By Tyler Rourke

Who Will Be Boston’s Toughest Competition in the East?

The Celtics’ roster looks drastically different compared to last season. Jayson Tatum’s back; Jaylen Brown is gone. Newcomers like Mike Conley and Mitchell Robinson are ready to make an immediate impact, and two rookies are looking to prove their worth. Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman will be thrust into larger roles this year, and Ron Harper Jr. could be a bigger contributor as well.

The Eastern Conference has changed this offseason, and a handful of teams can make some noise this season. I expect the Celtics to make the playoffs, and I still believe this roster is one of the best in the league. But who will come out of the East?

The three teams with the best odds to win the Eastern Conference, according to DraftKings, are New York (+340), Philly (+380), and Boston (+550). These translate to New York having roughly a 23% chance to win the East, Philly 21%, and Boston 15%. From there, last year’s top seed, Detroit (+800), Cleveland (+900), and the Giannis-led crew from South Beach (+950) are given the best chances.

In this case, I agree with the odds that the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers will be the Celtics’ primary competition in the East. All three teams have significantly lower odds of winning the NBA Championship than the Spurs and Thunder.

The Knicks and Sixers took opposite paths this offseason; one stayed basically the same, while the other made massive changes. What they have in common is that they are the last two teams to eliminate the Celtics in the Playoffs. Each has star power and a great supporting cast.

Robinson signed with the Celtics. In his place, the Knicks signed Andre Drummond, who played with Philadelphia last season and is still an elite rebounder. Other than that, they kept most of the roster the same.

Brunson’s ability to create his own offense in crunch time is what scares me most, because it is not clear who on the Celtics can stop him in a playoff series. The Knicks also have elite-level role players, like Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges, who buy into their role, rather than trying to be the star.

But as Boston saw in 2025, when you are the defending champion, you get every opponent’s best shot every single night. No team has repeated since the 2017 and 2018 Warriors, and when the Celtics ran it back with the same roster in 2025, they lost to the Knicks.

When you look at Philadelphia’s roster, their starting five is arguably the most talented in the NBA. Tyrese Maxey is impossible to stay in front of, and now they have Brown and LeBron James alongside Maxey and Embiid. Rising sophomore V.J Edgecombe is possibly the best fifth option of all time. If this unit meshes, watch out. If everyone tries to be the man, it could go very wrong.

Philly will be the most fascinating team to watch. The Knicks could be the steadiest. That doesn’t make the defending champs any less dangerous.

He Said What?

Recently, both Jayson Tatum’s dad and Pritchard had some noteworthy comments. Tatum’s dad, Justin, joined LaVar Ball and Jaylen Brown’s dad on a podcast. And for once, LaVar didn't make the most controversial comments (click within the tweet to play the video).

On top of that, Pritchard commented on the Jaylen Brown trade. While he was sad to see him go, he is excited to compete against him.

I imagine the whole roster feels this way. The Celtics play Philly November 10th (road), January 21st (home), February 7th (road), and March 7th.

The Starting Five

With the loss of Jaylen Brown comes the question of who will start for the Celtics? The prevailing wisdom is that it will be Pritchard, White, George, Tatum, and either Queta or Robinson.

However, I think the Celtics coaching staff may go a different direction.

I can absolutely see Mazzulla and his staff starting Hugo Gonzalez alongside Derrick White in the backcourt, with Pritchard coming off the bench. Gonzalez’s strength in his rookie season was his on-ball defense and high-energy plays. The Celtics refused to include him in a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo, which signifies they have high hopes for his career.

Gonzalez might be a better complement to the other starters. With Pritchard in the starting lineup, White would have to take the main defensive assignment, which could hurt his offensive production. White needs to shoot better from three, and that is even harder to do on tired legs.

If Gonzalez starts, he can focus on stopping the other team’s star player. The first unit will also have Tatum, George, and, to a lesser extent, White to handle the scoring, while the bench group will need someone who can make buckets.

If Pritchard starts, Mike Conley would be the backup point guard, which may be a weakness as the season progresses, especially given Conley’s age. Having Pritchard off the bench means another serious scoring threat mixed into the rotation, rather than putting them all out there at once.

It is also worth keeping in mind that the finishing five matters more in the NBA than the starting five. Different combinations will play together throughout the game, and Pritchard has thrived playing with Tatum compared to with Brown.

By Tyler Rourke

It’s been a whirlwind six weeks since the Celtics shipped Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia, and we finally got our first real look at the return package’s centerpiece on Sunday. Paul George made his first appearance at the Celtics practice facility, and the team put it all together in the latest episode of Beneath the Banners, alongside fellow newcomers Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley.

If you were bracing for something awkward, guarded, or half-hearted, that’s not what we got. George brought his family down to Boston to meet Brad Stevens and see his new workplace, and when the cameras turned on him, he didn’t hold back. It was very pleasant to see, because while the drama has surrounded Brown, George was still equally a part of the trade.

“I’m gonna give y’all everything,” George said. “It’s surreal. I’m ecstatic. I’m looking forward to the journey. I’m looking forward to wearing that green and representing for Boston.”

I’ll be the first to admit that’s the kind of quote you’d expect from literally any player on introduction day. Nobody shows up to their new team and says they’re lukewarm about it. But given the circumstances George is walking into, I still think it mattered that he said it, and said it early.

Let’s not pretend the fanbase greeted this trade with open arms. Jaylen Brown was a ten-year Celtic and the Finals MVP two years ago, and watching him get sent to a division rival still doesn’t sit right with a lot of people reading this newsletter. If you’re ranking how new Celtics acquisitions were received on a scale of one to ten, George probably started out somewhere close to a two or three. That’s not on him, but it’s the reality of the environment he’s stepping into.

Brad had nothing but good things to say about George, and if you need a refresher, he is a 9-time All-Star and former MVP candidate. Although he is nowhere near what he used to be, Stevens and the rest of the front office believe he will fit nicely into our system and rotation.

The NBA’s strange decisions on the Celtics schedule

While George was settling into the building, the NBA dropped the full 2026-27 schedule, giving us our first real sense of what this season will look like.

https://www.nba.com/celtics/schedule

The headline news actually came out ahead of the full release. The Celtics will open the season on the road against Detroit on October 20th as part of a three-game slate on NBC, a rematch of last year’s top two seeds in the East. Two interesting things about this. No. 1, it’s the first game of the season, not just for the Celtics but the whole league. No.2, it’s a 3 PM tipoff time on a Tuesday. I have zero clue what went into that decision, but it’s odd.

They’ll then host the champion Knicks for their home opener four days later, and for the first time in two years, Boston actually has a Christmas Day game, hosting Giannis Antetokounmpo and the new-look Heat at TD Garden in what should be a thrilling game.

However, doesn’t Boston vs Philadelphia sound a lot better? I thought so, and I’m sure others did, but they prioritized capitalizing on LeBron’s name and had the 76ers play against the Lakers on Christmas. But I’m okay with it, because getting Miami on one of the biggest days of the regular season, with all the extra motivation of Boston reportedly being in on the Giannis chase before he landed in South Beach, should make for must-see TV.

But once the full schedule dropped, it became clear the league isn’t exactly treating the Celtics like a marquee franchise this year. Boston landed 27 nationally televised games, which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s only tied for eighth-most in the league, behind teams like the Warriors (who don’t deserve nearly that many) and Nuggets, who aren’t walking into the season as bigger contenders or as a bigger market than the Celtics.

Then there’s the Brown revenge game, which is arguably the single most anticipated matchup of the NBA season. I expected the league to circle that one in red and slot it into a Saturday primetime window. Instead, it’s landing on a random Thursday in late January on Amazon Prime, and to make it stranger, it falls on the second night of a back-to-back for Boston.

The NBA clearly didn’t value that game the way we do, but I promise you that won’t make TD Garden any less emotional the night Brown walks out of the opponent’s tunnel.

Lastly, Boston has a brutal stretch early in the season. In November, they play 12 of 16 games on the road and have 6 of their 16 back-to-backs before December. This has definitely been the most chatter I have heard about the Celtics’ schedule in the past 10 years, for many reasons.

Bleacher Report Celtics Win Total

Last week, I made it a mission to accurately predict the Celtics’ record this upcoming season. I landed on 50 wins. Now, a few days ago, Bleacher Report did the same thing, except they had the Celtics at 52 wins.

Bleacher Report writer Andy Bailey makes a bold claim in the Celtics segment, saying, “it’s really not difficult to envision the world in which the Boston Celtics are better in 2026-27 than they were in 2025-26.”

I thought this was interesting because I agree, but I think all the drama has made people think otherwise.

Fifty wins is not easy in the NBA, but Joe Mazzulla has won at least 56 games in all four seasons he has coached the Celtics, averaging 59.5.

Editor’s Note

There will be no Boston Sunday Sports Section the next two Sundays, 8/23 and 8/30. We will return ready for some football on September 6th.

Editor’s Take

The Red Sox have turned back into Clark Kent, the Patriots have “Tommy Cutlets” as their starting QB in preseason games, and the Celtics and Bruins are in the midsummer nap parts of their offseasons.

But on Saturday afternoon, a local kid from Boston became Superman. It's a story of how baseball can help a struggling kid and, later, a grieving family.

At Wrigley Field Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals’ Joshua Báez became the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit three home runs in his Major League debut.

Baez was born in Boston, but his family moved to the Dominican Republic when he was three weeks old.

He started playing baseball at nine in the DR because his mom wanted him to do something after school besides watching TV. He was behind most of the other kids in the baseball-mad DR.

When he moved to Boston, he had to take English as a second language. He was bullied and teased at his Boston middle school while he learned English. Baseball helped him make friends and feel better about himself during a rough time. Baseball also came rather easily to him in Boston, where the other kids were not as advanced as the ones he had competed against in Santo Domingo.

He blossomed as a player during his middle-school years. He made the varsity team as a freshman before attending the Snowden International School in Back Bay as a sophomore.

He then attended The Dexter Southfield School in Brookline and was named Massachusetts Gatorade High School Baseball Player of the Year twice. He hit for power and was also brought into close games on the mound, where he reached 99 mph.

He committed to Vanderbilt, but the Cardinals selected him in the 2nd round of the 2021 MLB Draft, and he signed with St. Louis for over $2M.

His high school coach at his third high school, Dexter Southfield in Brookline, Dan Donato, who pitched in the Minors for four seasons, thought Baez had Major League tools and saw a comparable player he once coached against: George Springer.

After being drafted by the Cardinals in 2021, Báez confidently predicted he would be playing at Busch Stadium within two years.

Not so fast, young man.

In two years, he was still in Class A ball in West Palm Beach, FL, hitting .218 with just seven home runs and an alarmingly high 34% strikeout rate.

In 2024, he was promoted to High-A Peoria in the Midwest League but was placed on the development list in July and demoted back to Single-A in August after hitting just .225 with a whopping 97 strikeouts in 227 at-bats.

In 2025, he cut his strikeout rate from 39% to 27%, and hit 20 home runs and stole 54 bases between High-A Peoria and Double-A Springfield.

Then on Friday, he got the call to the big leagues.

More than 30 family members and friends from Boston, Miami and the Dominican Republic were expected to attend Baez’s historic debut at Wrigley Field. But there was one person who he wished could be there - his father, José Manuel Báez - who passed away in June of 2023.

“My dad, his dream was to play in the big leagues,” Báez said. “The only promise that I made to him was that I was going to be able to do that for him.”

Baez had already honored his late father earlier this year by hitting four home runs in a game for Triple-A Memphis on the three-year anniversary of his death.

Prior to being called up, he led Triple-A with 34 home runs, so the three today are no fluke, if you could not tell by him hitting the first pitch he saw in The Show 108.6 mph and 449 feet to center.

In his second at-bat, he hit a home run that went to the left field bleachers, becoming just the second player all-time to hit home runs in his first two big league plate appearances.

Then came the third, an opposite-field shot to right (click in tweet to see all three home runs).

And here are his Triple-A teammates watching his third home run. Click the tweet below to watch this one! And definitely watch it!

The Red Sox could have picked Báez with the 40th pick in the second round of the 2021 Draft but instead selected Florida outfielder Jud Fabian, who never signed with them and is currently in his third season at Triple-A in the Baltimore system.

His MLBcom bio notes that he resides in the Dorchester Center neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, and enjoys returning to local Dorchester restaurants El Dugout and Nick's Pizza.

In December, in an interview with the neighborhood paper, The Dorchester Reporter, he was asked what advice he would give to up-and-coming young athletes.

“If you have a dream, if you have a goal, set a plan, have a plan, have an approach. Surround yourself with good people and listen to your parents. Focus on the little things and know they go a long way, and when you look back, you will probably have accomplished a lot.”

In just one big league game, he has already accomplished a lot. In fact, something that none of the more than 20K players who have played Major League Baseball has ever done. And his family and friends were there to celebrate with him.

Sunday Notes

Is this heaven? No, it’s the Red Sox in Iowa.

The Red Sox will be playing in next year’s Field of Dreams game against the Kansas City Royals on August 12th.

For those who missed it, former Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens played catch with his son Kody, who plays for the Minnesota Twins.

The Twins lost this year’s game to the Phillies 7-1.

Click on the tweet below to see the video.

Also, these are excellent.

But there was one ominous sign in the midst of all that corn. You didn’t even have to put your “ear” to the ground to hear it.

It was in plain sight.

The Field of Dreams game, based on a movie ostensibly about redeeming Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was banned from baseball for allegedly throwing World Series games, had gambling ads on the outfield walls.

In Joon Lee’s very well-researched Substack piece on sports gambling (his always are), he notes that, according to Sports Handle, “between 10 and 20 active professional athletes across the NFL, NBA, and MLB had VIP accounts at FanDuel in recent years.”

That is a recipe for trouble.

Plus, so many people, especially young people, who cannot afford to gamble on sports are digging deep financial holes by doing so. Lee also notes, “52 percent of Gen Z has now redirected investment funds to sports betting, and a quarter of them treat it as a deliberate part of their long-term financial plan. For an entire generation, it made gambling feel like investing.”

As usual, the Simpsons were ahead of the curve on this problem (click to see video).

Setting the Market

Many in the NFL believe the Patriots couldn't sign star cornerback Christian Gonzalez to an extension until the Seattle Seahawks signed their star cornerback, Devin Witherspoon. The two are represented by the same agency.

Yesterday, the Seahawks signed 3-time Pro Bowler Witherspoon to a 4-year, $132M extension with $101M in guaranteed money to make him the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history.

Expect that to last a couple of weeks until the Patriots announce they are signing Gonzalez to an even more lucrative extension.

Going Camping

We did a family outing to Patriots training camp this week. I promised a review of it last week, so here it goes - two stars out of five.

It was crowded and hot; the parking signs pointed you to the wrong lots.

On offense, Drake Maye would play like two plays before Tommy DeVito was sent in.

The Patriots do a nice job with games and skills challenges for kids, and it is free, but being told you can watch practice on the video boards inside Gillette Stadium when the practice fields are behind it wasn't ideal.

Two things that were cool: A.J. Brown looks good, and it is amazing watching live how high up the punts go. You definitely don’t appreciate that on TV or even in the larger stadium. So if you like watching punts, sitting on hot bleachers, and your kid being upset they can’t get autographs, by all means go.

Gaming the System

The MLB Draft differs from others in that each team has a set amount of money it can spend. Picks are assigned values, but teams can pay more or less than those values.

Historically, some teams have, for example, selected a college player in the first round that they know will sign for well under the slot value so that they can later pick a high school player they can give enough money to dissuade them from playing college baseball. The Red Sox did that during this year’s draft.

The price for high school players has gone up in recent years because players can go to college and make significant money from NIL. Before, their only option was to go to college or sign to play professional baseball.

The Atlanta Braves, though, took this to a new extreme in this past year’s draft, selecting four college seniors who otherwise most likely would not have been drafted and signing them for $500 each so they could have more money to pay some high school players they really wanted to sign.

The $500 signing bonus made me think of this.

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A Political Basketball

As the WNBA meets, and then meets again, to try to determine what the W in WNBA means, the Kentucky Derby is having similar deliberations.

⚾ Boston Red Sox

65-57, 3rd Place AL East, 9.5 GB, 2nd Wild Card, +5.0 Ahead

The Red Sox have hit a snag. The offense has come down to earth. Jake Bennett is showing some cracks. Garrett Whitlock is injured.

It’s time to play the one card they have left to play. Bring Franklin Arias to Boston.

He only has 16 games above Double-A, but he is already the best defensive shortstop in the Red Sox system. He also could bring a spark to the offense, having bashed 23 home runs between Double-A Portland (19) and Triple-A Worcester (4). Click on the tweet below to see his latest home run in Worcester.

He is also holding his own in terms of making contact. Power hitters with high minor league strikeout totals often struggle in their first exposure to the Major Leagues. In 406 plate appearances, Arias has struck out just 60 times and walked 44.

Calling him up pronto also gives the Red Sox some time to evaluate him before Trevor Story returns. If Arias looks good, they can slide Story over to second, where his defense is less of a liability, and have Andruw Monasterio in his original and valuable utility infielder role.

It also introduces him to the Major Leagues when he is hot and in the flow of the season, rather than bringing him up to Boston in April.

If Arias struggles, then your middle infield, at least until Curtis Mead returns, becomes Story and Monasterio. Arias has also played some second base in Worcester, which could provide additional flexibility, though his shortstop defense is high-end.

Story is due to start a rehab assignment today, and assuming Arias is still in Worcester, it will be interesting to see who plays shortstop.

While secondary, it is also now late enough in the season that he is unlikely to exhaust his rookie eligibility, meaning if he wins Rookie of the Year next year, the Red Sox would get an additional first-round draft pick in 2028.

On the flip side, if they call him up, they have to put him on the 40-man roster, and he would then be subject to a lockout. If there is a lockout next season, Minor Leaguers will still be able to play, which could help his development.

MLB Pipeline released its updated prospect rankings this week. Arias was ranked as the third-best prospect in baseball, up from 31st in the pre-season rankings. He is crushing baseballs in Worcester

The Yankees recently brought up their stud shortstop prospect George Lombard, Jr., who has provided them with a spark. Arias has vastly outperformed Lombard, Jr. in the minors with an .982 OPS versus Lombard’s .908.

Arias is just 20, but that could be a blessing since he won’t be able to get into the Boston bars like our last heralded shortstop prospect who is now in San Francisco.

Being Venezuelan will also likely help Arias acclimate to the Majors and assimilate into the clubhouse. Team leaders from Venezuela include Willson Contreras, Wilyer Abreu and Ranger Suarez.

You may recall the last time the Red Sox promoted a 20-year-old shortstop in the midst of a pennant race.

It was 2013, and his name was Xander Bogaerts.

He was below average offensively in 18 regular-season games.

Then in 12 playoff games, he had an OPS of .893, played a steady shortstop, and the Red Sox won the World Series.

The video below is a compilation of his postseason hits.

We are in the dog days of August (named originally for the sun’s alignment with Sirius, the ‘Dog Star’, not for a lazy Golden Retriever on the front porch).

A tired team in the midst of 16 games in 16 days could use a spark.

Arias could provide it.

We saw from Báez Saturday the shot in the arm a hot-hitting rookie can provide to an offense.

🏈 New England Patriots

The last time the Patriots had two exceptional pass-catching tight ends, let’s just say it didn’t end well.

For the first time since Gronk and Aaron Hernandez, they might have two playmakers at tight end. The recently extended Hunter Henry is a known commodity. The rookie, who was taking some first-team reps last week even after Henry signed his extension, is not.

But he might have the higher upside.

Eli Raridon was the Patriots’ third-round pick out of Notre Dame. Many had him as a Day 3 pick even though New England grabbed him on Day 2. He was a high-major recruit in both basketball and football despite tearing his right ACL in a high basketball game his senior season.

He then tore the same ACL in practice as a true freshman at Notre Dame ten months later.

For most of his time at Notre Dame, he was known more as a blocking tight end. But when the Patriots lost Julian Hill during OTA’s, Raridon was thrust into the TE2 role, which also means the 6’6”, 245-pound Raridon needs to be more of a pass catcher.

He broke out as a receiving tight end as a senior when he started all 12 games on his way to a 32-catch, 482-yard season that ranked third on the team. He brings big-play ability from the tight end position, having catches of 65, 43, and 36 yards for the Fighting Irish last season.

Raridon has been constantly cited by those on the beat in Foxborough as one of the most impressive players in training camp. Click the tweet below to see his first catch as a Patriot in Thursday’s preseason game against the Colts.

He will wear 82 for the Patriots, so Jayden Daniels has nothing to worry about.

Raridon was a consensus top five tight-end recruit coming out of high school in Des Moines, Iowa, where he was recruited by more than twenty high-end D-1 programs. Like his quarterback Drake Maye, he was also an excellent high school basketball player, named second-team All-State in Iowa as a junior forward.

Raridon comes from a long line of offensive linemen. His grandfather was an All-Big Eight lineman at Nebraska and a sixth-round draft pick, while his father played for former Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis at Notre Dame.

From a measurables standpoint, he has very large hands, is strong at high pointing the ball, and ran a 4.62s 40-yard dash, which is very good for someone who is 6’6” and 245 pounds. He models his game after former Iowa tight end George Kittle and cites Kittle’s blocking as a big reason behind it.

He also has his quarterback’s confidence, with Maye telling Boston.com:

“He’s a big dude, first off, that can run,” Maye said of his first impressions of Raridon. “I mean, that’s pretty cool, and he is smart. … He understands positions; he understands how to play both positions, the tight end spot. I think he is making plays on the football. That’s what you want to see from a young guy, and he is putting the work in.

“That is the biggest thing with a young rookie. You want to see him go out there and take a rep when he is tired and not call for a sub, and he is doing all the things the right way, and I am looking forward to seeing what he does throughout camp. He has been a great player for us and a great dude.”

A great player and a great dude.

Sounds exactly like what Tom Brady used to say about N’Keal Harry and Chad Jackson.

🏀 Boston Celtics

By Tyler Rourke

Celtics Wins Prediction

This offseason has been one of the busiest for the Boston Celtics in recent years. A longtime Celtic, Jaylen Brown, has been shipped to our division rival; we acquired Paul George and signed Mitchell Robinson.

On top of that, the C’s opted to keep Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman while drafting two studs in Chris Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell, who will be on the team next year. All this means the roster will look significantly different heading into next season.

With all of these changes, it becomes difficult to predict how the team will look and whether we made the right moves. Over on CelticsBlog.com, the writing staff predicted how many total wins the Celtics would have this coming season, so I thought I would do the same and explain my reasoning.

For context, the staff of around ten people had predictions ranging from 49 to 58 total wins. I think we will land right at the 50-win mark. Last season, we went 56-26, and I predict six fewer wins this year.

For starters, the Eastern Conference is as strong as it has been since Tatum entered the league. There are so many question marks surrounding the East, and I do believe the Celtics will prioritize Tatum’s health over the regular-season record. That could mean resting him for a few extra games because, after all, if Tatum goes down, what more do the Celtics have?

I will say that this year, the Celtics should have a much deeper bench. Guys like Ron Harper Jr., Dillon Mitchell, and Mike Conley should be able to provide meaningful minutes, and that’s without even mentioning the other key pieces of the bench.

Still, even with this added depth, I think they take a step back from their shocking record last season. There are so many teams in the East that improved this offseason, but I trust the Celtics staff to will them to 50 wins, hopefully putting us around the No. 3 seed.

Who Will Take the Biggest Leap?

With all that being said, the shifts within the roster will no doubt open up opportunities for players that weren’t there before. Tatum will need help, and someone will have to step up.

This roster doesn’t exactly fit the formula of the typical teams Celtics fans have gotten used to. Derrick White, Paul George, and Sam Hauser are all candidates for a down year after what they did last season. That’s not to say there isn’t room for a bounce-back year, but if they become the second options, things could take a turn for the worse come the trade deadline.

However, I believe Payton Pritchard will take a massive leap next year and become Boston’s second-leading scorer in points per game, behind only Tatum.

Pritchard has shown flashes throughout his career that suggest he could be a 20-points-per-game type of player, despite his size. His craftiness in the paint, along with his shooting ability both off the catch and off the dribble, could make him a serious threat on the offensive side of the ball.

I think it is only a matter of time before George and White accept that they should focus on impacting the game more defensively, because they both have the ability to do that.

The rotation we have on the wing makes me think that neither of them will have a breakout scoring role, while Mitchell Robinson and Neemias Queta likely won’t be the recipients of many scoring opportunities.

When you put all of that together and realize Pritchard is really our only point guard who can play more than 15 minutes a night, I think there’s a case to be made that he could average 20 points per game next season.

On Point

Look Wide Right

Good Wood

Click in the tweet below to see the video.

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Boom! Roasted!

Click in the tweet below to see the video.

Throwing a Flag Here

Click below to see the video.

I’m Keith Hernandez

Click below to see the video.

And the original “I’m Keith Hernandez” video from Seinfeld

Click below to see the video.

The Field of Dreams

A Larry Bird Christmas Gift

Click below to see the video.

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On Monday night, the Red Sox benefited from baseball’s odd and very rare ‘Fourth Out’ rule. They did not go on to win the game, so it will live on as a quirky footnote to a disappointing night in Canada.

There was another time when a New England team benefited from an odd rule.

They did win the game.

And that has made all the difference.

A dynasty was conceived.

A G.O.A.T was born.

A head coach took his first step toward becoming a legend.

His now-girlfriend took her first step.

(I am kidding on the last one, but the timing is about right).

You may have guessed by now I am talking about the Tuck Rule game.

The Pregame

It was the first playoff start for a young quarterback named Tom Brady.

It was the last game at the old Foxboro Stadium.

It was a clear, sunny morning in Foxborough. The Patriots were set to take on the powerful Oakland Raiders in the first Saturday night divisional playoff game in NFL history. It was also the latest divisional weekend in NFL history at the time, with the regular season schedule pushed back a week due to 9/11.

The Patriots had not won a playoff game in five years. They were 7-10 all-time in the playoffs and had never won a Super Bowl. Their playoff history was littered with disappointment, including a controversial game-altering roughing-the-passer call that went against them against these very same Raiders in the 1976 playoffs.

Even though the Patriots were the higher seed and at home, the powerful Raiders were three-point favorites. The forecast was for a low-scoring game with the over/under around 35 points.

The forecast also called for a minor snow event of around 1 to 3 inches.

Had the game been played in the typical 1 PM slot, there would have been snow. Later that afternoon, the snow started falling.

On his way to the stadium, the Patriots’ young quarterback would make a call. Without it, THE call may never have happened.

Brady told ESPN in 2012.

"I remember getting caught in traffic two and a half hours before the game and having to call our security guy to have a police escort to come get me to the game.”

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In Holy Tuck, a phenomenal oral history of the Tuck Rule Game by Michael Weinreb, running back Antowain Smith also remembers the police escort.

“I was coming from North Attleborough, which was only about 20 minutes away, but it took us — took everybody — about two and a half hours to get to the stadium. Traffic was crazy. And people were scared because how Coach Belichick was, you had to be on time. So we just saw the police escort; we knew whose vehicles it was, so everybody just kinda fell in line. And it was kind of funny because the fans, they knew who it was, they’d get out of the way and just let cars fall in line so nobody would be late to the game.”

Editor’s Note: Weinreb now has a Substack about sports history and culture.

The Game

In the first half, with the heavy snow falling, there were as many punts as first downs. By late in the third quarter, the Raiders led 13-3.

The Patriots then did what coaches and commentators always say you should not do — they abandoned the run.

Brady went to work, completing nine passes in a row for 61 yards and then capped the 67-yard drive with a six-yard TD run.

Brady spiked the ball after his touchdown run. It was his first NFL rushing TD.

He promptly slipped on the snow and face-planted.

In 47 subsequent playoff games, Brady would never eclipse the 16 yards rushing he had in the Tuck Rule game.

The Raiders punted to the Patriots just ahead of the two-minute warning. The Patriots fumbled. But it was not THAT fumble. Troy Brown fumbled at the end of a 20-yard punt return. Larry Izzo recovered in a play that saved the game before the call that saved the game.

The Tuck Rule

NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2. When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble.

This means that any intentional forward movement of an offensive player's arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession while trying to tuck the ball back toward his body.

The rule was written in 1999 so that officials did not have to discern the quarterback’s intent. It was a clear visual marker versus relying on an official’s judgment.

Or was it?

The Tuck Rule Play

With 1:50 remaining, New England had the ball on the Oakland 42-yard line. Brady had just scrambled up the middle for a five-yard gain. Belichick called the Patriots final timeout.

Raiders veteran cornerback Eric Allen was lurking near the Patriots sideline and overheard offensive coordinator Charlie Weis and Brady discussing the upcoming play. He heard them design a "three-by-one" formation where the receivers would run slant patterns.

Brady dropped back to pass on a first-and-ten.

His espionage also enabled Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson, who was in slot coverage, to perfectly time his unblocked blindside blitz. A defensive end dropped back into the coverage lane that the blitzing Woodson had vacated.

As Brady brought the ball up to throw, he realized the backslide slant was covered and tried to bring the ball down. As he was doing so, his former college teammate Woodson lunged and struck Brady from the side, knocking the ball free onto the snow-covered field.

Oakland linebacker Greg Biekert recovered at the Oakland 47. New England was out of timeouts. The Raiders celebrated. Game over.

They were moving on to the AFC Championship.

Not so fast, my friends.

Had the play happened before the two-minute warning, the Patriots would not have been able to challenge under the ‘red flag’ challenge system the NFL had instituted for instant replay in 1999. A team needed a timeout to challenge a call, and the Patriots had used all their timeouts to stop the clock on defense as they tried to get the ball back.

The red flag would have stayed tucked in Belichick’s sock.

The officials had been trained to call this kind of play a fumble on the field because it could then be reviewed, rather than ruling it an incompletion, which stops the play.

Replay official Rex Stuart ordered a video review. In those days, the head referee would go under the hood to review the play and come to a decision. The standard to overturn a call was that it required “indisputable video evidence.”

Coleman went under the hood. (click on video to see the play and the call).

Brady did not know the rule, thought the game was over, and that he had made a grave mistake.

Belichick, on the other hand, knew the rule because it had worked against the Patriots earlier that season.

Earlier that season, in Week 2, the same game where Mo Lewis knocked out Bledsoe with a hit that caused internal bleeding he could easily have died from, the Patriots lost in part due to the Tuck Rule. In the second quarter, the Patriots seemed to have forced a fumble from Jets QB Vinny Testaverde that was overturned on the Tuck Rule.

It wasn’t the only time that year the Tuck Rule was applied. Reports vary, but the rule was typically applied 10 to 15 times per season between 1999, when it went into effect, and 2013, when it was finally killed.

Colmean knew right away it was an incompletion.

But when he came back to the field, he butchered the explanation. He said the quarterback’s arm was going forward rather than explaining that it was not fully back into his body.

After The Play

After the incompletion, the Patriots would pick up just seven more yards to set up a fourth-and-three from the 35-yard line. Their kicker, Adam Vinatieri, had missed four of his last five attempts from a similar distance, and now he was kicking on a slippery, snow-covered field.

The recently elected Hall of Famer made what many consider the best kick in NFL history (click to see video).

The Patriots would win the coin toss in overtime and drive down the field. Vinatieri then kicked a 23-yard game-winning field goal.

After the Final Whistle

Less than a month later, Raiders coach Jon Gruden was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for two first-round draft picks, and the Buccaneers would beat the Raiders in the Super Bowl. The Raiders, as a franchise, have not won a playoff game since that Super Bowl in 2003.

Walt Coleman would never officiate another Raiders game again, as the NFL feared for his safety if he were to.

Charles Woodson still refers to it as the worst call in NFL history.

Brady would go on to win a Super Bowl with the Bucs, but only after winning six with the Patriots, including authoring a game-winning drive against the Rams two weeks after the Tuck Rule game.

The call altered NFL history and spawned a dynasty. Twenty years of dominance. A country that hated them. A region that loved them.

It all started with the most important call in Boston (and New England) sports history.

Editor’s Take

In Thursday’s thrilling win, the Red Sox came back more times than Ben Affleck. They trailed at some point in every inning from the 3rd through the 12th before walking it off in the 13th.

The team that could not win now refuses to lose.

Friday, they pummeled the woeful Athletics 13-1 with Payton Tolle striking out 14 on a record-low 85 pitches.

They did finally lose on Saturday, but even then all of Fenway was anticipating a five-run bottom of the ninth capped by a tying grand slam from Eli White, who has all the power of a bowl of Ramen noodles.

We have reached the point of Winsanity.

Note - We will be referring to the recent 32-5 stretch as Winsanity to differentiate it from the first 78 games.

The original ‘Linsanity’ was not sustainable. Harvard grad Jeremy Lin morphed back into, well, Jeremy Lin.

The Red Sox are also not going to continue to play .842 ball, which over a full season would be a 136-26 record that would smash the all-time record of 116 wins. There has not surprisingly been some luck involved.

But that should not diminish how incredible, unprecedented, and downright fun the turnaround has been. Get a good look, Costanza, at the pair of graphics below.

The fastest ever part is also not close.

The executive summary version of the story behind the turnaround is as follows.

1). They stuck together during the toughest of times versus pointing fingers.

2). They started playing small ball and doing the little things like moving runners over. This helped them relax, gain confidence, and trust the next guy in the lineup to “Do his job”. They started scoring more runs this way.

3). Once everyone stopped trying to be the hero and hit home runs, they stopped pressing so much on offense, relaxed, and the home runs started flowing like cheap beer at a frat party.

4). The already strong pitching and defense got even better. The pitching got even stingier in terms of not allowing home runs, and the strikeout and walk rates improved.

5. They started believing in themselves. Like really believing.

And then, to quote the wise ancient parquet philosopher Confucius Garnett, “Anything is possible!”

Only he didn’t mean this much anything.

This has been downright absurd.

A 15-game winning streak plus a 9-game winning streak.

27 wins in 30 games.

32 wins in 37 games.

Going from 14 under .500 to 13 over .500 in 37 games and 44 days.

Going from 15.5 GB of the Yankees to .5 GB in that same period (1.5 GB after Saturday)

It does help that over that same period, the Yankees have—well, how do we put this—oh wait, I got it—sucked.

Or if you prefer more of a man-on-the-street perspective, check this out.

(Click in the tweet to see the video — warning: NSFW language.)

The Two Biggest Changes

The two biggest changes have been:

1). They are hitting more runs and allowing fewer.

2). A two-run deficit is no longer a sure loss.

Before, when the Sox got down by two or more runs, they curled up into a ball and cried for Mommy.

Now, they spit in the face of two-run deficits.

They came back from down two or more runs three times in Thursday night’s game alone.

Let’s go deeper, though, into what exactly has changed, why, how sustainable it is, and a predicted end-of-season record.

Run Production (aka hitting)

Let’s start with the results on offense and then dig into root causes and sustainability.

The Red Sox have gone from scoring 3.94 runs per game to 5.61.

The magic number for this team is four or more.

During Winsanity, they are 29-0 when scoring four or more runs. They have scored four or more runs in 76% of their games versus 46% over the first 78 games.

Now let’s dig into two underlying drivers.

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Playing small-ball

As with most things in life, change did not take hold immediately. Interim manager Chad Tracy made it a point early in his tenure to tell some players to look for opportunities to bunt. Players like Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu embraced the new philosophy realizing the Red Sox needed ways to score runs when the power was not coming.

This new identity started to take hold, and the Red Sox offense improved some, but in fits and starts, beginning in late May. But it has really taken hold during Winsanity.

The old get ‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in approach has really taken hold during this stretch. By scoring some runs with small-ball, hitters felt less pressure, which helped the power start flowing.

Swinging at Better Pitches

Getting a good pitch to hit was Ted Williams’ first rule of hitting.

Things have not changed in this regard since baseball was first played.

When you swing at strikes and lay off balls, the quality of contact goes up, and you walk more. That is exactly what has happened, and that has been a constant message from Chad Tracy and his coaching staff that the players have executed far better during their torrid stretch.

Better to be lucky AND good

You don’t have a 32-5 stretch without some luck, and there has indeed been some for the Red Sox. The contact quality has been better, but the results have been even better than would be expected based on that contact quality, meaning there has been some luck too (this data is through Friday, Saturday’s was not yet available).

Going Forward: The offense will likely revert back to scoring in the higher end of four to five runs per game. The current offense’s true ability is around 4.5 runs per game, but if you add in Adley Rutschman and at some point Roman Anthony and perhaps even Curtis Mead, let’s predict they score 4.7 runs per game, which is a top ten offense, though not as good as they have been during this stretch.

As noted though, with the Sox pitching staff, that is more than enough to win and win big.

So let’s talk about that pitching staff.

Run Prevention (aka Pitching and Defense)

Run prevention has been a strength all season. The pitching and defense have been very good all year. Still, during Winsanity, they have taken it to the next level, and just as with run scoring, the improved run prevention has been a combination of skill plus some luck.

The three most important metrics in pitching are strikeout rate, walk rate, and ground ball rate. The Sox have improved on all three, but especially ground ball rate, and ground balls are almost never home runs, so not surprisingly the home runs allowed are way down as well.

The ground balls are also leading to more double plays.

They have also gotten somewhat lucky. The three metrics below have been shown to represent luck for pitchers more than skill (through Friday’s game).

Given the luck, the expectation going forward would be that they allow around 3.8 runs per game. Given the number of innings some members of the bullpen have pitched and assuming some bumps from injuries, since pitchers always get hurt, let’s bump that up to 3.8, which would still be the 2nd best in baseball.

The Prediction

I have predicted absolutely nothing right about this team yet. I was in the “Fire Breslow” crowd, even if not yet in the “Sell-the-Team” crew.

But I am not going to let that stop me from being wrong again, so here goes.

A team that scores 4.7 runs per game and allows 3.8 runs per game wins roughly six in ten games, which would have the Red Sox going 27-19 the rest of the season to finish 91-71.

The way the Yankees are going, that likely has them hosting New York at Fenway in the Wild Card round, but unlikely to pass Tampa Bay to win the division.

⚾ Boston Red Sox

64-52, 3rd Place AL East, 6.0 GB, 2nd Wild Card, +5.5 Ahead

Take The Interim Tag Off

It is past time to take the interim tag off Chad Tracy and make him the Red Sox manager. Craig Breslow should announce that Chad Tracy is the full-fledged permanent manager of the Boston Red Sox, and there is nothing interim about it.

I guess all managers are technically interim, but I think you get the idea.

Clint Hurdle, who managed the Pirates and Rockies, had an interesting post on LinkedIn about being a Major League manager.

The crowd sees the decisions during the game.

Who to bring in from the bullpen? When to challenge a call? When to pinch hit? When to pinch run?

And those do matter.

But the far more important ones are made when nobody is watching.

How do I build this player’s confidence?

How do I hold this player to account?

When do I give this player a pass (e.g. Willson Contreras not running out a ground ball yesterday when he was clearly playing sick).

How do I keep a scuffling team together?

That last one has been the most important.

On June 22nd, the Red Sox had just lost to the Colorado Rockies, dropping to 31-45. They had lost in heartbreaking fashion, with normally lockdown closer Aroldis Chapman blowing a rare lead.

Tracy couldn’t sleep. He hates team meetings, but he wanted to let the players know he had their backs.

He sent a middle-of-the-night message to the entire team from his hotel room in Denver.

The substance, per his own recounting: he wasn’t going to turn on them, he’d been where they were, and they’d get through it together.

Several players named it as the tone-shifter.

Two days later, the Red Sox plane had issues leaving Denver and did not arrive in Boston until 3 AM. Tracy told the players to sleep in, arrive late, and skip batting practice even though they were facing then-Cy Young favorite Cam Schittler that night. It was not a conventional move for a manager, but he relied on judgment instead of convention.

Winsanity began that day.

Several players have also shared that Tracy brings a steady calm presence to the dugout

Caleb Durbin and others have noted he is the same man win or lose, which Durbin says matters especially in this market, versus say Milwaukee. Interim third base coach Chad Epperson describes Tracy as attached to the team’s heartbeat.

He has also helped steer many of the offensive improvements noted above, including the emphasis on small ball that triggered the offensive turnabout.

He gets along and appears to be in sync with the front office, which is hardly a given. See Cora, Alex.

51 different players have played for the Red Sox this year. MLB.com lists eleven coaches. Tracy has deftly managed many different personalities and skillfully known when to let the veterans lead, like Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras did after the Orioles snapped Boston’s 15-game winning streak.

You now see on a nightly basis how close this team is. That chemistry does not happen by accident and it certainly was not the case in April. A big part of leadership is creative the conditions for the team to be successful and Tracy has done that.

Tracy also deftly handles the media, threading the difficult needle between candor and protecting his players. That matters a lot in Boston.

This epic run speaks for itself. Tracy deserves to keep the job based on results alone.

He deserves it all the more given the circumstances.

Tracy became manager mid-crisis. The Red Sox were reeling. They had just fired Alex Cora and his coaching staff, including franchise icon Jason Varitek (technically reassigned).

The firings were handled so sloppily that Cora and his staff were shuttled to the airport in Baltimore by a local transport company called of all things, Coaches4Hire.

Tracy had been voted by his peers in the International League as the league’s best prospect as a Manager in 2023 and 2024. But being voted most likely to succeed and being tossed headfirst into a shitstorm are two very different things.

Tracy was replacing a friend in Alex Cora, who had played for Chad’s father Jim when Jim managed.

And things only got worse. The Red Sox were seven games under when Cora was fired, and in Tracy’s first two months, they added another seven to the deficit.

The offense was listless.

Roman Anthony was injured and couldn’t swing a bat.

Garrett Crochet has been out since the day Tracy replaced Cora.

They were facing withering criticism.

They were facing a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

There were calls, including from here, to sell off players before the trade deadline.

The team plane was bought at IKEA and assembled by a hungover college kid in his dorm room.

Doogie Howser was the team doctor.

They had Marcelo Mayer.

Things were bleak.

It would have been very easy for it to come apart at the seams.

Instead, Tracy has taken them from the Porta Potty to the penthouse.

The Red Sox turnaround and the job Tracy has done should become a Harvard Business School case study in leadership.

Perhaps until this point, Craig Breslow or ownership did not want to take the interim tag off Tracy when it was unclear if Breslow would be his boss next year. Would a new POBO want his own guy, in the same way Breslow would likely not have selected Alex Cora if the choice had been his.

I believe Breslow will now be back next year, and frankly, he should be thanking Tracy for saving his job.

Now Breslow, Sam Kennedy and John Henry should remove the interim tag and name Chad Tracy the permanent manager of the Boston Red Sox.

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Sunday Notes

Beating The Clock

With the trade deadline this week, one of the more famous trades in Red Sox history was the trade of local icon Nomar Garciaparra. Someone at Fenway this week said she would like Nomar to get one last at-bat in the Big Leagues to see whether he could beat the pitch clock. The consensus was no.

Going Camping

We are planning to take a family voyage to Foxborough this week to attend Patriots training camp. My son really wants to go and try to get autographs.

I want nothing to do with Route 1, and the forecasted high temperature is 87 degrees.

These are the things you do for your kids.

In the plus column, I think they sell beer, and it is five o’clock somewhere.

It will be a joint practice with the Colts, open to the public. Apparently there are games and skills challenges-type things for the kids, the players sign autographs after practice, and of course, there is merch for sale.

As far as I know, Philip Rivers will not be there and is planning to stay retired.

But, then again, he might be ready for a break from his ten kids, and he would probably be good at the skills challenges even at 45.

The joint practice should give the players a spark after playing against each other all camp. It also sounds like Drake Maye and the first team are a lot more likely to play against the Colts in the joint practice sessions than they are in the preseason games.

If anyone has been, hit me up with some suggestions.

For those who have not been, I will provide a review of it next week.

Roster Projection Season

A lot will change between now and then with injuries, pickups from other teams, etc., but 98/5 did its first roster projection

A few highlights:

• The Sports Hub is projecting they only keep three running backs: Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson are locks. They project Terrell Jennings to beat out Jam Miller and Lan Lairson for the third spot, with the latter two as practice squad candidates. I want to see Jam because they could play Jam On It when he scores. Bonus points if you know the group without looking it up.

• They are still projecting a Kayshon Boutte trade. I don’t get that at all. He has been one of their top receivers in camp, and the asking price is supposedly a fifth-round pick. He was Drake Maye’s best deep threat last season, and Drake throws a glorious and accurate deep ball. Put Efton Chism III on the practice squad if you have to, even though you risk losing him.

• There is a cornerback in camp named Kindle Victor. Good practice for Drake Maye in reading defenses.

I’ll be here all week.

Actually, I won’t be, but we do three standing weekly series, with links to this week’s versions below.

This Week in Basketball by Tyler Rourke - for Celtics fans, Tyler knows ball.

Throwback Thursdays - a new series on Boston sports history with this week’s edition featuring a similar turnaround to the one the Red Sox have made.

The Friday Funnies - sports comedy from throughout the week.

Breslow Makes a Funny

(Click within to watch video)

Keys to the Game

Fantasy Football is Back Part I

(Click within to watch video) - or maybe don’t

Fantasy Football is Back Part II

(Click within to watch video) - definitely do

Everybody Dance Now

(Click within to watch video)

The Red Sox Are Rolling

(Click within to watch video)

Editor’s Note: The Red Sox win last night reminded me of a similar type of victory

If The Glove Fits, Wear It

It was the worst of times. It was the best of times.

And it shifted from worst to best much faster than in a Charles Dickens novel.

The Red Sox are currently on a remarkable run. No team in Major League Baseball history has ever gone from 14 games under .500 to 11 games over .500 faster than the 2026 Boston Red Sox. They have done so in 35 games.

Only eight teams had ever made this climb at all.

But we are not here to talk about this year’s Red Sox. We have done a lot of that already.

In the inaugural edition of The Boston Throwback Thursdays, we are here to talk about the team that was the second fastest to make that climb.

The second fastest to do so was also a Boston team — the 1914 Boston Braves.

Known as “The Miracle Braves,” it took them 40 games.

They were a group of characters who make the famed 2004 band of ‘Idiots’ look like schoolmarms.

They had players nicknamed Rabbit, Possum, and The Crab.

Possum was acquired mid-season in a trade for a pitcher nicknamed Squash.

They threw spitballs, had boys as human mascots, had fans in the outfield, and had unreliable gloves, not in the manner of Rafael Devers, as in the actual glove, which had no webbing and was designed to block balls to protect players’ hands rather than catch them.

And their logo makes the Tomahawk Chop look politically correct.

On July 4th, the Braves had a record of 26-40. They were dead last in the National League, 15 games behind John McGraw’s legendary New York Giants.

By August 20th, they had reached 58-47, going 11 games above .500. They would continue the upward trajectory, going 36-12 over the remainder of the season to finish the year at a remarkable 35 games over .500 and win the pennant going away by 10.5 games.

Then they swept the Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series.

The last two games were played at Fenway Park.

Their remarkable run sparked such demand for tickets that, starting on August 1st, they began playing select games, mostly on Saturday, at the recently opened Fenway Park, which had a standard seating capacity around 24,000 versus the Braves’ South End Grounds (technically South End Grounds III if you want them to sound more aristocratic).

By September 7th, Boston was in such a frenzy for the Braves that they moved all their games to Fenway. The OG “Fever Pitch” peaked with over 39,000 fans attending the afternoon game of a doubleheader on September 9th (a mere 35,000 showed for the morning game).

By the time of the World Series, with standing-room-only patrons packed into Fenway, including thousands who stood in the outfield grass (more on that later), approximately 35,000 saw the Braves clinch their sweep of the 1914 World Series at Fenway Park.

Dismissed and Disrespected

In much the same way that some are dismissing the 2026 Red Sox streak because they still have some holes in the batting order, the 1914 Braves were dismissed and disrespected.

When it became apparent that the Athletics would face the Braves in the World Series, legendary A’s manager Connie Mack told his ace pitcher Charles “Chief” Bender to take a week off and go scout the Braves.

Bender instead went on a vacation.

Asked to explain himself, Bender said he saw no reason to scout a bunch of bush league hitters.

In a sense, he was not wrong. Braves hitters had a combined 92 OPS+, meaning as a team they were 8% below league average, while Athletics hitters were 14% above league average.

But they dominated the Athletics thanks to, wait for it, pitching and defense. The mighty Athletics, who had outscored the Braves during the season by nearly 100 runs, scored just six runs in four games.

They also had a very innovative manager, George Stallings, who briefly went to medical school before getting into baseball. He started using platooning as an offensive weapon, 16 years before Earl Weaver was even born.

In a time when players were moving more towards specializing in one position, he played “Possum” as a super-utility player who did everything but pitch and catch.

The Rabbit and The Crab

Walter “Rabbit” Maranville was a 5’5” shortstop known as the Ozzie Smith of his day. Nicknamed Rabbit for his floppy ears and the distinctive way he fielded ground balls, he is still the all-time career leader in assists and putouts, had more than 2,600 hits, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame six months after his death in 1954.

He is also known for inventing the “basket catch,” where he would clasp his hands at his waist to catch the ball bare-handed.

His record is all the more incredible considering he spent many nights drunk. There are stories of him walking on hotel ledges and even jumping off bridges to avoid the police.

He was also a legendary prankster. He once jumped into a hotel fountain fully clothed and came up with a goldfish between his teeth. He had one of his teammates chase him through Times Square on a road trip, yelling, “Stop, thief.” A number of other New Yorkers then joined in the chase.

When he later managed the 1925 Cubs, his one rule was no player could go to bed BEFORE him.

He was fired after 53 games.

Maranville finished 2nd in the NL Chalmers Award (the MVP) in 1914 despite making 65 errors and hitting just .246.

After the 1914 Series, Maranville and several teammates took a vaudeville act on the road — songs, anecdotes, and re-enactments of Series plays. In Lewiston, Maine, he announced he would demonstrate how he stole second off Bullet Joe Bush. He sprinted from an imaginary first base, slid, misjudged the stage, and landed on a drum in the orchestra pit.

He broke his leg.

While Maranville was known as the funniest player in the league, his double-play partner Johnny Evers was known as the sourest.

Evers was the second baseman in the famed Tinkers to Evers to Chance double-play combination. He teamed with Maranville to turn 92 double plays for the 1914 Braves.

Evers won the 1914 Chalmers Award despite being ejected from nine games that season. He fought with umpires, opponents, and teammates.

He had reason to be sour.

In 1910, his daughter died. He lost his life savings in a failed business. He was the driver in a car crash that killed his best friend.

He then had a nervous breakdown.

Then he got pneumonia.

He still played in 125 games, had ad an OBP of .413, and drew 108 walks versus 18 strikeouts.

Through a complex series of events that ultimately led to Evers becoming the equivalent of baseball’s first free agent. He signed with the Braves for $25,000 with incentives that could push it to a league-high $40,000. He had never been on a team that finished lower than third place, so he provided some optimism for the club, despite their lack of hitting, especially from their outfielders. The rosiest projections had the Braves finishing fourth in the eight-team National League.

A World War Breaks Out

In the midst of the Braves’ historic turnaround, World War I broke out.

On June 28th, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. Exactly a month later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

Hank Gowdy, the primary catcher on the 1914 team, had a .545 average in the World Series. He had been sent to the minors the year before to learn how to catch. He is considered by many to be one of the best catchers ever not to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He later became the first Major League player to enlist for World War I and is the only Major Leaguer to have fought in both World War I and World War II.

In August of 1915, catalyzed by the 1914 season, the Braves opened a new stadium, Braves Field, which held more than 40,000 spectators. Because it had a greater seating capacity than Fenway, the 1915 and 1916 Red Sox actually played their World Series at the larger Braves Field.

Braves Field was the largest stadium in baseball until Yankee Stadium opened in 1923.

Yankee Stadium was often called “The House That Ruth Built.” Part of the old stadium ground is now used by Boston University Athletics as Nickerson Field.

Perhaps it should be referred to as “The House That Rabbit Built.”

By Tyler Rourke

A Big-Time Regret

The Celtics had quite an interesting offseason, highlighted by shipping off Jaylen Brown, a player who had been with the team for a decade. During the time the rumors surrounding his name were circulating, not once did the Philadelphia 76ers pop up.

This goes to show that rumors are just that: rumors. Nobody actually knows who is interested in whom, and the best you can do is make an educated guess.

While Brown was eventually traded for Paul George, Boston fans and likely basketball fans in general were taken aback by how lopsided the trade immediately seemed. Fast-forward a month or so to the present day, and the trade still seems just as bad to most.

To me, what really stings isn’t the trade we made, but the trade we didn’t make – and the reasoning behind why we didn’t make it.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was right there. He was within arm’s reach. With the negativity surrounding Brown’s name and Giannis seemingly wanting out of Milwaukee at the same time, it seemed like a no-brainer: acquire Giannis and give Brown the keys to a franchise. But that didn’t happen. So, where did it go wrong?

Enter Hugo Gonzalez.

Gonzalez's energy on the defensive side of the ball made him seem “untouchable.” But he scored 3.9 points per game.

This is a decision that I think the Celtics will absolutely regret. Milwaukee had every right to ask for Gonzalez alongside Brown. A player like Giannis demands a strong return, and in my opinion, the Bucks weren’t being greedy.

Gonzalez showed limited offensive upside, and the Celtics should not have let him be the deciding factor in acquiring a top-25 player of all time to put alongside Jayson Tatum.

Could Chef Curry Cook in Boston?

Last week, I reported that the Celtics had the money to match Stephen Curry’s salary. While it was mostly a pipe dream, there were some factors I didn’t consider that could make it a more realistic possibility.

Number one was the Warriors’ stagnant offseason. They were the only team in the NBA to neither make a trade nor sign a new player this offseason. This is usually the case for teams entering their prime, not teams that are setting records for how old they are.

Stephen Curry has remained one of the most loyal players to a team in NBA history, but his time is running out. A report that Curry is motivated to win his fifth ring came out not too long ago, but the Warriors then struck out on LeBron James.

There is no doubt that Curry may be frustrated with the offseason the Warriors have had, essentially adding no help alongside him while Jimmy Butler is expected to be sidelined for most of the season.

Now, the chatter surrounding Steph and the Celtics has picked up.

Brad Stevens has not called the Warriors, but would do so given the opportunity. With all the crazy things that have happened this offseason, Curry to Boston would be the biggest.

Curry and the Warriors defeated Boston back in 2022, so seeing him in Celtic green would be a bit unsettling. But hey, after missing out on Giannis, acquiring Steph would be the next best option.

Back to School

For the ones who follow both the NBA and college basketball, this part is for you. Celtics second-round pick Dillon Mitchell is reportedly deciding whether to return to St. John’s and take their final roster spot, or begin developing at the NBA level.

Mitchell looked great in Summer League, especially for a second-round pick. However, with the new rules surrounding college basketball, eligibility, and NIL, Mitchell’s best bet may be returning to St. John’s. I do, however, think Mitchell could be a valuable piece for Boston right away.

Unfortunately, this is what the new age of the NBA is turning into. Eighteen- to 22-year-olds are being offered life-changing money to stay in college. Mitchell has the option to return for a fifth year and become one of the best players in college basketball, while likely making more than his rookie-scale contract would pay him. The Celtics would still retain his rights even if he goes back to St. John’s for a fifth year as what is referred to as a domestic “draft and stash.”

His two biggest trade deadline acquisitions (counting Curtis Mead) won't give them an immediate jolt. Mead was not good before this year. Adley Rutschman has tapered off over the past several years after a hugely promising start to his career.

I really liked what the Red Sox did at the trade deadline.

Huh? Didn’t you just tell me they overpaid for some risky players?

Here’s why:

Craig Breslow grew a pair.

He channeled his inner Dave Dombrowski and traded away some precious prospects to improve the Major League club.

He wasn’t the interest king who ‘checked in’ more often than Florence Nightingale.

He didn’t piss in a mug and try to pass it off as a Treehouse IPA by saying Roman Anthony returning would be their big trade deadline acquisition

He didn’t yell shrinkage because the trade pool was cold.

He didn’t end up with Dustin May and Steven Matz.

Did they overpay? Likely.

Did they make the 2026 and 2027 Boston Red Sox better? Undoubtedly.

And while they gave up their two best pitching prospects, they did not give up their two best hitting prospects in Franklin Arias and Justin Gonzales.

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Let’s assume they make the playoffs, and that Curtis Mead and Roman Anthony both return in late September (which doesn’t seem crazy). You would now have this lineup:

On the bench, you would have Andruw Monasterio (he just is not a shortstop defensively, but is passable at the other infield positions, and you could DH him against lefties with Anthony moving to LF), Masataka Yoshida to pinch hit, Eli White to pinch run and play defense, with Connor Wong as a backup catcher.

This assumes Trevor Story at shortstop instead of Franklin Arias, though I don’t think the latter is out of the question by any stretch. But I also don’t assume rookies with two months above Double-A are starting in the playoffs.

Now let’s look at the potential playoff pitching staff:

The Risks

Fortune favors the bold; it does not favor the stupid.

So let’s talk about the potential risks. Note that there is certainly a risk that Mead is not back in time for the playoffs, but I don’t think it is fair to penalize Breslow because Mead was hit by a pitch and fractured his wrist.

1). There is no 2027 season.

If the players are still credited with a year of service time, which would mean Rutschman is still a free agent after 2027, then this is a very costly rental. There is a good argument to be made that if they were in the market for a rental, the price they paid for Rutschman was greater than the price the Dodgers paid for Tarik Skubal, and I would certainly rather have added Skubal.

You mitigate this risk by signing Rutschman to a long-term contract. The good news here is he is not represented by Scott Boras, who strongly favors players becoming free agents. He is represented by an agency called The TEAM, which has negotiated extensions for Tyler Glasnow after he was traded to the Dodgers and Zack Wheeler with the Phillies.

The Red Sox will need to pay up for Rutschman, but they will have an opportunity to do so. Rutschman will turn 30 right before the 2028 season, so he still seems within the age window where the Red Sox would be open to a long-term deal.

2) Mead goes back to sucking, and Rutschman’s decline is real.

This is where I start leaning on Statcast data.

Mead’s numbers this year are not a fluke. Development is not linear. He was a top 40 prospect, so he has some pedigree and clearly had untapped potential. Mead’s combination of barrel rate, strikeout rate, and walk rate bodes quite well and he is controllable for 4 more years.

Rutschman is a clear upgrade over both Carlos Narvaez and Connor Wong, who have been splitting the catching duties for Boston. He brings far more to the table offensively than either Boston backstop and is in the 96th percentile in fielding run value, while Wong is in the 9th percentile. The Red Sox have upgraded what has been a clear weakness.

Defense is critical at catcher. Rutschman is the rare catcher who excels at blocking, framing, and catching runners stealing. Being strong defensively means Rutschman’s floor is high even if his hitting does not improve.

He was the first overall pick in the draft ahead of Bobby Witt, and was an excellent hitter his first two years in the Majors, so he may well hit too. Assuming he stays healthy, which is a real risk, they likely have an All-Star catcher next year.

3). The prospects the Red Sox traded away become stars.

The biggest risk here is undoubtedly Eyanson, the #2 prospect behind Franklin Arias. He has a minuscule 1.32 ERA and 94 strikeouts across 68 innings in High-A and Double-A this year.

That said, he is 21 years old, is averaging around 4 IP per game, and has walked 4.2//9 in Double-A.

#3 prospect Kyson Witherspoon is struggling in High-A, and there are some rumors he has not taken well to their coaching. #5 prospect Enddy Azocar is toolsy, but 19.

And in case you don’t recall, the Red Sox top 3 prospects not very long ago were Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell. Anthony has been hurt for all but one month since last September, Campbell is in Triple-A, and the front office traded Mayer away yesterday to the Giants for a reliever, and based on what they leaked to reporters about him sulking when he struggled, having an entitled attitude and not playing through nagging injuries, they might as well have just called him a “whiny little bitch.”

He is also always hurt and hasn’t shown he could hit at the Major League level.

Odds are one of these prospects will become a good Major League player, perhaps even a very good one, but consider these names when valuing #2, #4 and #5 prospects. These rankings are from MLB Pipeline.

Take a peek at the #1s as well.

The Red Sox Top 12 prospects in 2023:

The Red Sox top 12 prospects in 2020

The Red Sox top 12 prospects in 2017

One out of the nine, one (Devers), has been a hit. He and Mayer together in San Francisco ought to make for an interesting clubhouse.

So it is not without risk, but by taking those risks, Breslow also sent the right message to the coaches and players in the dugout who have scratched and clawed their way to 28 wins in their last 33 games, including a weekend sweep of the Dodgers. They have now swept four teams that led their division at the time of the sweep (Yankees, Rays, White Sox, and the almighty Dodgers).

Consider this recent quote from their ace Sonny Gray:

The most important thing for winning teams and winning organizations is that it's not just the guys in the clubhouse that expect to win." [

For the first time since the Mookie Betts trade, the front office showed not just that it expects to win, but that it is actually committed to winning. That is more important than any individual deal and why, despite the risks, I like what the Red Sox did at the trade deadline.

Don’t call it a comeback.

Actually, hell yes, call it a comeback.

A lost season was found.

A season to forget became a year to remember.

At the end of June, the Red Sox were 37-47, good for a .440 winning percentage. They were routed 10-2 by Washington on July 1st. A series loss to the Nationals undercut the good vibes from sweeping the Yankees in late June. And their best hitter, Willson Contreras, was facing a suspension for his run-in with Cade Cavalli.

And then they were reborn on the 4th of July.

The Red Sox went 21-4 in July — the best month any team has posted from .500 or worse in July or later since the 1916 New York Giants, and the only time it's been done by a team as far underwater as Boston was.

In fact, it remains the second best month, excluding April, of any team that entered the month with a losing record, among nearly six thousand team months.

But the record is only part of the story. It was how they won. And who they beat.

They swept two division leaders in Tampa Bay and the White Sox. They beat the Dodgers on Friday night to close out the month.

And then they beat them again Saturday night to get the party started in August.

They came back. They played small ball. They finally got some long balls too.

They won all five games Willson Contreras missed due to suspension. They got contributions from unsung heroes like Andruw Monasterio and Tyron Guerrero (more on him in the Red Sox section).

Tsung Che-Cheng saved the day on defense. Caleb Durbin hit clutch home runs.

On the mound, Jake Bennett emerged to the point where the Red Sox were comfortable trading away Connelly Early. Sonny Gray continued to shine.

The bullpen was more lights-out than teenagers drinking in the woods.

Opening the aperture even further, over their last 32 games, Boston is 27-5, including 12-0 against teams leading their division at the time they played the Red Sox (4 vs. the Yankees and Rays, 3 vs. the White Sox, 2 vs. the Dodgers). Their odds of making the playoffs are now 81.4% according to Fangraphs, 10x what they were prior to this stretch.

If baseball had a hot-crazy matrix, they are in the far upper right.

It was not all candy canes and lollipops. Curtis Mead lasted all of two at-bats before a hit-by-pitch resulted in a fractured wrist. Garrett Crochet is still not throwing. Roman Anthony was banished to Fort Myers and is now swinging a bat, which sounds like progress until you consider he was also doing that as a three-year-old.

Jarren Duran is still scuffling.

The offense is still a work in progress. The focus is now on what they will do at the trade deadline.

But let’s not gloss over that this was really flippin’ fun.

Fenway was electric. The juice was back.

Even Felger was sort of satisfied.

The dog days of August are coming.

There will likely be a playoff race in September.

And there may even be October baseball at Fenway in 2026.

But even if there is not, we’ll always have July.

⚾ Boston Red Sox

58-51, 3rd Place AL East, 3.0 GB, 2nd Wild Card, +3.0 (through 7/31)

Red Sox flamethrowing reliever Tyron Guerrero did not grow up playing travel ball like some of his teammates, but he sure has traveled to play ball.

He talked to God while traveling through snake-filled grass at midnight in Colombia.

He traversed Venezuela, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic to pursue his dream.

He traveled twice to Japan after lost seasons at Triple-A, where he walked the house, and then the neighbor’s house too.

And now at age 35, after 17 years in professional baseball, he has come to Boston in the springtime and helped the Red Sox bring summer back to New England.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Guerrero grew up in Bocachica, a village of about 9,000 on Tierra Bomba Island off Cartagena in Colombia.

No cars. No running water. No roads. No Major League baseball players.

In 2007, as a 16-year-old, Guerrero was walking past his grandparents’ house and stopped out of curiosity when he saw his grandfather watching a game on TV. It was Game 4 of the 2007 World Series between the Red Sox and Colorado Rockies.

He watched the last inning or two, including seeing Jonathan Papelbon clinch Boston’s second title in four years by striking out Seth Smith.

He was hooked. He was also 16 and had never played baseball before.

He told MassLive’s Christopher Smith, “That night I watched the Red Sox win the championship. The next day I’m like, ‘I want to play baseball.”

“I fell in love with this team (the Red Sox),” he said. “This team inspired me to play baseball.”

He would wake up at 5:30 AM to take a 20-minute ferry to the mainland, practice basketball until noon and baseball until late at night, and then had to get home. The ferry stopped running at 6 p.m., so he took a smaller boat back to the island and walked two hours through the woods to get home.

I wouldn’t get home until midnight, and I could hear the owls, and I could see some snakes. All I had was a stick in my hand to cut through the grass, which reached up to my ribs. I would talk to God the whole way home, and I still use that as motivation every day, so that I can be successful and take my family out of Bocachica.— Tyron Guerrero, to Baseball America in 2017

Little did Guerrero know the Red Sox had also won a World Series with a shortstop from Cartagena by the name of Orlando Cabrera.

In 2009, the Padres signed the 18-year-old Guerrero. He was 6-foot-6, 190 pounds, and only threw 83 mph. He is now 6-foot-8 and 225 pounds and has reached 104 mph.

Before this season, he had last pitched in the Majors in 2019. That year, he walked 36 batters in 46 innings and had an ERA of 6.85 and a WHIP of 1.70. He walked 13.6% of batters, the 5th most among 316 pitchers who threw more than 100 innings across that span.

Not a recipe for success.

But he threw hard. In 2018-19, he had more 100 mph pitches than Aroldis Chapman.

And guys who throw that hard will keep getting chances.

So in 2021, he signed with the Chicago White Sox and had an ERA of 6.63 — in Triple-A.

He went to Japan for the 2022 season.

He pitched well enough that the Reds signed him in 2023.

His ERA in Triple-A was 11.51. He walked 22 batters in 22.2 innings.

He made Nuke Laloosh look like Greg Maddux.

He went to Mexico and played in the independent Mexican League.

The Angels signed him in 2024.

He cut his ERA in half from his last stint in Triple-A. The problem is it was still 5.73. He cut his WHIP by .5. The problem is it was still 1.76.

Still, he persevered.

He went back to Japan in 2025 and then pitched in the Dominican Winter League.

The Red Sox signed him on January 9th, his 35th birthday.

At the time, he went by Tayron Guerrero due to a clerical error.

And this year, things clicked.

In 19 innings in Worcester, he had a .92 ERA. He was regularly hitting triple digits with his sinker.

On May 22nd, he was called up to Boston. It was the 28th team he had played for in 17 years (including minor league and foreign teams). He had played for teams named the Chihuahuas, the Bees, the Hammerheads, the Jumbo Shrimp, and yes, the Baby Cakes. He has been an Emerald, a TrCap, a Marine, a Mission, a Gigante, and a Diablo Rojo.

And now he is a Sox, Rojo.

He throws more sinkers than any pitcher in the Majors with 20 or more innings. The sinker, which he throws 84% of the time, averages 100 mph and has reached 103.

More importantly, he can now control it. He has walked only three batters in 25 innings. He has a 2.16 ERA, including a .87 ERA in July.

And most impressively, for a pitcher who traveled the world and walked through grass up to his ribs, he is hardly walking anybody. He is throwing first pitch strikes to 2/3 of the hitters he faces.

His 2.9% walk rate is 3rd among the 454 pitchers who have thrown 20 or more innings so far this year.

Fourth is Tarik Skubal.

Last night he pitched a scoreless eighth inning to earn his 12th hold in Boston’s victory over Skubal’s new team, the Dodgers.

He admits it would have been easier to give up. But he does not see the seven years in between his stints in the Majors as lost time; he sees it as time he learned how to pitch.

When he got the call-up to the Red Sox, one of his two kids asked him if he was getting called up to the Majors.

Not only was the answer yes, but he was getting called up to the team that sparked his passion for baseball.

Best of all, he can walk on the grass at Fenway without worrying about snakes.

🏈 New England Patriots

You might remember this phrase from the Patriots dynasty.

Do your job.

It’s hard to do your job, though, when you are brand new to it. It is a good day if you can find the cafeteria and the bathroom. You are still learning your co-workers’ names.

The author of that mantra, Bill Belichick, knew it was not that simple. Especially for rookies. So he counted on players making what is known as the second-year leap.

“There will still be growth, but it will probably be a little more incremental than that big jump from Year 1 to Year 2. No different than when any of us took our first job and, after a year on the job, you just know a lot more than you did when you walked in there, and you don’t know anything. You think you do, but you really don’t.”- Bill Belichick

Note he is not talking about his tenure in Chapel Hill.

Nor was he talking about Jordon Hudson, though she did make a second-year leap out of her crib.

Nope, Bill said this back in August of 2022 about Mac Jones, Rhamondre Stevenson and Christian Barmore.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

But he also could have been talking about Patriots quarterback Drake Maye's leap in 2025 from an exciting but mistake-prone rookie to MVP runner-up. Unlike Jones, Maye had an offensive coordinator who did not go around with a number two pencil behind his ear.

Maye looks poised to take another leap and is now comfortable in Josh McDaniels’ offense. He has an improved receiving core with A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs.

But how good the Patriots are this year will hinge on some key players making that second-year leap, particularly on offense. So let’s go through the position groups and discuss why some players might make the second-year leap and why they might not.

Offensive Line

Will Campbell and Jared Wilson are the players who most need to make the second-year leap for the Patriots to get back to the Super Bowl.

The hope is that Campbell struggled in the playoffs last year because he was still dealing with the knee injury that sidelined him at the end of the regular season, rather than because he was just outmatched by more physically talented pass rushers. His overall Pro Football Focus (PFF) grades from the regular season would support that notion.

Wilson was miscast as a guard and will now move back to his natural center position, which he played at Georgia.

They will benefit from the wisdom of the team’s oldest player, right tackle Morgan Moses. He wandered in the Sonoran desert for forty years before bringing the Microsoft Surface tablets down from the mountains in Sedona to mentor Campbell and Wilson.

So let’s look at each second-year man and see why they will or won’t make the leap.

Skill Positions

Running back TreVeyon Henderson showed flashes of brilliance last year with several game-breaking runs of fifty-plus yards. He is a home run hitter, but needs to get more consistent at picking up two yards on third-and-one and blocking for others. He also has untapped potential in the passing game as a third-down back, which also requires better pass protection.

The two sophomore wide receivers here are Kyle Williams, who showed promise as a serious deep threat in year one, and Efton Chism III, who showed the short-area quickness the Patriots like in their slot receivers. Williams will slot in behind A.J. Brown, Doubs, Mack Hollins and Kayshon Boutte, assuming the latter is still with the Patriots (he has been the star of training camp). Chism III is on the roster bubble and could spend time on the practice squad.

Defense

Craig Woodson was one of the more unsung players on the Patriots defense last year, serving as a glue guy on the back-end. He played the most defensive snaps on the team and was the leading tackler in the NFL in the playoffs. He also had zero interceptions as a safety (perhaps he has a future with the Jets).

Elijah Ponder has impressed in camp, while Joshua Farmer looks healthy.

Woodson is the best bet here to make the second-year leap, but look for Ponder to do so as well.

Special Teams

There is less of a second-year leap for kickers, but we will include him for the sake of thoroughness, and Bill loved him some special teams.

Borregales made his leap early in the season after it looked like he might get cut after missing several extra points.

Sunday Notes

How About Them Dogs?

Imagine the Celtics having a promotion where you got to play one-on-one against Jayson Tatum? Or the Red Sox where you got to try to hit off Aroldis Chapman?

Well, minor league baseball teams have to get creative in their promotions. And so the Hudson Valley Renegades did just that.

Like many minor league teams, the Renegades have adopted an alternate identity for some games (let’s not make this political, people). One of their alternate team names is the Hudson Valley Cider Donuts. But it was time to retire the Cider Donuts identity to undoubtedly sell more merchandise with a new one.

So the Renegades brought in none other than competitive eating champion Joey Chestnut and had local fans and team personnel compete against him in a cider donut eating contest. Chestnut inhaled 53 cider donuts in five minutes beating the second place finisher by a mere 40 donuts.

The Boston Sunday Sports Section was able to obtain some footage of this incredible event.

Fans could also pay $80 for an all you can eat buffet with hot dogs and hamburgers and a special meet and greet with Chestnut, who is doing a tour of minor league parks for similar promotions.

But let’s turn this up to eleven. Let’s have the Atlanta Braves bring in Chestnut for a hot dog eating contest called How ‘Bout Them Dogs. And then the top three finishers have to race against The Freeze.

And for any New Englanders who want to give this a go, Chestnut will be at Hadlock Field on August 20th for a Maine Bean Suppah Competition.

Don’t ask.

Going Lake

(click within tweet to watch video)

Speaking of Minor League Home Runs

One player Chestnut will not get to meet in Portland is Red Sox top prospect Franklin Arias, who was promoted to Triple-A Worcester. Arias has hit two home runs in his first 25 at bats with the WooSox and for the year is up to 21 home runs and a .982 OPS.

The Red Sox keep talking about finding a long-term answer at shortstop via trade. It would seem like they have one in Arias.

One player still in Portland is #2 prospect Anthony Eyanson. But he may not be there for long after collecting a career high ten strikeouts last night.

Hunted By Foulke

The Women’s Professional Baseball League began play yesterday with four teams. All the games this year are in Springfield, IL, but the four teams will all move to their home cities of Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco next year.

Yesterday in the league’s inagural game the Los Angeles Queens defeated the New York Heights 10-8.

The Boston Hunters play their first game tonight against the San Francisco Firebells.

The Hunters will be managed by Keith Foulke. Leading up to the start of the regular season the team did some of their training at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers.

Other managers in the league include former Giants All-Star Matt Williams, Eric Young and Rachelle “Rocky” Henley, a woman’s baseball pioneer.

It’s A Cruel Summer, Now They’re Gone

The Celtics finished up their Summer League with a 3-2 record. Hugo Gonzalez impressed with his court vision and scoring, and the two draft picks Chric Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell flashed their athleticism.

John Tonje parlayed a strong summer league performance into a two-way contract, while Amari Williams also showed some strengths as a rebounder and rim protector.

Perhaps Not The Best Nickname

The Squirrel

(click on tweet for video)

The Zoo

The Chief

Another Chief

Well, This One is Relatable

The Yankees Lose….The Yankees - Lose

Scoring a point??

Smelling The End Zone

(click on tweet for video)

And in conclusion

A team gets a curse put on it.

They lose in heartbreaking fashion time after time for three-quarters of a century.

Their fans are belittled by rival fans. For generations, they only know heartbreak.

And then they finally win! The curse is over!

The tears flow like wine.

Ground ball, stabbed by Foulke. . . Red Sox fans have longed to hear it…the next day’s newspaper brought to the gravesites of the parents and grandparents who thought this day would never come.

But I am not talking about the Red Sox.

I am talking about County Mayo of Gaelic football, Ireland’s version of the NFL.

The Irish version of the Super Bowl was played Sunday at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin. It had been seventy-five years since Mayo last won the championship.

After they won that 1951 championship, the boisterously celebrating team was riding back to Mayo in an open-top lorry (a truck). They passed a funeral procession in the town of Foxford. They reportedly failed to pull over, switch off their engine, and pay proper respect to a local funeral procession.

An aggrieved local Catholic priest was said to have placed a curse on the county, decreeing that Mayo would never win another All-Ireland title as long as any member of that 1951 team was still alive.

Paddy Pendergrast, the last surviving member of that team, died in 2021. On Sunday, Mayo was in its first Gaelic football final since Pendergrast passed.

And so on Sunday, as the Irish play-by-play announcer declared in his instant classic call to the end of the game, “The green and red of Mayo is about to be heard all over the world. . . seventy-five years of heartbreak is over.”

(Click on the tweet below to watch the video. It is well worth it.)

Of course, a Catholic priest putting a curse on you trumps the Curse of the Bambino or the Curse of the Billy Goat.

Mayo had been to the finals of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship eleven times between 1951 and Sunday’s final.

Eleven times they had lost.

And several of them in Buckner-like fashion.

• In 1996, Mayo led Meath late in the game. Meade clawed back to force a draw. When there is a draw, they replay the game. In the replay, a brawl broke out, and Mayo lost their discipline. Mayo lost in extra time.

• In 2013, victory again slipped away in the final minutes in a one-point loss to Dublin.

• In 2016, despite two bizarre first-half own goals, they fought back to force a draw with Dublin, only to lose the replay by a point.

• The following year, another loss in the final to Dublin, another one-point loss to Dublin after conceding a goal in the waning moments of injury time.

As you might expect, with each heart-wrenching loss, the legend of the curse grew.

I won’t pretend to know a thing about the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. I looked all this up on the Internet, and we should all know by now not to believe everything you read on the Internet.

But you don’t need to know anything about the sport to see the power of sports. To see a victory bring people together. To see the shared heartbreak in a devastating loss. And to see the sheer joy and tears of happiness after seventy-five years of heartbreak.

The scenes of fans waiting for the team to arrive will remind Red Sox fans of the scenes at Logan when the Red Sox plane landed after winning the 2004 World Series.

The fans in this video are belting out a song called “The Green and Red of Mayo" by an Irish band called The Saw Doctors. The Saw Doctors are huge fans of Mayo, but when they wrote the song in 1992, they had no idea it would become the anthem for their favorite football team.

As a big fan of The Saw Doctors, I can only imagine their pride at having the players on their favorite team sing their song before meeting fans after finally winning the championship.

And as the announcer noted in that phenomenal final call, the Green and Red of Mayo was about to be heard all over the world. Here is a clip of 7NEWS in Sydney, Australia.

Not only did Mayo win its first championship in 75 years, but they also defeated Kerry in the final. Kerry is the New York Yankees of Gaelic football, winning 39 championships since the league was founded in 1887. Thwarting your rival from winning its 40th championship is the foam on top of the Guinness.

As you sing about in another hit song, “To Win Just Once”, you will overcome adversity. You will taste triumph. (Click on photo below to hear the song.

To the Saw Doctors and the other fans of Mayo, as a Red Sox fan who cried as a thirteen-year-old in 1986 and was shell-shocked as a thirty-year-old in 2003 when Aaron “F-ing” Boone hit his extra-inning homer off Wake, I would offer you this.

A region will stop believing it is doomed. You will have more belief that things might break your way. There will be more pep in your collective pep.

That collective faith will be an unexpected and lasting legacy of this team.

But you will also never enjoy another victory like this one. Cherish it. Savor it. As you sing, “to win just once would be enough.”

But once the quest is over, it is not the same. You will never have another sporgasm like this one.

I remember where I watched Game 7 against the Yankees and Game 4 clincher against the Cardinals in 2004. I remember the long hugs with friends, the way we shouted, ‘we did it’ even though ‘we’ were just spectators, the victory parade unlike any other that spilled over to the Cambridge side of the Charles.

In 2007, I fell asleep listening to the clinching game against the Rockies on the radio in bed.

I had to work the next day.

Nothing had really changed about my maturity level, other than we now had a dog.

The sequel is just never as good as the original.

You will cry one day when a beloved member of this team dies of a cruel illness, and is honored at the Opening Day celebration of that team’s 20th anniversary.

You will still root for Mayo. You will still care.

But not like this.

The Curse of Mayo is over.

Hopefully you did not disrupt any funeral processions on the way home.

By Tyler Rourke

The Celtics Crafty Contracts

The main highlight of the Celtics’ offseason was undoubtedly the Jaylen Brown trade. What seemed like such a bizarre move was actually made for one reason: financials.

The NBA has extremely interesting, yet almost impossible-to-follow, rules regarding contracts and money. We have now entered a time when moves are sometimes made strictly for financial reasons, and it can be difficult to catch that at first.

When Brown was traded, Brad Stevens was the first to admit that finances were the main motivator behind the move. While the Celtics received Paul George and his ugly contract, they won’t have to haggle with George over a max extension in two years, and he will likely be off the books completely.

Stevens has always been one step ahead of other teams, and this offseason he proved it once again with the contracts he handed out.

To begin, Stevens was able to secure Jordan Walsh on what might be one of the best contracts of them all, a three year, $15 million extension. Walsh was eligible for much more money, yet Boston picked up his $2.4 million team option for next season, meaning he is now under contract for four more years at less than $20 million.

Next is Ron Harper Jr., who signed a four year, $13.7 million extension with Boston after playing on a two-way contract for almost his entire career. Despite his legendary Game 7 performance, when Harper was elected as a starter against Philadelphia, he has continued to prove that he is a real talent in this league and a positive player.

Lastly, there is Neemias Queta. Queta genuinely provides exactly what the Celtics need in a big man, and he signed a four year, $56 million extension to stay with the team. All three players are now locked into long-term deals that could prove to be extremely valuable for Boston.

That was it for the Celtics’ re-signings, but the fun doesn’t stop there. Mitchell Robinson was brought in on a great deal worth about $47 million over the next three years, giving Boston another long-term contract at what could be great value.

And you can’t forget about Payton Pritchard, who is up for an extension after making only about $7.5 million over the past two seasons despite becoming such a crucial player for Boston.

The Celtics’ Massive Influence on Other Teams

Staying on the topic of finances, the introduction of the second apron in the 2024 offseason was quietly one of the biggest changes the NBA has ever made as a business. The second apron poses major threats for teams with too much money on their books, and teams that voluntarily enter the second apron may forfeit future draft capital.

Boston was in the midst of its prime when the second apron was introduced and was fresh off a championship. The team’s core consisted of stars, but with that came massive contracts.

One of the most strategic moves in recent Celtics history was Boston’s acquisition of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. Both were key players during Boston’s championship run, but each lasted only two seasons with the team.

Well, why would that be?

It was Boston’s plan all along to bring these players in for a short period. Teams take risks like this all the time, knowing that it can pay off if they win a championship. For Boston, it did.

One year later, the Oklahoma City Thunder secured a championship, and the following offseason (this current offseason) they saved over $250 million in luxury tax payments after their Lu Dort trade and avoided the second apron.

Soon, it could be the New York Knicks following these footsteps, as their starting lineup is going to become expensive very quickly. Although Jalen Brunson took a pay cut a few years ago, not every player will be willing to do that. So while the Villanova boys and company may be enjoying their time together now, I would reckon that the core only has a season or two left together.

Now, of course, Boston just so happened to be the first team in the second apron era to win a championship. But the Celtics are currently paving the way for what it takes to build a championship team while navigating financial constraints and obstacles.

Two Quick Notes

Two more things have recently appeared that are smaller but still noteworthy.

It has come to my attention that the Celtics have the pieces to acquire a legendary player, Stephen Curry.

I’m not saying this would happen or will happen, but Paul George’s expiring money, along with Payton Pritchard’s contract, is enough for NBA media to stir something up.

And perhaps the more prominent discussion is Jayson Tatum’s recent speech to a room full of kids.

“Being around somebody that feels like they know it all, I don’t wanna be around that person. I don’t wanna be the smartest person in the room, I want to learn from somebody else.”

Was this a slight jab at Brown? Who knows. But it certainly is funny that Brown has openly called himself the smartest person in the room, and Tatum went on to use those exact words. Regardless, I’m beyond excited to see what their first matchup has in store.

There has been a lot of focus recently on Substack on detecting AI-generated writing. So let me say up front that some of this piece was written by AI, specifically Claude, but for a different reason than you might be suspecting.

And it will become very clear what Claude wrote without needing Substack’s new AI detection tool. It could also be an interesting test of it.

I am very intrigued by how sports franchises could use AI for player development, scouting and game preparation, personnel decisions; biomechanical analysis, injury prevention and treatment; in-game strategy, business operations; fan experience; and more.

I see it as the next evolution of Moneyball, and believe it will be the biggest change in how sports teams operate since Moneyball itself.

I am sure many clubs are already using AI, but Jonah Hill is not going to reveal their secrets or tell Brad Pitt that the only defect is that Claude hallucinates and completely makes stuff up.

Claude is also not going to drop by the Hatteberg house on Christmas Eve to offer him a contract to play first base.

I can already see disgruntled fans and scouts fretting at the thought of AI deciding who to trade and when to lay down a bunt, so let me be very clear.

I am a strong believer that the best approach is a combination of scouting and analytics, with scouting focused as much on a player’s character, work ethic, aptitude to learn and adapt, ability to deal with failure, competitiveness, off-field behavior, ability to handle pressure, and being a good teammate as on radar gun readings.

Baseball, in particular, is such a mentally demanding game and one of failure that those traits are often better predictors of who will succeed than launch angle and exit velocity.

Sports are played by humans, and the human element is crucial.

But, at the same time, AI is transforming every other industry. Why not sports?

So, as a road test, both curious about AI capabilities in this realm and about what the Red Sox should do now, I asked Claude the following:

“Given the Red Sox overall situation and the acquisition of Curtis Mead, if you were the President of Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox, Craig Breslow, how would you now be approaching the trade deadline? What would you be prioritizing, what would you not be prioritizing, and what might be surprising to fans that is backed analytically and could influence the Red Sox decisions?”

Claude Breslow’s Response

Claude: My Posture: Aggressive in Volume, Disciplined in Shape

My thought bubble: WTF does that mean?

It continued.

Claude: “Not “all in” with a “big splash” move. Two or three medium moves.”

“The reasoning is about where the win-probability curve is steepest. In a field this compressed, the derivative of playoff odds with respect to wins is near its maximum — a 1.5-win addition over 55 games moves Boston’s October probability several times more than the identical addition would move a team eight games clear or eight games back. The same player is simply worth more to this team this year. That’s the case for buying meaningfully.”

My thought bubble: Talk about AI slop. I didn’t really need the em-dashed part to realize an acquisition matters more in a close race. I am also waiting for Weird Al Yankovic to release an AI-generated version of “Mmm-Bop” called “Em-Dash”.

Claude continued.

“But the counterweight is real: the prize is a best-of-three, and a 15-game winning streak is not a talent signal. Their true level is probably an 84-88 win team, and no single acquisition moves them out of that tier. So the efficient allocation is breadth over concentration — two moderate upgrades beat one expensive one.”

My thought bubble: Ok, now we are at least getting somewhere.

Claude: “Buy a shortstop with years of control, buy innings insurance cheaply, pay for both out of the pitching pipeline, ignore the catcher and the closer, keep Mayer, and don't let the $284 million line be the reason you stopped a move short. And if you're feeling brave, sell Chapman into the market's most overheated segment on the way in.”

And then it’s strongest argument.

“The organizational risk here isn't overpaying. It's the pattern: last year's "buying" was Dustin May and Steven Matz, neither of whom worked, and Breslow has been characterized as focused on not losing trades. Half-measures leave a 60% team at 60%.”

My thought bubble: Nailed it.

On this point, I give credit to the real Craig Breslow for saying yesterday that the goal is to help the Major League club rather than to win trades. That shows growth.

New Thinking

Claude also shared some ideas that I had not been thinking about and have not heard others propose.

I think they demonstrate that AI can be helpful to a front office in pushing its thinking and generating alternative ideas it might not otherwise consider, especially given the tendency toward organizational consensus and deference to a leader, particularly one who does not encourage dissent.

This has come up as a criticism of Breslow and the Red Sox front office, though it is certainly not unique to them.

I don’t agree with several of these, but if you haven't noticed, many people have some stupid ideas, myself included.

Insights and Ideas

1). The uncertainty around the collective bargaining agreement decreases the value of prospects while keeping the value of making the playoffs fixed. The argument there is that, under the new agreement, clubs could have, say, five years of control over a player before the player reaches free agency, instead of six. Nobody knows how the collective bargaining agreement will play out, but it does make sense that uncertainty about the future would make future assets less valuable.

Or in AI-speak.

“If 2027 involves a work stoppage, a cap, or changed service-time and draft rules, the expected value of a prospect four years from the majors gets more uncertain while the value of a 2026 postseason stays fixed. The correct response is to discount future assets relative to present ones — the exact opposite of the fan instinct to protect the farm.”

2). Claude is a fan of Marcelo Mayer and believes his playing through injuries this season is a big reason for his dismal offensive stats and less-than-stellar defense.

I am not.

And he is always injured, so when exactly would he not be playing through an injury?

I also think the Red Sox already told you what they think of Mayer in trading for Mead as their second baseman (at least for now), and I would start Seigler over Mayer as well. Some of the character issues noted above have also been talked about with Mayer, and when club officials are saying those things to beat writers on the down low despite it reducing his value as a trade chip, that likely tells you something.

3). It suggested selling Aroldis Chapman in order to buy bats. It acknowledges the unlikelihood of Breslow doing so, and to be clear, I would not, but the argument is that historically relievers are overvalued at the deadline for what they actually contribute, and the fact that it is a thin market for relief help could help the Sox if they were to be selling the best reliever on the market.

In the American League, Detroit (if they are buying), the White Sox, the Twins (if they are buying), and Baltimore (if they are buying) all need an established closer, but they would need to be both willing and able to sell a bat. In the National League, Pittsburgh and the Cubs could use a closer, as could Washington, and the Red Sox might rather trade him to an NL team than one they are competing with for a playoff spot.

The market for Chapman would be robust, and it is an interesting idea to still sell him, but as good as Whitlock has been, I feel much better with Chapman closing in the playoffs. I also believe blowing ninth inning leads can be soul crushing to a team.

And if Whitlock closes, then who pitches the 8th inning? If anything, the Red Sox need one more reliever to handle the 6th or 7th innings, not one fewer to change everyone’s roles.

So an interesting idea, and likely backed by some analytics, but no thanks.

4). Claude was mixed on Zach Neto, citing his league-leading 15 errors, mixed defensive metrics, and the fact that a left-handed ground ball-heavy staff puts more importance on the left side of the infield defensively since teams will load up on right-handed hitters and they tend to pull the ball.

Offensively, Claude was concerned about his strikeout rate, which has increased from 26.9% in 2025 to 31.7% in 2026.

Neto’s 146 strikeouts top the American League. The only hitter in the Majors with more strikeouts is Kyle Schwarber, and he has 33 home runs to Neto’s 19. Another high strikeout hitter, James Wood, has also topped 30 home runs.

Very few hitters excel with a strikeout rate above 30%, and the ones who do tend to have light tower power that Neto does not.

I didn’t know Neto leads the league in both errors and strikeouts. That won’t be a popular combination at Fenway, and may be harder for him to handle in a market like Boston than on a losing team like the Angels.

It suggested Jeremy Pena as an alternative and suggested focusing on shortstop, noting that neither Monasterio nor Cheng is an everyday player, while also noting the possible return of Trevor Story.

This argument actually changed my thinking somewhat on Neto, and perhaps Pena is the better option, especially for the right price. This is different than what I wrote about in yesterday’s Boston Sunday Sports Section. And it is the sharpest argument for telling AI to challenge your thinking.

5). With Tolle and Bennett’s workload, and Early now in Washington, Claude argues for some pitching depth and buying an innings eater like Kevin Gausman or Michael Wacha, but not a high-end starter, and to pay with prospect pitching depth.

It reasons that because of the Red Sox's depth in pitching prospects, their sixth-best pitching prospect will be more valuable to another team than to them. It argues against trading someone like Anthony Eyanson for a high-end pitcher.

With the exception of Tarik Skubal, I would agree with this.

6). It noted it would not pay up for a catcher, noting Langeliers’ potentially season-ending injury. It did not think Jeffers would be worth the cost, though when I pushed on Hunter Goodman it basically said it depends on the price, noting his power and a strong rank on ABS challenge percentages at catcher as pluses, but strikeout rate (2nd percentile) and chase rate (7th percentile) as concerns.

I had previously asked it whether a midseason change at catcher affected pitcher effectiveness, and the data were more inclusive than the conventional wisdom against acquiring a catcher midseason to avoid disrupting pitchers suggests.

It also correctly noted that the Red Sox starters and catchers do not have longstanding relationships, given Gray and Suarez arrived this season, Bennett and Tolle are rookies, and Sandoval did not pitch for Boston before this year.

The Bottom Line

I have reached the conclusion that while a good thought partner for a front office executive, as it is for many, Craig Breslow does not have to worry about Claude Breslow taking his job anytime soon.

But the results of this trade deadline might well determine if he has to worry about another human taking his place.

Editor’s Note: This was written prior to the report from Jeff Passan, a little before 1 AM this morning, that the Red Sox are trading for the Nationals’ Curtis Mead in exchange for Connelly Early.

I added some thoughts on that trade to the Sunday Notes section.

Editor’s Take — Go Big or Go Home

Since the start of the Wild Card era in 1995, the Red Sox are the 20th team to have a stretch of 21-3 or better.

The other 19 all reached the postseason.

But the Red Sox don’t just have a chance of making the playoffs. The American League is more up for grabs than Stifler’s mom in American Pie.

There are four American League teams Fangraphs gives better chances than the Red Sox to win the American League: the Yankees, Rays, Mariners, and Rangers. This is what they have done over the past month while the Red Sox have gone 21-3.

If you can make it to the World Series, anything can happen, even against the Dodgers, who Fangraphs gives a 40% chance of winning the National League. The Blue Jays were a split second away from beating them last year.

All that said, I can’t see the Red Sox winning the American League without adding two power bats. The kind of players where people buy jerseys with their names on the back.

They are starting to have three of those in their current lineup in Contreras, Abreu, and Rafaela. Add two more, and you can cook in October even if Roman Anthony does not come back this year and Jarren Duran continues to struggle.

But there are five additional reasons it is worth it for the Red Sox to go for it and be major buyers at the trade deadline.

1). They still need power, and power wins in the playoffs.

Even during this recent torrid stretch, they were a middle-of-the-pack team in terms of power. Last season in the League Championship Series and the World Series, in 15 of the 18 games, one team hit more home runs than the other. That team won 14 of 15 games (in the other three the teams hit the same number of home runs).

The pitching in the playoffs is much better, and so it becomes more difficult to string together hits, especially when the league average in the regular season is .244.

2). The prospects they trade are highly unlikely to become stars.

J.J. Cooper of Baseball America recently conducted research on prospects traded at the trade deadline between 2015 and 2025. The bottom line: 44% never made the Majors, 26% made the Majors but had either zero or negative WAR, and 12% contributed less than 1 WAR.

This data is somewhat skewed because players who were traded in the last three to five years are too early in their careers to be fully evaluated, and the ones who made it earlier are still accumulating WAR. However, the top bucket of 10 career WAR has only 3.5% of prospects traded, and 10 career WAR is not even all that high.

For context, Ranger Suarez, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Nathan Eovaldi all have more than 20 career WAR, with Eovaldi over 25. You would not call any of them stars.

Even among Top 100 prospects traded at the deadline (which has gotten rarer in recent years), two-thirds failed to clear 3.0 WAR. Again, for context, Connor bleepnig Wong has a career WAR of 4.5, and nobody is dancing in the streets that we got him in the Mookie Betts trade.

Say Anthony Eyanson generously has a 10% chance of becoming the next Eduardo Rodriguez. Would you trade that for a shot at a World Series?

I would.

3). It will demonstrate to fans that John Henry still gives a shit about the Red Sox. Pardon my French there, but they speak English (a form of it anyway) in Liverpool, where John’s focus seems to be, so some French might help.

As Dave O’Brien eloquently stated when the winning streak was finally snapped, on behalf of Red Sox Nation, thank you to these guys for getting our summer back.

It has been a magic carpet ride.

Don’t pull the rug out from underneath us, John.

For the fans and the long-term health of the franchise, this may be the most important reason of them all.

4). The players and coaches deserve the front office believing in them.

Craig Breslow and the Hardball Pol Sam Kennedy claimed to believe in their club when it looked like a seller, and many fans and pundits, myself included, did not. They were right, and we were, well, not right.

So they better damn well believe in them now and demonstrate that by taking bold action and going for it.

No Kings of Interest to borrow Dan Shaughnessy’s phrase. No, we made good offers, but it was a sellers market, while other teams were getting things done.

No, we were so close to a trade, and the other teams say you were about as close as Homer Simpson is to a salad bar.

Have some stones and get some damn deals done.

Whatever happens from here, Chad Tracy and his players deserve props for the resilience, fight, and the belief in themselves they have shown over the past month. It is not easy to save a sinking ship, especially in Boston. They have earned the right for the front office to believe in them.

There is leadership in the clubhouse, as evidenced by Chad Tracy saying he was going to address the team after the winning streak ended, but Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray were already doing so. Significant additions at the deadline signal that their leadership believes in them, which every employee in every organization needs.

5). If you win the World Series, flags fly forever.

Sunday Notes

Will Mead lead to Champagne?

Not on its own, but it is a good start, and a trade from an area of depth (starting pitching) for an area of need (power).

The Australian Mead is a former top-40 prospect (prior to 2023) who struggled mightily at the Major League level in around 500 ABs across 2023-2025 to the tune of a .617 OPS (75 OPS+) across 152 games before a breakout 2026 season with Washington.

This year he has hit 17 home runs in 284 ABs with a .254/.352/.500 slash line for an .852 OPS.

The Statcast data largely backs up the breakout, and the combination of power and patience and good contact (striking out 19% of the time versus MLB average of 22%) is exactly what the Red Sox need.

He has largely been playing on the corners in Washington (48 games at 3rd base and 34 at first base), though he has played a little second (6 games). You can see from the dark blue on his fielding numbers that he has horrible range (in the first percentile bad). It would be a mistake to move Durbin off third for Mead, and a mistake to play Mead at second.

My suspicion is that the Red Sox acquired him primarily to DH, and only occasionally to play in the field. He would be a significant upgrade over Masataka Yoshida at DH and comes with 4.5 years of control remaining so if the breakout is real you have a bat for the long-term.

Trading Early hurts, and I think he will be a solid third or fourth starter, but there were a few yellow flags. He is currently on the IL with elbow inflammation, and while imaging showed no structural damage, pitcher, elbow, and injured list are not words you like to hear together in the same sentence.

His 3.44 ERA is also more than a run lower than his FIP, meaning he has been somewhat lucky this season.

Independent of team context, trading Early for Mead is an overpay by Boston on its own. Even a back-end starter is more valuable than a good but not great DH type. MLB Trade Values, which evaluates such things, says Early has around $30M of surplus value remaining while Mead has around $11M.

But baseball games are not won based on surplus value. They are won on the field, and the Red Sox needed a bat this year more than an injured pitcher.

Early likely will not be back in the Major Leagues until the back half of August at best, and your playoff rotation at this point would be Gray, Suarez, Tolle, and Bennett, who has outpitched Early. That assumes Crochet either does not pitch again this year or comes out of the bullpen because he does not have enough time to build back up to starting.

Early (pardon the pun) sentiment on X on the deal from Red Sox fans is not favorable. I actually like it. Mead’s swing is well suited for Fenway, and he would rank 2nd on the Red Sox in both HR and OPS+.

Early is a composed and capable Major League starter. The Red Sox have more of those both at the Major League level and in the Minors and have proven they can develop pitching much more so than hitting under Craig Breslow and Andrew Bailey. They have had Masataka Yoshida batting fifth lately. Substituting Mead as your DH and #5 hole hitter is a major upgrade.

Now go get another bat.

Gonzo But Not Forgotten

Justin Gonzales, ranked by MLB Pipeline the Red Sox #3 prospect, is 6’7” with prodigious power (he reached 117.3 exit velocity this spring as a 19 year old), has a Wilyer Abreu like arm in right and might also be Willson Contreras’s Mini Me. He was suspended for this and observers of the Greenville Drive say this was one of his more peaceful home run trots of the year.

Mark Your Calendars

The NBA schedule release does not typically garner the same anticipation and scrutiny as the NFL schedule, but that might change this year. Specifically, Celtics fans will have a lot of interest in when the Celtics are playing the Philadelphia 76ers now that they not only have Jaylen Brown but long-time Celtics nemesis LeBron James.

The Sixers may need to adopt the old Harlem Globetrotters two-ball basketball routine with Tyrese Maxey, Brown, Joel Embiid, LeBron James, and VJ Edgecombe. While clearly a talented roster, there are not enough shots to go around with the NBA regulation around one basketball and expect chaos and comedy to ensue from a Celtic fan perspective.

Also, expect to see the Celtics and Sixers meeting up on Christmas Day.

Not All Injuries Are Created Equal

I will give all the men in the room a minute to recover from the pain you just imagined and the ooof sound you just made.

The most amazing part of this is that Joshua Kuroda-Grauer not only finished up the bat where his foul ball hit said area below, but he got a base hit before being removed.

By last name, he is a Grauer. By toughness, he is a Show-er.

And how much of a wimp must J.T. Ginn feel like?

⚾ Boston Red Sox

53-50, 3rd Place AL East, 7.5 GB, 2nd Wild Card + .5 GA of 3rd

Now that we have made the case for being buyers, let’s talk specifics of who to buy and who to trade away to get them. On the latter, this is not because I think they are not good; it is because I think they are. You can’t trade two slices of half-eaten Papa Gino’s cheese pizza for filet mignon.

You have to give to get, and these are guys other teams covet.

Who To Trade Away

Let’s start with the selling part of the equation.

Any prospect except Franklin Arias should be on the table, though it would take a lot for me to trade Justin Gonzales.

The Red Sox are especially deep in pitching prospects. Anthony Eyanson and Kyson Witherspoon will be at the top of other teams’ wish lists. The Red Sox have a long-term starting rotation of Garrett Crochet, Ranger Suarez, Payton Tolle, Connelly Early and likely Jake Bennett. They have Brayan Bello for depth so long as he pitches behind an opener (and so long as they can find an opener who does not give up four runs every time Bello is the bulk reliever).

That assumes they do not pick up Sonny Gray’s mutual option, which seemed like a foregone conclusion when the year began, but now might not be, or perhaps they can even come to an agreement with Gray on something that still represents his market value.

They have also shown a knack for developing pitchers, so even when one inevitably gets hurt like Crochet has this season, there will be more in the pipeline.

Also, I am a big believer in the old adage TINSTAAPP (There is no such thing as a pitching prospect). I would modify it slightly to ‘almost no such thing’, but between injuries, ineffectiveness, inconsistency, and more, pitchers are more volatile than hitters.

The other place where the Red Sox have both depth and talent to sell is in the outfield. The starting outfield should be set for several years with Abreu, Rafaela, and Anthony. Two of their top five prospects are 19-year-old outfielders Justin Gonzales and Endy Azocar. I would try to avoid trading Gonzales but would be open for business on Azocar.

Who To Trade For

I would focus on DH, shortstop, and catcher. By focusing on shortstop, I think you can then also improve at second by moving Trevor Story there when he comes back, and Anthony Seigler can hold down the fort until then and shift to a utility role if and when Story comes back. There are also more shortstop options than second base.

For each, I will give both a high-end target or two and a more realistic but still helpful fallback option or two.

Designated Hitter

The Primary Target - Luis Garcia Jr.

Luis Garcia, WAS - Garcia has played second and this year first, but he is an unplayable defender at second and a poor defender at first, so he profiles best at DH. And he can hit - .277/.310/.545, 21 HR, 70 RBI, and his expected stats say it is not a fluke. He puts the ball in play, striking out just under 17% of the time versus a league average of 22%. He does not walk, though, and hence, despite a high batting average, has a low OBP.

He will be a free agent after the 2027 season and is just 26 years old, so he will come at a steep price. This has been a career year for him.

The Secondary Target - George Springer

Springer will be a free agent after this season and is having a down season, but that has a lot to do with injuries and he now appears to be the healthiest he has been all season as evidenced by his .788 OPS in July and .879 OPS since the All-Star break (both in small samples).

He has a career playoff OPS of 880 and is tied for 3rd all-time with 23 playoff career home runs (in roughly half a season’s worth of games).

In 49 career games at Fenway, he has a .927 OPS and 9 home runs. The Connecticut native grew up going to games at Fenway and was a die-hard Red Sox fan, so even at 36, he might have something left in the tank for his childhood team.

Shortstop

There have been three shortstops dominating the rumor mill around shortstops who could be traded to the Red Sox.

Let’s take a deep dive into the data.

The Primary Target - Zach Neto

Neto is the strongest player both offensively and defensively. On the surface he and Abrams power looks similar, but Neto’s is much better suited Fenway. He also runs laps around the others in terms of defensive runs saved which is critical with Payton Tolle, Connelly Early and Jake Bennett all approaching career highs in innings and a groundball heavy staff.

The one concern on Neto is he is unproven under pressure. He has never really played a meaningful game in September let alone in October given he comes from the clown-show Angels organization. But he comes with three additional years of control compared to just one for Pena and those three years are sas he is entering his prime.

The Red Sox are said to cover Neto and it is easy to understand why. Between the offense, defense, age, and additional control, he will be costly, but the Angels need young pitching and help in the outfield so there could be a good match, and Anaheim might be a better fit for Jarren Duran as well versus the intensity of Boston.

The Secondary Target - Jeremy Peña

If the Astros are selling, the Red Sox could also trade for Jeremy Pena, a proven playoff performer who was the 2022 ALCS and WS MVP. He is a far better defender than Abrams and is a New Englander (went to high school in Providence and College at the University of Maine. Because he only has one more year of control remaining, he will also likely cost less than Neto or Abrams. He also has 93rd percentile sprint speed, but has never attempted more than 26 stolen bases in a season. The Red Sox have been more aggressive under Chad Tracy on the bases and Pena may have untapped potential there.

The Fools Gold - CJ Abrams

Abrams has matured quite a bit since the Nationals sent him back to the minors at the end of the 2024 season after he spent all night at a Chicago casino ahead of a day game. But like Neto he has never played in high pressure games at the Major League level with the Nationals, and unlike Neto and Pena is a horrific defender at shortstop, and is a left-handed pull-happy hitter. He would lose nearly 1/3 of his career home runs by playing at Fenway where his pull side power would go to die in the deepest parts of rightfield.

In additon to the poor defensive runs saved number, his range has been in the bottom two percent each of the past three years.

Catcher

There are a number of possible options at catcher with the biggest power bats being Hunter Goodman and Shea Langeliers and fallbacks in Ryan Jeffers and Tyler Stephenson.

The issue with catcher though is that switching catchers mid-season can impact a pitching staff and the Red Sox staff right now is the strength of their team. So even though neither Carlos Narvaez or the aforementioned Connor Wong is exactly Mike Piazza with the bat, there is a risk around switching catcher who need to learn a pitching staff, especially one with young arms.

That hidden tax might also might argue for keeping Narvaez and playing him say half the time at catcher during August while Langeliers or Goodman or even Jeffers learn the pitching staff and serve as the DH when not catching (if you can get Langeliers or Goodman, I would take them at DH over Garcia Jr. or Springer as they have the most pure power of anyone on this list.

Target 1A - Hunter Goodman

Goodman and Langeliers are extremely close with Langeliers the stronger defender but Goodman having more power. Goodman’s swing is also better suited for Fenway as Goodman would have 24 home runs this season if he played all his games at Fenway versus 15 for Langeliers.

Goodman trails only Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Schwarber in home runs and only Alvarez and Ben Rice in slugging percentage. He also is not a product of Coors Field as 18 of his 31 home runs have come on the road and his road OPS is .970 versus .815 at home. The one watch area is he has historically done much better as a hitter while catching than he has as a DH.

Goodman has also hit 10 home runs and has a 1.200 OPS over the last 30 days versus just 4 home runs and a .782 OPS for Langeliers.

Target 1B - Shea Langeliers

Langeliers road OPS is .769 versus Goodman’s .970 as he has taken advantage of playing in a minor league park in Sacramento where his home OPS is nearly a hundred points higher.

Langeliers is by far better at catching base runners but overall over the past season and a half he and Goodman are very close in terms of defensive runs saved. His expected stats are also better than Goodman’s whose actual stats track ahead of his expected ones.

But he struggles with framing and blocking the ball and is two years older so I veeeery slightly lean Goodman given the importance of power in the postseason.

The Fallback - Ryan Jeffers

Jeffers is a free agent after this season so will cost less, but he has nowhere near the power as the other two and is not a good defender. But he is having a stellar seaason offensively when he is healthy with a 156 OPS+ that is higher than either Langeliers or Goodman and would rank sixth in baseball were he to have enough at bats.

He could be another option to DH. The Yankees are also rumored to be in on Jeffers so getting him to DH could also hurt the Yankees who need him behind the plate given the struggles offensively of their catchers.

🏈 New England Patriots

New England opens camp with more of its lineup settled than in either of the last two summers. Drake Maye is entrenched at quarterback, the A.J. Brown trade and Romeo Doubs signing locked down the top of the receiver room, Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson head the backfield, the cornerback trio returns intact, and the offensive tackle spots belong to Will Campbell and Morgan Moses.

That pushes most of the genuine competition down the depth chart.

Here are the four worth watching, in rough order of importance.

Edge rusher — Dre’Mont Jones and Elijah Ponder lead, but the rotation is wide open behind them

This is the closest thing the Patriots have to an unresolved need, and it was a top priority entering the offseason that remains one. Dre’Mont Jones arrives as the marquee addition and Elijah Ponder generated genuine optimism this spring, but the group thins out fast behind them.

Gabe Jacas was supposed to help this group as a second round-pick the Patriots traded up for, but he just signed yesterday becoming the last non-quarterback drafted to sign. He is also dealing with injury issues that required offseason procedures and there has been talk of this being a “redshirt season” for him so I am not going to include him below until we know more.

Beyond Jacas, the internal options would be:

Bradyn Swinson (2025 fifth-round pick) With veteran Harold Landry opening camp on the PUP list and second-round pick Gabe Jacas unsigned and dealing with injury issues that required offseason procedures, the reps are there for the taking. Swinson’s ceiling is the question — a Day 3 pick being asked to fill a need the team couldn’t address in free agency or the top of the draft is a projection, not a plan.

Harold Landry (veteran) would presumably be the answer if healthy and was productive last season at least early in the year, but at 30 and starting camp on PUP, his availability is the entire story. If he’s slow to return, the opportunity opens for others.

This is the most likely area for the Patriots to trade for during camp. You only needed to watch the Patriots offense in the playoffs during the Super Bowl to know how critical it is to be able to pressure the quarterback, and right now that is the weakest area on the roster.

Second tight end (“Y” blocker) — Eli Raridon vs. the field, with a veteran addition looming

This became a real competition only because of an injury: free-agent signing Julian Hill, brought in for exactly this inline blocking role, was lost for the season with an injury during OTAs. Hunter Henry is the established starter but functions best as a pass catcher, so the team needs someone to handle the dirty-work “Y” snaps.

Eli Raridon (2026 third-round pick) is the obvious candidate and the one with the highest ceiling. The draft investment signals intent, and if the Patriots don’t bring in a veteran, he could see an accelerated path to real responsibility. The concern is straightforward: it’s a lot to ask a rookie to absorb an inline blocking role that a veteran was signed to fill.

Tanner Arkin (undrafted rookie) is the sleeper. At 6-4, 262, with well-documented run-blocking ability in college, his measurables fit the job description, and there’s a plausible roster path for him on those traits alone.

The wrinkle that hangs over the whole competition: Mike Vrabel indicated in June that tight end is a spot the team could add to, and the Globe floated available veterans including Pharaoh Brown, Will Dissly, Tucker Fisk, and old friend Jonnu Smith. Scratch that, Smith is more that neighbor you didn’t actually like all that much, were happy when they moved out, and don’t really want moving back in. If one of those signs, they likely take this spot.

Third running back — Lan Larison vs. Terrell Jennings vs. the rookies, with kick returns as the tiebreaker

Stevenson and Henderson are set atop the depth chart; the third-back job behind them is genuinely open, and it’s tangled up with the return game in a way that could decide it.

Lan Larison (2025 undrafted, returning from IR) appeared to be the top internal candidate this spring and is the most compelling on paper because of his receiving ability — he caught 62 passes for 847 yards as a UC Davis senior in 2024, the kind of pass-game value the room otherwise lacks. The caveat is health: he spent his rookie year on IR with a broken foot, so he has to prove availability.

Terrell Jennings (third-year pro) is the only back in the group with NFL experience (23 carries, 73 yards, a touchdown last season), which matters, but he’s starting camp on the non-football injury list and, by beat accounts, didn’t do enough to be the clear favorite.

Seventh-round pick Jam Miller and undrafted rookie Myles Montgomery round out the competition, but neither profiles as a passing-game threat. The likely difference-maker: kick returns. With Antonio Gibson released, the Patriots need a returner, and the beat consensus is that special-teams value could tip this whole competition — Larison and Jennings are both in that mix.

Wide receiver depth — DeMario Douglas vs. Efton Chism for the last spot (and the Boutte question)

The top of the room is set — Brown, Doubs, and near-lock Mack Hollins, with Kyle Williams expected to stick after a coaching-staff vote of confidence. The real competition is at the back end, and it comes with a trade subplot.

DeMario Douglas has the inside track to a bigger role than his 2025 usage suggests. His production and playing time dropped last year, but with Stefon Diggs gone, there’s a vacated slot workload he’s positioned to absorb.

Efton Chism III is the sentimental and special-teams case. Last year’s “training camp darling” played just 8.4 percent of the offensive snaps, but unlike Douglas he contributes on special teams — and, as noted above, he’s in the kick-return conversation, which could be what keeps him on the roster.

The variable that scrambles everything: Kayshon Boutte. He should be a lock on production and his rapport with Maye, but there’s a lot of speculation he will be traded because he’s entering the final year of his rookie deal and his skill set overlaps with Brown’s. I think that would be a mistake especially for the purported return of a fifth round pick. If Boutte stays, seven receivers are fighting for five or six spots and this gets cutthroat. In that scenario, I suspect Chism is the odd man out.

Editor’s Note: Some of these tweets have videos; click within the tweet to go to X to watch the video.

The Red Sox Go Streaking

What’s Old Is New Again

The Original

(click on video for Nomar and others tying Pedro to a pole in the dugout in 1999.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Going Undercover

(click on video - this one is awesome)

That Will Leave A Mark (And A Flag)

The World Cup

Argentina Fans Playing Frogger

An Inclusive Final

Speaking of Time On The Throne

(click on video)

The World Cup Lives On

((click on video)

But life isn’t about numbers.

It’s about emotion.

And memories.

It’s about special father-and-son bonding moments.

It’s about making friends with strangers in the stands.

It’s about a player from a Division III school who played the COVID summer for the Fond Du Lac, WI Spiders, fighting his way through the adversity of struggling in Boston to hit the game-winning home run. That would be one Caleb Durbin.

It’s about a longtime minor-leaguer and Taiwanese truck driver’s son who has been playing baseball since he was five, making the game-saving catch. That would be Tsung Che-Cheng.

It’s about star players like Willson Contreras and Payton Tolle staying after the game to sign autographs for overjoyed kids.

Oh, what a night.

Festive Fenway

You will often hear Fenway Park referred to as Friendly Fenway. Not sure I agree with that moniker, given the text below from former Seattle Mariner Braden Bishop, who played against Boston.

Braden has a great Substack, and I also did a Substack Live last month with Braden and fellow former big leaguer Jason Botts about their transitions from baseball to “the real world.”

So Fenway may not be all that friendly to opponents, but last night it was definitely Festive Fenway.

And here are the receipts.

The Early Innings

The Middle Innings

And That’s The Ballgame

The Celebration - Love That Dirty Water

Fenway After Dark

The Autograph Session

Kudos and thanks to Payton Tolle (pictured, top row), Willson Contreras (pictured, bottom row), Anthony Seigler, and Tsung Che-Cheng for staying afterward and signing for a ton of kids, even though they could easily have gone home.

What an improbable and incredible run!

Going for Fifteen

Tonight the Red Sox try for a fifteenth straight win to match an eighty-year-old club record set by the 1946 Red Sox from April 25th through May 10th. A month later, on June 9th, Ted Williams hit his legendary 502-foot “Red Seat” home run.

Good seats are still available.

Be there if you can!

Previous Articles About The Streak

If you missed the analytical breakdowns:

From yesterday:

From Sunday:

From Sunday 7/12, when the streak was at eight:

The story of the Red Sox's 2026 season is still being written, but their 13-game winning streak and their 18-2 record over their past 20 games can be labeled the Nearly Impossible Dream.

Many are comparing this year’s run to the Morgan Magic of 1988 when the Red Sox hired Joe Morgan as interim manager to replace the fired John McNamara at the All-Star Break.

We are going to answer three questions in this article:

1. How improbable is this year’s turnaround?

2. How does it compare to Morgan Magic?

3. How are they doing this? What is real and what is luck?

But let’s first jump in Doc Brown’s DeLorean and go all the way back to the Impossible Dream Season of 1967 before we head to the Morgan Magic of 1988 and back to their history-making and still-in-process tear in 2026.

Got it, McFly.

The Impossible Dream

The 1967 Red Sox played in an era when the AL pennant winner faced the NL pennant winner in the World Series. The Sox played in the ten-team American League. They had finished 9th in 1966, and most of the preseason prognosticators like Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, and Street & Smith’s baseball all picked them to finish 9th again. The Boston Globe was the optimist, picking them to finish 6th.

The predictions were understandable. Vegas had them at 100-1 to win the pennant. The Red Sox had not had a winning season since 1958 and had not won the pennant since 1946. Fenway was a ghost town in 1966 with an average attendance of just over 10,000, which ranked 8th out of the 10 American League teams. There were no pink hats and no Sweet Caroline, but also few fans. Good seats available.

They played .500 ball until the All-Star break and then took off with a ten-game winning streak after the break. The streak zoomed them from 5th to 2nd in the standings behind Swampscott’s Tony Congiliaro and Triple Crown winner Carl Yastrzemski. Congiliaro had become the youngest player ever to reach 100 home runs and had hit twenty when he was hit by a pitch and suffered a fractured cheekbone, dislocated jaw, and a damaged left retina. He was never the same player again.

The Sox added Ken ‘Hawk’' Harrelson to replace him and went on to clinch the pennant on the final day of the season before falling to Bob Gibson and the Cardinals in the World Series.

During the summer the Red Sox season was labeled The Impossible Dream after a song from the popular Broadway hit The Man From La Mancha that was then covered by Jack Jones (not the former Patriots cornerback, just for the record).

Morgan Magic

Twenty-one years later, a similar story played out.

The Red Sox of Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Mike Greenwell, Ellis Burks and aging stars Dwight Evans and Jim Rice had a mark of 43-42 at the All-Star Break.

They fired Manager John McNamara (if only they had done that in the middle of the 10th inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series). They replaced him with third base coach Joe Morgan, a Walpole native and veteran manager of 16 years in the minor leagues who drove a snowplow on the Mass Turnpike in the offseason to supplement his minor league salary.

The Red Sox were in fourth place in the AL East, nine games out, when Morgan Magic started. They won their first eleven games following the All-Star break, all at Fenway. A Roger Clemens shutout in Texas on July 25th made it twelve straight, and they were now just a game and a half back. Then a seven-game winning streak and they were tied for first. By September 13th they led the division by 4.5 games before hanging on down the stretch to win the AL East crown by a game before being swept by the Oakland A’s in the playoffs who lost to the Dodgers in the World Series.

You might recall the incomparable Vin Scully’s legendary call of the hobbling Kirk Gibson’s home run off Dennis Eckersley.

“In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible had happened.”

Morgan Magic wass certainly improbable in its own right. But it was not impossible. The Red Sox had led the American League in runs prior to the All-Star break. Expectations were high as most of the pennant winning club of 1986 remaained. So high that McNamara was canned despite a winning record.

The 1988 Magic included two future Hall of Famers in Rice and Boggs and a would be third in Roger Clemens were it not for his later steroid use. They had the batting champion, the 2nd place MVP finisher in Greenwell and Evans driving in 100. That team at one point won 24 straight at Fenway, in contrast to this year’s club that has been better on the road.

The Tracy Turnaround

Now we come back today.

A look at the box sccore from win #13 yesterday shows a leadoff hitter, Jahmai Jones with an OPS under .500 acquired last week after being DFA’d by Detroit and a 6-9 of Romy Gonzalez, Andruw Monasterio, a scuffling Jarren Duran and Connor Wong.

Not exactly the Big Red Machine.

So let’s dig into four questions even though we are not the youngest child and are well past Passover.

How improbable is this year’s turnaround?

We will start with the mathematical odds of the Red Sox ripping off an 18-2 run based on their 32-46 record when this incredible stretch began and a 13 game winning streak that began with a record of 37-48.

This does assume every game is an independent event, which I don’t totally believe since I do believe teams get on rolls.

We will also include some odds assuming they were not as bad as their record, which is supported by their run differential and 12-26 record in one and two run games when this stretch began, and even a very generous assumption that they were a far better team than their record.

As you can see the odds of a team with a .410 winning percentage ripping off 18 wins in 20 games is 1 in 129,800 and a team with a .435 winning percentage has a nearly 1 in 50,000 chance of winning their next 13 in a row.

So you’re telling me there’s a chance.

How does it compare to Morgan Magic?

If Morgan Magic was a David Copperfield magic trick, the Tracy Turnaround is Harry Houdini escaping from a straitjacket underwater surrounded by sharks.

This year’s 13 game winning streak, based on each team’s record when the streak started is 14 times more unlikely then the 1988 streak. And even though the 1988 team won 19 of those first 20 games after the All-Star break, this year’s team winning 18 of 20 after starting the season 32-46 is more than three times as unlikely at 1 in nearly 130,000.

How is This Happening and What is Real?

I had hoped to see how this streak matched up against others in baseball history, but am headed over to Fenway to see if they can get win fourteen in a row so that is going to have to wait until tomorrow.

Editor’s Take — The Tracy Turnaround

After losing to Colorado on June 24th, the Red Sox were 32-46. That is a .410 winning percentage.

Fangraphs gave them a 9% chance of making the playoffs. They had just lost two of three to the Rockies.

The Rockies!

At that time, I was an advocate for selling at the deadline. A strong advocate. I said as much in this space. They were a bad, boring baseball team that could not win at home to boot.

Aroldis Chapman would have been the most valuable reliever on the market. Sonny Gray would have been perhaps the most valuable starter. Sell them before they get injured. Sell them early to maximize value.

So, of course, from June 25^th through Saturday, they have gone 17-2.

My friends and family will not be surprised that I turned out to be wrong.

It happens sometimes.

And then again.

And again.

Last year in the World Series, my brother would ask me who was going to win a game, then bet on the other team. Sometimes he would even ask for a run total and do the old George Costanza do the opposite parlay with the over/under.

But I am a math guy, and the math was as follows.

On the morning of June 25th, by statistical probability, the chance of a team with a .410 winning percentage winning 17 of their next 19 games was about 1 in 59,000.

You were four times more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime.

Let me say that again – you have nearly four times the odds of getting struck by lightning in your lifetime as a team playing like the Red Sox were through June 24th had of winning 17 or more of their next 19 games.

Now, some will argue, they were better than their record. Their Pythagorean record after 78 games, which is based on runs scored and allowed, was 38-40. They were unlucky in one-run games. The chances of a .490 team winning 17or more of their next 19 games are roughly 1 in 3,700.

That is still roughly the same odds as flipping a coin and getting 12 tails in a row.

Some will say, sure, but they have had a soft schedule. They beat up on the Angels and Uncle Steve’s reeling Mets. Well, if you take out game results against the Red Sox, and do a weighted average, their opponents in the last 19 games have a slightly higher winning percentage than in their first 78.

The Rays, Yankees, and White Sox have the three best records in the American League and would all be in the playoffs. In the past month, the Red Sox are 10-0 against them.

And you know who else would be in the playoffs if the season ended today – your Boston Red Sox.

Your next argument might be, well, sure, but they are doing this with Tsung Che-Cheng at shortstop, Anthony Siegler at second, and a struggling Jarren Duran in left. Sure, they are 17-2, but this is smoke and mirrors. The Morgan Magic of 1988 has become Tracy’s Magic Trick in 2026

Of course, they are not going to continue at this torrid pace; not even the 1927 Yankees did. Over a full season, this would be a 145-17 record.

The numbers, though, say that The Tracy Turnaround is real. And it is spectacular. They are winning by nearly 2.5 runs per game. The Dodgers, the best team in baseball, win by an average of nearly 1.5 runs per game.

Let’s first look at the improvement.

The offense has gone from one of the worst in baseball to one of the best. Compared to other teams full-season marks, the 3.94 runs per game from the first 78 games would be the worst in baseball. The 5.26 runs per game would be the third best behind the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates (huh?!).

Not Taco Bell lettuce level runs, but still quite good.

The pitching has gone from excellent to elite. The 4.03 runs allowed per game would rank 8th, while the 2.79 runs allowed per game would be first by nearly a full run per game over the Dodgers.

Overall, for the full season, the Red Sox are now 3rd in Major League Baseball in run prevention (which includes both pitching and defense) and 23rd in runs scored.

They are also now winning the close games. They were a partly unlucky 12-26 in one- and two-run games until June 24th and 6-0 since.

While winning is not magic, there is a magic number for the Red Sox: scoring 3 runs or more. When they don’t, they win 9% of the time. When they do, they win 73% of the time. The key during the streak is that in 16 of the 19 games, they have reached that three-run mark.

They are 12-1 in July. They have not lost in 17 days. Saturday, they won for the first time all season after trailing by three runs. They had been 0-34.

Last Sunday, they beat the Mets after trailing 2-0 heading into the ninth inning. It was their first such win.

Fenway this weekend is electric. Check out Wilyer Abreu doing a Gronk spike of his bat after hitting a go-ahead home run (click in the tweet to play the video).

They have not lost since Roman Anthony was banished to Fort Myers. They have not lost since the USA turned 250. They have not lost once since Jaylen Brown was traded, so clearly his analytics were so bad they even rubbed off on the Red Sox.

Cade Cavalli’s extremely ill-advised “Sit Down, Boy” to Willson Contreras may have been the spark they needed. There has not been a major return from injury, nor a big trade, and, in fact, Ranger Suarez and Connelly Early have been injured, and Contreras was suspended five games for his reaction to Cavalli’s idiocy.

What happens from here, who knows?

I am taking a break from the predicting business.

I do know three things, though:

1. It is time to take the interim tag off Chad Tracy.

2. Fenway is fun again.

3. Only two other Red Sox teams this century have had a 17-2 stretch at any point in the season - the 2004 and 2018 clubs.

I think you know what they both went on to accomplish.

⚾ Boston Red Sox

49-48, 3rd Place AL East, 7.0 GB, Third Wild Card, 1.0 GB ahead

In the first game of Friday’s doubleheader versus Tampa, the Red Sox led 3-0 going into the bottom of the sixth.

The inning went HBP (cleanup hitter (!) Caleb Durbin), Yoshida single, Romy Gonzalez walk, Jarren Duran single off the glove of the second baseman into right.

Two runs scored. 5-0.

And now for the fun part.

Safety squeeze from Carlos Narvaez. Romy scores.

And then a second straight bunt with a runner on third from Tsung-Che Cheng. A great bunt kissed down the line that somehow stayed fair. Duran scores.

7-0.

Ballgame.

As Lou Merloni said, “They are Tampa Bay-ing the Rays.”

By that, Merloni means they are playing small ball. Doing the little things that win ball games. Getting runners home from third. Moving runners over by bunting. Not grounding into double plays.

And I think by doing that, they have taken some of the pressure off everyone to have to step up and be the hero by hitting a home run. Almost every hitter will say they hit more home runs when they are relaxed and not trying to hit home runs. Keep the line moving, as they say, and the home runs will come.

And that is exactly what has happened.

Willson Contreras, the white-hot Wilyer Abreu, Caleb Durbin, and Ceddanne Rafaela have led the way. Abreu became the first Red Sox player since Mookie Betts in 2016 to have back-to-back multi-home run games.

Siegler, Cheng, Monasterio, and the much-maligned Masataka Yoshida are all contributing.

Even newly acquired Jahmai Jones hit a home run on Saturday. I didn’t watch the game, but I am hoping Jahmai Webster interviewed him, since your odds of getting struck by lightning are higher than the odds of two Jahmais being together in Boston.

So, as the guys doing the radio said in the postgame on Saturday, “What the bleep is going on here?” And it was said in a good, incredulous, Joe Castiglione “Can you believe it?” kind of way.

The answer is a combination of power, patience, and small ball. And the small ball in particular helps you get to that three-run magic number.

Their batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which is often considered a sign of luck, has actually gone down over this stretch. But when you walk more, you hit more over the fence, you move runners over, and you get them in, you score more runs.

Moneyball started the end of small ball. Outs were precious. Getting on base was king. Then the launch angle revolution came, and it was all about power. These things still hold, but when the league-wide batting average is .244, and guys are routinely throwing 100 mph, you are not going to string together hits. So you need to either knock it out of the park or make the most of the scoring chances you get.

Recently, though, the Red Sox have been playing No Money Ball, particularly on offense.

No really big free agent signings (I don’t count Bregman’s one-year).

No big splashes at the trade deadline.

Trading away Mookie and Raffy, and not resigning Xander.

The latter two are very defensible, but the money has stayed in John Henry’s hefty pockets. This trade deadline is the time to spend it. Go get Shea Langeliers from the Athletics (or Francisco Álvarez or Ryan Jeffers if you can’t get Langeliers).

Go get Lindor from the Mets or Zach Neto from the Angels to take care of shortstop. Make a run at Byron Buxton. Get Luis Garcia Jr. from the Nationals - the good Luis Garcia versus the crummy reliever we got from the Angels in 2024.

Add a good bullpen piece this time, too.

I don’t believe the rumors that James Woods is available, but if there's even a speck of truth to them, go after him big time.

They obviously can’t do all of these things - but the target should be two bats (preferably at catcher and middle infield) and a bullpen arm.

They never did make a sequel to Moneyball. But the Rays may have been on to something, as usual , by playing some small ball - Tampa and Milwaukee lead baseball with 25 sacrifice bunts. They also lead their divisions.

Call it Moneyball Two.

Now it’s time to add the money.

Our special series on the USA’s Top Ten Sports Moments wrapped up this week. Please see below if you missed any.

10 - The Miracle on Grass

9 - The Battle of Brookline

8 - The First Pitch That Helped Heal A Nation

7 - Pride and Prejudice

6 - The Vault

5 - The Dream Team

4 - A Fight for Freedom

July 4th Bonus - The Luckiest Man Alive

3 - A Celebration to Last Throughout The Years

2 - Four Golds Over The Third Reich

1 - The Miracle on Ice

Sunday Notes

A Turnaround for The Ages

Let’s take stock of how incredible the Tracy Turnaround has been.

· No other team this century has gone from being more than ten games under .500 to even being .500 (let alone a game over) without losing a single game.

· The Red Sox have won 12 games in a row for the first time since 2006.

· For the first 10 games of the winning streak, they outscored their opponents 58-14. It was the first time in the 126-year history of the Boston Red Sox that they had won ten in a row, scored more than 50 runs, and allowed fewer than 15. Over that ten-game stretch, they allowed more than two runs once.

The EB12 Method

We all know who wore #12 for the Patriots.

But with the Red Sox winning a dozen in a row, below are some of the most famous Red Sox to wear #12.

• Johnny Pesky (1942, 1946–1952): The beloved “Mr. Red Sox” wore No. 12 before later switching to managing, coaching, and broadcasting. His impact was so significant that the team retired his number entirely in 2008.

• Joe Cronin (1936): The legendary Hall of Fame shortstop and manager wore No. 12 for a single season before eventually having his No. 4 retired by the club.

• Ellis Burks (1987–1992): One of the most productive players to sport the number in the modern era, Burks was a standout outfielder and power hitter for Boston, earning an All-Star nod and a Gold Glove during his time there.

• Brock Holt (2015–2019): A highly versatile fan-favorite and All-Star, Holt proudly wore the No. 12 for the majority of his tenure in Boston, notably becoming the first player in MLB postseason history to hit for the cycle.

The fact that The Brock Star made an All-Star team still baffles me as does the fact he is the only player ever to hit for the cycle in the postseason.

Must be something about wearing #12.

Shout Out to the Coaches Out There

I grew up in Palm Beach County.

Some of my friends played high school football at Cardinal Newman for a legendary coach named Sam Budnyk.

And then some of their kids did too.

He coached football for 46 years, after all. I never met Sam, but he is the winningest football coach ever in Palm Beach County, winning 278 games and winning nearly 1,000 across softball, basketball, track and field and golf. He touched thousands of lives in addition to the 150 players who played for him and went on to Divison I schools and the four who went to the NFL.

He passed away Friday at age 92, leaving quite the legacy on and off the field. The Palm Beach Post’s Tom D’Angelo, who I read growing up, did a great tribute article to him.

He hired the first African American assistant coach at a private high school in Florida in 1965. Two years later he scheduled the first game between a predominantly white and a predominantly black school in Florida history.

Sam of course is a legend, but I am writing about a Palm Beach County football coach in a Boston sports newsletter because I think we both underappreciate and underpay the many fine high school and youth sports coaches who spend their time developing our kids as athletes and more importantly as humans. They don’t all win close to a thousand games, but they do touch hundreds of lives.

My high school cross country coach lost his own child in a tragic bicycle accident but helped so many other kids, myself included. So a shoutout to all the high school and youth sports coaches out there.

Thank you for what you do!

🏈 New England Patriots

The So-What — No UDFA’s, No Rings

By this time next week, training camp will be in full swing in Foxborough.

Every connection between Drake Maye and A.J. Brown will light up social media. Mike Vrabel’s every move will carry the weight of white smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel.

Train your eyes instead on the Undrafted Free Agents (UDFAs).

21 of the past 22 years, a UDFA has made the Patriots, including 19 in a row from 2004-2022. If you extend the window back 30 years, the UDFAs include:

· A Hall of Fame kicker who made the two most important field goals in Super Bowl history.

· A cornerback who made the biggest play in Super Bowl history and the 5^th best play in NFL History according to a vote of NFL media.

· A two-time Super Bowl champion center who anchored the offensive line for a decade.

You know them as Adam Vinatieri, Malcolm Butler, and David Andrews. Between them, they won seven Super Bowl rings with the Patriots.

I still remember watching Butler in the first preseason game and saying, ‘Who is that guy?” I said it to myself, of course, because nobody else watches the NFL preseason.

But don’t take my word for it.

When training camp started in 2014, Tom Brady kept asking who the guy was who was going full speed on every rep.

You could forgive Brady for not knowing it was Malcolm Butler.

Butler played two years of high school football. He got kicked out of Hinds Community College in Raymond, MS.

He went to work at a Popeyes in Vicksburg, MS.

Does Popeyes have lettuce? If they do, PSA: don’t eat the lettuce there either.

After Popeyes, he returned to football at Division II West Alabama in Livingston, AL.

He ran a 4.62 forty at his pro day with a 7.20 three-cone, both well short of what NFL teams look for. He was signed only after a tryout at rookie minicamp.

In that preseason opener against Washington, Butler allowed two catches on seven targets and broke up two passes. Boston.com’s practice notes had him picking Brady off in an eleven-on-eleven drill the following Monday.

And then, of course, he picked off Russell Wilson at the goal line in Glendale.

From Popeyes to Pete Carroll’s nightmares.

Other UDFAs who began their NFL careers with the Patriots include three-time Super Bowl champion Stephen Neal, who wrestled in college but did not play football, Pro Bowl cornerback J.C. Jackson, cornerbacks Jonathan Jones and Randall Gay, and wide receiver Jakobi Meyers.

UDFAs who contributed to the Patriots, though they started with other teams, include Wes Welker, Chris Hogan, Joe Andruzzi, Danny Woodhead, and local sports radio host Jermaine Wiggins, who had ten receptions in the snow during the Tuck Rule game.

“No UDFAs, No Rings” is not as catchy as “No Scotland, No Party,” but it might be just as true. As a side note, we need to invite the Tartan Army to the next Super Bowl parade.

UDFA’s contributing to the Patriots’ success, though, are not just a thing of the past. Current special teams ace and 2024 First-Team All-Pro Special Teamer Brenden Scholer was a UDFA.

Mike Vrabel and Eliot Wolf continued the Belichick UDFA tradition by having two on the team last year: EDGE Elijah Ponder, who was taking reps with the first team this spring, and Efton Chism III, who, from his name, sounds like he should be the team butler but suits up as a slot receiver.

Two common threads have emerged for the Patriots’ UDFAs. They impress in the preseason, and they often contribute first on special teams.

So now let’s bring on down the next contestants to make the Patriots as UDFAs.

Some are real long shots. Jimmy Kibble has about the same chance of making the AFC Champs as Jimmy Kimmel. Kenneth Harris has only slightly better odds than Kamala Harris.

The Patriots, though, signed three undrafted free agents for more than $250,000 in guaranteed money: Myles Montgomery (RB), Channing Canada (CB), and Kyle Dixon (WR).

When in doubt, follow the money. Then follow where the open roster spots might be.

Montgomery and Canada have the best shots, both coming from bigger schools, UCF and TSU, while Dixon comes from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, MO. More critically, he joins a crowded receiver room, though the practice squad is always an option.

But don’t count Dixon out. Like many UDFAs, he has taken a circuitous path. He was a Division I Pitcher at two D-1 schools in Illinois and an NAIA school in Georgia before falling back in love with football at Culver-Stockton, where he was an NAIA All-American who caught 83 passes in 2025.

Size-wise, at 6’4”, 220 pounds, Dixon resembles a former Patriots first-round pick you would rather forget: N’Keal Harry.

The good news is that Dixon had a 3.8 GPA in college, so unlike Harry he may not repeatedly make the same dumb mistakes and might learn the playbook, which was never Harry’s strong suit.

Come to think of it, did he even have a strong suit?

You might also recall, they selected Harry over another big receiver who went in the second round – A.J. somebody or other.

31 of 32 NFL teams sent scouts to Culver-Stockton to evaluate Dixon. As you can see from this picture, his size compared to the competition is like that of the 30-year-old guy playing against 12-year-olds in Benchwarmers. The climb from Culver-Stockton to the NFL will be like going from Heartbreak Hill to K2.

Dixon was invited to the Hula Bowl and shined at his Pro Day.

He could be this year’s Chism.

Montgomery and Canada likely fall into the camp of needing to make it on special teams. Canada can add to the Patriots’ legacy of UDFA CB signings that include Malcolm Butler, J.C. Jackson and Randall Gay.

Montgomery can follow in the footsteps of “The Law Firm” BenJarvis Green-Ellis. The Patriots gave Montgomery $272,500 in guaranteed money for a reason. But he should not be confused with “The Ambulance Chaser,” UAB Guard JonDarius Morgan (and Morgan), who is a much longer shot to make the team.

Most of these guys you will never hear from again. Montgomery wants to attend the police academy and become a police officer after his football career ends. He has worked with the Orange County, FL, Sheriff’s Department. Orlando is in Orange County, so you might well see him if your kids are being unruly on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World this fall.

Channing Canada, I kid you not, comes from the hometown of Boutte, LA. He started every game for TCU last season, was an All-Academic Big 12 in 2023, and was a four-star recruit out of junior college.

Speaking of Boutte — and really, who doesn’t want to— Kayshon is far more valuable than the fifth-round pick they are trying to shake from other teams for him. Keep him on the roster, especially as insurance if Brown gets injured.

Montgomery, Dixon, and Canada got the money.

David Blay Jr. might have the best chance at a 53-man roster spot versus the practice squad because they need depth at defensive tackle after losing Khyiris Tonga to the Chiefs. Blay anchored the interior of the Miami defensive line that led the Hurricanes to the National Championship game and he can stuff the run. He will need to add bulk, though, at “just” 292 pounds versus Tonga’s 335 and the almost minimum 300 pounds of NFL Defensive tackles.

History says at least one of them will make the team.

You never know; perhaps in February you will hear a coach shouting, “Channing, Go!”