The Boston Red Sox's 2-8 start to the 2026 campaign matched their worst record through the first 10 games of any season in the team's history. Finally, against the Milwaukee Brewers, Boston showed signs of kicking its early cold streak.
The Red Sox took a series win from the Brewers, who were tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in MLB when they arrived in Boston. The Sox, meanwhile, had the worst record in MLB and were the last team remaining without three wins. But their pitching has finally calmed down and their bats have woken up — they scored 14 runs in their series against Milwaukee and shut its gutsy bats out on Wednesday afternoon.
Boston now has a golden chance to maintain its latest performance, and maybe even start a winning streak. The Red Sox will follow their first homestand with a six game road trip to face the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Twins, two beatable teams, if they play as well as they did on April 8.
The Cardinals and Twins are both in the throes of rebuilds — the Red Sox are newly well acquainted with the former, after Craig Breslow made three trades with them since the 2025 trade deadline. Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray are former Cardinals, from whom the team moved on to prioritize a fresh start.
St. Louis has played better than expected early on and it's body of work so far includes a series win against the New York Mets. Minnesota surprisingly posted a four-run inning against reigning American League Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal and claimed a series win over the Detroit Tigers (subscription required).
Upcoming series against Cardinals and Twins offer Red Sox a golden chance to keep the wins coming
The Red Sox will get lucky for their first game against the Cardinals because Dustin May will be on the mound against Connelly Early. The former Red Sox May has had a brutal start to his 2026 season — he's let up 13 runs on 17 hits over just 7.1 innings, good for a 15.95 ERA and 2.73 WHIP. Boston is expected to face Kyle Leahy in game two, and. he's allowed six runs on 13 hits with five walks and five strikeouts in 10 innings so far.
With series wins against the Cardinals and Twins, Boston could essentially erase its ugly start to the 2026 campaign. The Red Sox's improved swing decisions and walk rate (13 walks in their two wins against the Brewers) should help them take advantage of the Cardinals' rough starting pitching matchups, especially after a solid performance from Early and rebound showings from Ranger Suárez and Brayan Bello (hopefully).
The Red Sox will have to perform well in the Midwest to set themselves up for a difficult stretch of matchups in late April. After Boston returns from Minnesota, the Tigers will come to town, followed by the first-place New York Yankees with some of the best starting pitching in the league. Then, the Sox will take another road trip to Baltimore to face the Orioles then north of the border to take on the Toronto Blue Jays. The O's and Jays have also had underwhelming starts to the season, much like the Red Sox, but they'll still be no easy task, because in-division matchups never are.
Eleven games into the season, Boston was finally able to pull together some momentum to collect a series win against one of the best teams in MLB in the last few years. Finally, the Red Sox look like they're having fun instead of looking exasperated as they did in their first few series. Beating the Cardinals and Twins would keep the good vibes rolling and set Boston up for the tough series coming at the end of the month, but the improvements it made against the Brewers will be key to doing so.