The good feelings of the Boston Red Sox retooling for a championship run are already wearing thin, as the team’s starting pitching has been bad, and a recent injury to Hanley Ramirez has one of their prized free-agent signings in unknown territory.
Ramirez might be day-to-day, but the club has also talked about putting him on the 15-day disabled list. The former Dodger injured his shoulder going for a ball in the field on Monday night and has not played since.
The Red Sox just completed a nine-game home stand against division opponents last night that only yielded three victories. Beginning tonight, the Red Sox take their show on the road for a three-game set at Rogers Centre against another division rival, the Toronto Blue Jays. Boston Red Sox tickets have an average price of $73.43 for all three games, and the most expensive tickets are for Saturday night’s affair, featuring an average price of $77.86 and a get-in price of $11. Trailing close behind is Sunday’s average price of $73.98, with a get-in price of $5, and lastly, tonight’s game has an average ticket price of $66.92 with a get-in price of $9, according to ScoreBig.com.
The losses are piling up in bunches for the Red Sox, who are 3-7 in their last ten games (as of 5/8). After taking two out of three versus Toronto, the Red Sox were swept in a three-game series against the New York Yankees and lost two out of three to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Boston ranks 29th out of 30 teams in team ERA (4.86). Yesterday, the team fired pitching coach Juan Nieves to put another set of eyes on the entire staff. In their last ten games, the Red Sox have given up six runs per contest on average. Only one starter has an ERA below 5.00, that being Rick Porcello and his staff-leading 4.38 ERA. As for the rest, Clay Buchholz sports a 6.03 ERA of 6.03, Justin Masterson has a 5.18 ERA, Wade Miley’s is 7.15, and Joe Kelly is carrying a 5.72 ERA.
Although it was an area of concern coming into the season, the front office did not expect it to go this poorly up to this point. The Red Sox are quickly finding out that their powerful lineup alone cannot slug them back into the postseason.
On the brighter side, rookie Mookie Betts is everything the Red Sox expected and more. The 22-year-old center-fielder has hit five home runs, along with 18 RBI and five stolen bases.