Major trust issues with the Boston Red Sox bullpen

No confidence in Red Sox bullpen to pull out games in the late innings

The Boston Red Sox bullpen is in shambles. They can’t figure out how to win close games. There is no trust in any of the relievers that they will get the job done when they come into the game in the late innings.

According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, there have been 20 blown saves in the majors this year. The Red Sox have four of them. No other team has more than two. This speaks to what this team needs to figure out quickly in order to compete in the AL East and beyond.

"“We’re not happy with the results, and we have to do a better job in close games” said manager Alex Cora, via Tom Westerholm of Boston.com."

The Red Sox are now 0-5 in extra-inning games. This team, as it currently is assembled, doesn’t have the grit and fight at the end of games to pull it out. That is not a good sign moving forward into the season.

Lots of fans in Red Sox Nation are upset about the decision to place Garrett Whitlock in the rotation instead of using him in the bullpen. There are pros and cons to every decision and the cons for this specific one have been very glaring.

The weakest part of this 2022 Red Sox team is the bullpen. That is where you need to place reinforcements to make it stronger. If you are able to make the bullpen stronger, the team overall gets stronger.

Cora has been turning to Hansel Robles to try and shut the door late in games. It hasn’t been working to the extent of which the team needs it to be in order to win games. Cora has also been trying to play the matchups.

"“We tried to get 27 outs,” Cora said. “I think we didn’t keep the ball in the ballpark, and then at the end, we walked a lot of people. We had the right matchup for the 27th out and Walsh put a pretty good at-bat, got a base hit and then after that we didn’t execute pitches. They’re a good offensive club. They hit the ball out of the ballpark and they took advantage of that.“We had Trout 0-2 and we ended up walking him and then Ohtani, we walk him too. We got Rendon with a 2-1 slider, but you know it’s Walsh against Diekman, right there. You know that’s the matchup that we’ll take any time. You know, 3-2 slider, he fouled one off and then he got one and got a base hit.”"

Red Sox Nation knows all too well that matchups sometimes don’t work out either. Analytics has been a huge part of this game in recent history and for good reason. When it works, the team looks unstoppable. When it doesn’t, it looks like what is currently happening right now to the Red Sox. Giving up six runs last night to the Los Angeles Angels in the 10th inning to lose 10-5 is how matchups sometimes can go wrong.

There needs to be more defined roles in the bullpen and a clear cut closer to slam the door shut.

If we take a look back at the past championship seasons the Red Sox have had, there has always been that defined, dominant closer. In 2004 it was Keith Foulke. In 2007 it was Jonathan Papelbon. 2013 you had Koji Uehara and in 2018 there was Craig Kimbrel. All of those guys were lights out when it came to the end of games. Whitlock could be that guy for this 2022 Red Sox team.

The more trust this team has late in games, the more confident the coaches, players, and fans will have in pulling these games out.

"As Cora says, “Good teams do that, they win close games, and so far we haven’t done that.”"

If this 2022 Red Sox team wants to be one of those good teams in Boston history and turn things around, they need to trust in one another and that starts with the bullpen.