the Red Sox fell to 9-17 against the AL East.

A tough loss but one that you’d like to think is an anomaly. I don’t see Pivetta getting shelled like that often ,but the real issue is the missed opportunities from the Red Sox offense lately. Just tonight they had 11 hits but also left 11 on base that can’t happen especially when your pitcher doesn’t have his best stuff. Nothing to do but look forward, shake it off, win the series tomorrow.

Top pitching prospect Brayan Bello makes his major league debut tomorrow against Corey Kluber (3-5).

Final: Rays 8 Red Sox 4 W: Ryan Thompson (2-2) L: Nick Pivetta (8-6)

EDIT* Looks like Chaim Bloom heard me last night. Hansel Robles has been DFA’d to make room for Bello on the MLB roster.