McAdam: Andrew Cashner merely the latest in a series of bad decisions for Red Sox

It should go without saying that very little has gone according to plan for the Red Sox in 2019.

They thought their rotation would carry them; instead, it's been their albatross.

They believed their bullpen was adequate; it's been consistently below league average.

They brought back World Series stars Steve Pearce and Nathan Eovaldi; both players have missed extensive time with injuries and haven't contributed much when healthy.

The list goes on and on.

Call it what you will: poor evaluations, bad judgment, or just bad luck. But time after time, the Red Sox have been done in by their decision-making process.

And now, that characterization extends toward their lone in-season acquisition.



The Sox famously stood pat at last week's trade deadline, eliciting frustration from the fan base, and just maybe, the clubhouse, too, though no players have expressly said the team was disappointed by the front office's inactivity.

But a few weeks before the July 31 deadline, the Sox made a move of consequence, trading for Baltimore's Andrew Cashner. At the time, it looked like a shrewd acquisition — Cashner had gone 9-3 with a 3.83 ERA, pitching in front of a god-awful team and pitching in the bandbox that is Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

If you could pitch in a hitter-friendly environment with little support -- offensively or defensively -- then surely he would thrive, pitching for a playoff contender.

The need for starting pitching depth was obvious, and Dave Dombrowski jumped the line a little, obtaining Cashner three weeks before the deadline. The Red Sox had understandably seen enough of the likes of Hector Velazquez, Josh Smith, Ryan Weber and Brian Johnson.

That, and the realization that it was going to take a long while for Eovaldi to work his way back into the rotation. Getting an experienced pitcher in the middle of one of his better seasons, with no guaranteed contractual obligations beyond this year, seemed like a smart move.

Until it wasn't. After allowing six runs in 5.1 innings in Tuesday's 6-2 loss to the woeful Kansas City Royals, Cashner had provided the Red Sox with five starts. They've lost all but one of them and Cashner's ERA in that span is a hideous 7.53.

There's little mystery as to the problem: Cashner has proved unable to keep the ball in the ballpark. After allowing only 11 homers in his first 17 starts with Baltimore, Cashner has now yielded seven in five outings for the Sox, including three Tuesday night, accounting for all but one of the runs with which he was charged.

Both Cashner and Alex Cora noted that the pitcher actually exhibited his best fastball since coming to Boston, but that didn't stop Jorge Soler from hitting one out in the third inning to give the Royals a lead they wouldn't relinquish. (The second and third homers came on a changeup and a slider respectively, neither particularly well-located.)

For what they've been getting from Cashner so far, the Red Sox could still be running out journeyman like Smith or Weber, or taking a look at some of the younger arms in the system, while still holding on to the two teenage prospects from the Dominican Summer League they sacrificed to the Orioles in order to get Cashner.

Did the Red Sox not do their homework? That's doubtful. The Sox had scouts watching Cashner in the weeks prior to the deal, and watched him run off a series of five starts in which he allowed more than two runs just once. And these weren't cupcakes, either — Cashner either beat or pitched well enough to beat Houston, Oakland and Cleveland in that run-up to the trade.

And still, the deal has backfired. It's difficult to say that it's caused the team's meltdown over the last 10 days, since there are plenty of others who are culpable there, including Cashner's rotation-mates who were here before him.

But it's as if there's an infectious virus at Fenway in 2019, poisoning everything. Each personnel decision seems to blow up in the team's face.

That's not to excuse the errors made by the organization's evaluators. When a team reveals itself to be thoroughly mediocre over more than two-thirds of the regular season, the poor results can't be regarded as a fluke.

Still, a mere season after which seemingly nothing went wrong for the Red Sox, 2019 has shown itself to be the exact opposite. From the decisions made in the winter, to the plans set forth in spring training, and the in-season personnel moves designed to turn things around, this is the season in which nothing -- Andrew Cashner included -- has turned out as expected.