On April 11, the Boston Red Sox were trounced by the Chicago White Sox, 11-1. NESN broadcaster Dave O'Brien attested multiple times that it was the Red Sox's worst game of the season.
They one-upped it on April 14 at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa and can't blame the cold. The Tampa Bay Rays put Boston to shame with a 16-1 beatdown, during which nothing went the Red Sox's way, and it started from Tanner Houck's first pitch.
Yandy Diaz took Houck deep on the first pitch he saw, which must've rattled the right-hander. He posted the worst Red Sox start of the year and the worst start of his career so far — he let up 11 runs, two of them homers, on 10 hits with one strikeout and two walks.
Boston also registered yet another error during Houck's brief, 2.1-inning stint on the mound. Former Red Sox Danny Jansen cracked a single with two runners on to Alex Bregman at third base, but it bounced off his glove and into Trevor Story's territory at shortstop. Everyone was safe and Christopher Morel scored the seventh run of the game in just the third frame. Bregman's fourth error in 18 games came in the Red Sox's worst inning in over a year — they let up nine runs in a 27-plus minute third frame.
Red Sox comfortably lead MLB in errors, strikeouts after brutal 16-1 loss to Rays
The bats are batting pic.twitter.com/NmNDMfBe9V
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) April 15, 2025
The Red Sox also made a series of other defensive miscues that weren't ruled errors, including a few booted balls from Story. But the rotten defense wasn't the only story of the game.
Shane Baz made easy work of Boston's bats. He pitched six one-run innings and collected a career-high 11 strikeouts. The only run that scored was a homer off the bat of Kristian Campbell. The Sox finished the night with six hits and 14 strikeouts to tie their season high.
The Red Sox lead MLB in strikeouts (179 in 18 games) and errors (20) and they've lost six out of their last eight games. It may be too early to be worried about the team's fate in the long run, but these early metrics are concerning, to say the least. Strikeouts and errors have been a recurring problem in the past few seasons in Boston — Red Sox fans have heard over and over that Alex Cora hates sloppy defense, but nothing ever changes.
In his postgame presser, Cora said he would "take the blame" for the huge loss. Someone has to, since no one but Campbell, the youngest, least experienced player on the team, played well at all. The Red Sox were, simply put, bad on all sides of the ball. It will be interesting to see which part of their game changes first, but the change needs to happen now.