The Red Sox beat the Oakland A’s tonight, 7-3. The Sox have now won four straight games and are tied for the best record in the AL since June 9th. Tonight, against the team with the worst record in baseball, the Red Sox did exactly what they needed to do. Over the next eight games, the Red Sox will play the A’s five more times! This presents the Sox with a golden opportunity to make up ground in the standings that they must capitalize on. The Yankees, on the other hand, lost their third game in a row tonight, dropping to fourth place in the AL East and are now only two games ahead of the Sox. However, the Red Sox are still three games back of the Jays for the third wild-card spot.
Tonight, the Red Sox offense got going early. The A’s came into Fenway with the highest team ERA and the third-highest opponents’ batting average. Right away, in the second inning, the Red Sox scored five runs on five hits and sent nine men to the plate. While the Red Sox offense struggled in the middle innings, only getting one hit in innings three through six, they put this game away in the seventh. After a one-out triple by Jarren Duran, both Alex Verdugo and Adam Duvall had RBI singles later in the inning. This is a continuation of a great trend for the Red Sox offense. Since the start of the Blue Jays series, the Red Sox have scored 40 runs, ranking 12th in baseball. Their 5.71 runs per game over this stretch would rank second in baseball this season. As we have become accustomed to this year, the Red Sox offense can be quite streaky, and we can only hope they stay hot for these important next few weeks.
As the next few weeks will decide whether the Sox should be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline, I think they should trade Adam Duvall regardless. While Adam could be a valuable piece on a different contending team, he frankly no longer has a spot on this team. That is because of the emergence of Jarren Duran. Jarren is now hitting .313 with a .861 OPS on the season. Against righties, he is hitting .325 with a .903 OPS and leads the MLB in doubles. Not to mention his insane speed – his sprint speed is in the 95th percentile! It doesn’t help Duvall’s case that he has been one of the Red Sox’s worst hitters since he came back from injury. Since June 9th, Duvall is slashing .167/.233/.269. He has the second-highest K% in the entire MLB since his return! While I am aware that he is in a slump and isn’t usually this bad, if we consider that he was so hot to start the season, his stats even out. On the season, he is slashing .252/.323/.495. Those are numbers for a guy who could be valuable to another team, a team that doesn’t have Jarren Duran.
Similar to Duvall, I don’t believe Kiké Hernández should be an everyday player for this team anymore. This season, Kiké has been bad in every aspect of the game. He has made 14 errors at shortstop this year, the most by any shortstop in MLB. The bat has also been terrible, as he is slashing .225/.283/.331. That slugging percentage of .331 is the seventh worst in baseball! His overall WAR from FanGraphs is -1.1, which is the worst in all of baseball! He has literally been one of the MLB’s worst players in 2023. However, for some reason, he has still played 77 out of the Red Sox’s 89 games. His playing time needs to diminish, and I hope the return of Yu Chang will do just that.
The Red Sox will go back at it tomorrow at 4:10. The Red Sox will go to the reigning AL Pitcher of the Month, James Paxton. The A’s will turn to Paul Blackburn, who, in just 36 innings, is 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA. The Red Sox will once again look to take advantage of a terrible A’s team and gain even more ground in the standings.
Sox Watch 