The Boston Red Sox front office swung and missed at the trade deadline; that's nothing new, ans fans could tell the second it passed.
The team didn't falter immediately, winning five straight after the deadline and ultimately going 17-11 in August, but its pitching woes were bound to pop up again at some point.
They've resurfaced in Lucas Giolito's recent pitching performances. The righty has struggled with command in recent starts and isn't giving the length the Sox have been hoping for. In six of his last eight starts, he's allowed eight or more baserunners. While Giolito has been solid this year, even great sometimes, this was predictable.
All season, Giolito's Baseball Savant page has been a cool blue. He has been toward the bottom in many of the expected stats (like being 14th percentile in xERA) and swing and miss stats (33rd percentile in chase%). Usually, when a player ranks that low, but the normal counting and rate stats don't reflect that, they are due for some regression. It is certainly possible for a player to outperform those projections, but there is no reason to bet on that.
Lucas Giolito's final line against the Athletics: 4 1/3 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 5 K.
— Tim Healey (@timbhealey) September 18, 2025
He worked around traffic all game, but it didn't really hurt him until he left the game. Justin Wilson allowed all three inherited runners to score.
The Red Sox front office (incorrectly) thought that Lucas Giolito would retain his Cy Young form all season
The Sox bet on Giolito maintaining the same form he showed through the middle of the summer (2.03 ERA from June 10- August 3), and didn't get a reliable starter at the deadline. Obviously, they tried to get Joe Ryan, but when that wasn't materializing, their pivot was Dustin May, an injury-prone righty being kicked out of the Dodgers' rotation.
Now, the Sox are relying on Giolito, in his first season back from an internal brace procedure, to be their No. 3 starter. The righty is looking like he is running out of steam. The average velocity on all four of his pitches is down a whole tick in September from where it was in July, and his strikeout rate has fallen five percent over those two months.
If the front office had gone out and acquired another reliable starter at the trade deadline, then Giolito might only be the Sox's fourth starter. Instead, Giolito could be the starter in a potential game three in the Wild Card series, and Connelly Early, a rookie who has made two starts in the MLB in his career, might be making playoff starts. This all could have been avoided if the front office hadn't failed at the deadline.