Twenty-five games into the 2022 season, the Red Sox are a leaky boat.
When they plug one hole, another appears. In the first week, the starting rotation failed them. Then, for several weeks, it was the offense that went missing, habitually scoring a run or two and no more. Of late, there have been signs of life with the lineup, offering hope that the veteran hitters who populate the roster are finally finding their natural levels.
But the team's bullpen -- formless and unorganized -- remains a major problem. Thanks mostly -- though not exclusively -- to the relievers, the Red Sox have shown a remarkable inability to win close games. Exactly half of their losses have come in games in which they lost by either one or two runs. And when the team gets to extra innings, it feels hopeless. Their 10-5 loss to the Los Angeles Angels Wednesday night dropped them to 0-6 in extra innings, the worst mark in Major League Baseball.
The Red Sox have no closer, though not by choice. They seek favorable matchups, and find that they've miscalculated. If only they could find a way to have Garrett Whitlock pitch at the beginning, middle and end of games ... every day.
Wednesday's loss represented a new low, with two blown saves in the span of three innings and a stunning eight runs allowed by six different relievers.
There were some tantalizing moments, to be sure. The Sox were an out away from walking away with a 4-3 win in the ninth, but never got there. And in the 10th, they recorded two quick outs, and were an out away from needing just to drive home their own automatic runner in the bottom of the inning to win their second straight. Instead, six runs crossed the plate, the most the Red Sox have allowed in one extra inning in 17 years.
They're making history ... for all the wrong reasons.
"We worked so hard to get certain matchups and tried to get 27 outs,'' bemoaned Alex Cora. "But we didn't get the keep the ball in the ballpark, and in the end, we walked a lot of people.''
The reasons for the breakdowns were varied. Jake Diekman stubbornly threw seven straight sliders to Jared Walsh before Walsh connected for the game-tying single in the ninth. For Matt Barnes, the problem was a mixture of poor command and diminished velocity.
You name it, and Red Sox relievers are experiencing it. What they're not experiencing, however, is much consistency or success.
Every night, or at least every night in which they're in close games, Cora is grasping, hoping that the high-leverage pitcher of the night can navigate through one inning or one big spot. More often than not, they've stumbled.
If he had someone in whom he could trust for save situations on a regular basis, he could begin working backward to slot the rest of the bullpen. Instead, he's futilely searching for a hot hand, unsure of what will unfold, but hoping for the best.
"You guys know I like structure,'' said Cora. "We tried the whole 'ace reliever' in '19; it's different than this, of course. The three lefties gives us a certain advantage. But it's one of those that we would love somebody to step up and be consistent and throw strikes and go through three batters and turn the page -- that'd be great -- so that we can actually set up the sixth, the seventh, the eighth.
"But so far, we've been up and down with us. We've been inconsistent.''
While it's left to Cora to patch and fill the holes that develop almost nightly, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom deserves more than his share of the blame, too. Bloom added Diekman and Matt Strahm after the lockout ended, but for some reason, never really replaced Adam Ottavino -- an experienced late-inning reliever who served as the set-up man to Barnes for much of last season.
Nor did Bloom look to acquire a closer, despite the uncertainty that surrounded Barnes. If the Sox were hoping that Barnes would magically rebound from a poor second half, they've made, to date, a serious miscalculation. Barnes isn't locating with the same precision he showed in the first four months last season, and on the occasions when he does, the velocity on his fastball has dipped, reducing the margin for error.
"It's a lot easier to get swing and misses and bad contact on 97 mph than it is on 93 mph,'' said Barnes logically enough. "And 97 mph allows the curveball to play that much more. Throughout my career, command has kind of come and gone periodically, but I've always had stuff. And I've always had the ability to go out there and if I got myself into a jam, I could kind of out-stuff people and get out of it. It's definitely frustrating.''
His ERA for the season is an inflated 8.64. Others are no more reliable.
And so, for the time being, Cora is left to furiously apply sealant to the various leaks that spring up regularly in the late innings. If he doesn't find a way to patch things soon, he risks having the Red Sox season permanently submerged.