The New York Yankees arrived at Fenway Park on April 22 for a rare midweek series and the Boston Red Sox's first divisional matchup of the year. In the recent past, Boston has known New York inside and out, well enough to dominate its rival in the regular season series last year. This year's series is off to a poor start for the Sox.
Luis Gil and the Yankees' bullpen held the Red Sox to just four hits and shut them out on Tuesday night. Boston fell in a 4-0 shutout, its second shutout loss this season, and it exposed every ugly offensive stat in the book.
Gil won the American League Rookie of the Year Award in 2024, but he's not as good as the Red Sox consistently make him look. The 27 year old righty has posted a 0.80 ERA with 28 strikeouts and 20 walks against Boston over 33.2 career innings. The Red Sox have never been able to make Gil pay for his walks — on April 22, he walked three Sox batters, but none scored, even when Ceddanne Rafaela and Trevor Story walked consecutively in the seventh inning.
Gil didn't even look his best on the night he came into Fenway Park and steamrolled Boston's offense. He only collected two strikeouts, generated three swings and misses and his fastball and slider velocities were down over a mile an hour, each. His outing exposed that the Red Sox's issues are entirely internal.
Red Sox's series opening loss to Yankees exposed every offensive weakness this team has — and there are many
The Yankees held the Red Sox to four hits, the fifth time through 23 games that they were limited to that number. It was also the 10th time that Boston posted two or fewer runs — according to Rob Bradford of WEEI, it took the 2018 Red Sox until June 10 to rack up 10 games during which they scored two runs or less.
New York is one of the top home run-hitting teams in MLB, a leading contributor to its 14-9 record. Giancarlo Stanton opened the scoring in the series opener with a solo homer, he later doubled to plate two runs, and Randal Grichuk also knocked an RBI double. The Yankees' .411 slugging percentage is the fourth-best in MLB.
In comparison, the Red Sox's .338 slugging percentage is the second-worst in MLB, ahead of only the utterly dejected and desperate New York Mets. Seven Red Sox got on base against the Yankees and none scored — maybe they could've if the Red Sox had an ounce of power in their lineup while Wilyer Abreu is slumping.
Every alarm over the Red Sox's offense is souding. They've scored two runs or less in four of their last five games, their worst offensive streak of the season so far. The Yankees will exploit their every weakness — they seemingly have no offensive strengths as a team — during this series, as if their confidence could stand to be crushed any more.
Lineup changes haven't worked to fix the offense, the Red Sox's production out of the No. 2 slot has been next to nothing and their swing decisions remain terrible. Boston fans are still holding out hope that the team hasn't found its offensive identity yet, because if this is it, it's going to be a long season.
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