Monday Morning Brushback: We’re On Our Way Home (2024)

If you had told me on the morning of March 28, while I was having a cup of coffee and a scone or whatever was on the menu for breakfast that day, that the Red Sox would open the year with a 7-3 record following a 10-game West Coast swing...I’d make that deal. How ‘bout you, dear reader? You’d make that deal?

I don’t blame you—damn good deal.

Sure enough, that’s how 2024 has begun for the Sox. The team will head back to Boston with a winning record in tow; it’s unclear if they’ll have to check that 7-3 mark at LAX along with the rest of their baggage. The road trip along the Pacific Coast wasn’t without its warts or bumps in the road (Trevor Story’s injury and defensive issues last Friday and this Saturday come to mind), but I find that the results are hard to complain about.

After all, the annual West Coast trip has the potential to give the Red Sox headaches given recent memory. Take 2019 for example, when the team had a similar start to the year with sets in Seattle, Oakland, and Arizona. The defending World Series champs came back to Fenway Park with a dismal 3-8 record, a preview of the disappointing campaign that was to come. Boston dropped two out of three games in Oakland just last year—these games can be a pain in the ass.

So to have the Sox come back home with a winning record, knowing that the team won’t have to travel west of the Mississippi much for the remainder of the season, it’s nice! The A’s and the Angels aren’t exactly clear contenders this season, but you can’t choose who you play—you can only compete against what’s in front of you. I know it’s still early (I feel like we’ll all be saying that until Memorial Day) but given how dire the winter felt, things could be far worse right now.

It’s Monday Morning Brushback time, y’all.

(Insert Story-Related Pun Here)

Photo by John McCoy/Getty Images

Of course, any positives to take away from this past week need to have the caveat related to Trevor Story attached to it.

During Friday night’s demolition derby against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California of the United States of North America—a game that featured a ton of runs and what felt like 35 HBPs—the Boston shortstop suffered a shoulder injury while diving for a grounder off the bat of The Fish Man. That hardly made Anaheim feel like the Happiest Place On Earth, huh?

The shortstop has since been placed on the 10-day injured list, as he himself described the injury as “significant.”

It’s hard to not feel sorry for the guy; you can’t predict anyone getting hurt like that. It was a fluke of an injury after he tried making a tough play on defense. For him to suffer that setback a just a few days into the new year—a year that began with a clean slate of health for the first time in a while—is awful for all parties involved.

This marks the latest sour chapter in Story’s Red Sox tenure, a period that hasn’t turned into anything that we had hoped for when he signed in Boston prior to the 2022 season. Again: due to his health history, a lot of that isn’t on Story.

Yet the fact remains that Story has only suited up for the Sox on 145 occasions. The offensive upside he posed in Colorado has yet to manifest on a consistent basis since that six-year deal was inked. The defense has been great when he has taken to the field (as I mentioned in last week’s Brushback: he was easily the team’s best defender last season by Outs Above Average) but the team will once again be without that asset of a glove for the foreseeable future. It just sucks all around, man.

As it stands, the $140 million question for manager Alex Cora to answer is: who takes up the shortstop mantle in the interim? Pablo Reyes and David Hamilton got the nods on Saturday and Sunday, respectively; are they expected to consistently be part of this solution going forward? Ceddanne Rafaela has made some dazzling plays in center to open 2024; will he see more time at short to add stability to an infield that has already had some nasty flubs (looking at you, Raffy)? If he does, will that pose an issue for the outfield defense? Will Vaughn Grissom slot right into the six-spot when he returns from his own injury?

Hell, do we get REAL crazy and try the Bobby Dalbec experiment at shortstop again?!?! You only live once!!!!

We’re all gonna find out the answer to this together, but it should go without saying—or typing, in my case—that this is far from what we’d prefer. The team itself is off to a good start, but the reaction to losing a defensive anchor up the middle like Story is going to go a long way towards determining if the Red Sox can keep rolling following their West Coast swing. We don’t have to look back far to see what can happen if the defense at short isn’t up to snuff.

O’Neill O’My

Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images

The acquisition of outfielder/Canadian lumberjack Tyler O’Neill from the St. Louis Cardinals didn’t turn too many heads back in early December. I recall reacting with a hearty “....Huh, cool, he was pretty good a few years ago” or something to that effect when I got the notification on my phone.

After just a few games with him on the roster, I’m ready to have his number retired.

Seriously though, O’Neill is off to one hell of a start. His five homers are tied with some other outfielder for the most in baseball entering Monday, while his 1.406 (!!!!!!) OPS also sets the pace across MLB. It’s a small sample size, but damn me if it hasn’t been an impressive one.

If you ask me, it’s gotta be all thanks to the muscles. Just look at those guns.

Talk about Anchor Arms. I bet the dude could crush a watermelon with just one flex.

An encouraging sign for O’Neill at the plate—outside of the five round trippers he’s already hit; I feel like that’s an obvious one—has been the fact that the strikeouts have been held in check while he’s also drawing his fair share of walks. He’s gone down by way of the K six times thus far in 2024 across 37 plate appearances, and he’s been given five unintentional free passes. Compare those numbers to his career K% of around 30% and BB% of 8.5%, and you can see the steps in the right direction being made.

Going forward, it will be key for O’Neill to build on those strides at the dish, especially considering he’s now undoubtedly the most potent right-handed hitter Boston has at its disposal. The team that plays half of its games at a park with a left field foul pole just 310 feet from home is gonna need some juice from that side of the box.

O’Neill is bound to cool off after this white hot stretch he’s had to open the new year, but he could end up being one hell of an addition if he can provide something resembling right-handed pop on a consistent-enough of a basis alongside his Gold Glove-caliber defense...and those nuclear warheads he calls his biceps.

No Bull...pen

Photo by John Cordes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Outside of the Joely Rodriguez-induced headaches and the concerns brought on by Kenley Jansen’s dip in velocity compared to 2023 (although, for what it’s worth, his 91.7 MPH average velo on his cutter so far this year isn’t too far off of what we saw from that same pitch between 2019 and 2022), the Red Sox bullpen was a delight to watch. Hey: even with that pair of qualifiers, those two guys have actually pitched the two least-amount of innings in relief as of now.

The numbers don’t lie: Boston’s bullpen has logged a combined ERA of 1.49 in the season’s first week-and-change, which is nearly a full run better than Cleveland’s second-best mark of 2.28. Boston relievers are averaging about 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings while walking around 2.5 batters and coughing up just over six hits per nine; that’s all good for a WHIP of 0.96.

In other words: the relief pitching has been very good. Hard hitting analysis in a sentence like THAT is why you come to Over The Monster, baby.

No reliever outside of Joely has an ERA north of 3.00 (Chase Anderson has given up a pair of earned runs over six frames, which equates to an ERA of exactly 3.00, so he’s essentially doing the Indiana Jones hat-grab in order to qualify for this point), but I feel like three of them deserve a special shout-out here—a trio that Red Sox Twitter cornerstone Ed Hand astutely pointed out on Sunday as well.

It’s Isaiah Campbell, Greg Weissert, and Justin Slaten.

Those three specially get the spotlight here because, as Ed mentioned, they’re guys that Craig Breslow went out of his way to get in a Red Sox uniform.

Campbell was the *very first player* acquired by Breslow after he was hired as Chief Baseball Officer in October. Weissert was part of the return from the team’s arch nemesis in exchange for the services of Alex Verdugo back in December. Slaten—a guy who hadn’t made his MLB debut before Opening Day this year—is a Rule 5 guy who was traded to Boston by the Mets because Craig came a-knockin’.

It looks like these weren’t transactions for the sake of simply building depth: Craig “Lisan al-Gaib” Breslow saw messages from the deep. The intention was always seemingly to make these three key parts of the ‘pen.

So far, those moves have paid off. Campbell’s surrendered just one earned run across 4.1 innings, while Slaten and Weissert have combined for 10.1 innings of shutout stuff on the mound. Campbell and Weissert’s WHIPs both sit at around 1.00; Slaten laughs in their faces with only one hit registered against him so far.

Bringing things back to last Monday’s article once more, the Andrew Bailey philosophy can be boiled down to something as simple as this: throw your best stuff, and throw strikes. The Savant pages for Weissert, Slaten, and Campbell are testaments to that mantra. All three are peppering the zone with effective offerings. Campbell’s slider has kept opposing bats at bay, Slaten’s sweeper-cutter combo has prompted a ton of sh*tty contact, and Weissert’s own sweeper has made me feel like I need a cigarette any time it has left his hand.

It’s still early, but we just might have ourselves a pitching lab to call our own, folks.

Song of the Week: “Two Of Us” by The Beatles

This was a given with the article’s title. These dudes seem pretty good—wonder if they’ll ever make anything of themselves.

Same time same place next week, friends! Go Sox.