For the eighth game in a row to kick off the 2026 MLB season, the Boston Red Sox failed to score more than five runs. They are the only team in baseball that has yet to do so this season. Get used to this.
The lineup isn’t going to be this anemic all season long — and it certainly won’t be bitterly cold with an easterly wind whipping off the harbor all season long. But 2026 Red Sox just aren’t going to scare many opposing pitchers.
Yes, there is Roman Anthony. And in in the fifth inning he laced a triple to put the game-tying run on third base. The problem for Anthony and the Red Sox, though, is that there were already two outs and the man hitting behind him doesn’t belong near the top of an MLB lineup. It’s now been six years since Trevor Story was a real asset on offense. And in the key at-bat of the middle innings with Anthony 90 feet from home, he weakly grounded out to second.
On the pitching side of things, Connelly Early wasn’t that sharp today. He walked four batters in just four innings and spent a lot of the game nibbling around the edges. But he limited hard contact, struck out Fernando Tatis twice, and kept his team in the game, making him one of the few Red Sox players who did his job today.
Three Studs
Willson Contreras, 1-4 R, K
He scored the first run of the game and blasted a ball that would’ve been an extra base hit if Fernando Tatis didn’t cover more ground than any other right fielder I’ve ever seen. He’s seeing the ball well and is going to be massively important this season.
Marcelo Mayer, 1-3, RBI, 2 K
He knocked in the Sox first run of the game with a sac fly and, once again, looked good out there in the field. There’s no advance stat for this, but he continues to just look like a ballplayer, y’know?
Roman Anthony, 2-4
Triples are sexy, ergo Roman Anthony is sexy. Also he’s the only guy on the team who got multiple hits.
Three Duds
Trevor Story, 0-4 K
It wasn’t just the groundout with Anthony on third. He also came up with two on and no out in the 8th and struck out. The Sox ended up scraping a run across in that inning anyway, but it’s at-bats like that one that make it hard to put crooked numbers on the board.
Caleb Durbin, 1-3
Just as Story doesn’t belong at the top of a lineup, Durbin doesn’t belong in the six hole. Yes, he got a hit today. But it was an infield dribbler and he continues to swing the bat like a man who is afraid to hurt the baseball. And while Freddy Fermin’s RBI double down the third baseline definitely wasn’t his fault, it is, unfortunately, a fact that someone other than the shortest third baseman in the league might’ve been able to get a glove on it.
Aroldis Chapman, 1 IP, 2 H, K, 1 ER
He was brought into a tie game in the 9th and tasked with keeping it a tie game. He did not.
Play of the Game
I’m not putting a Padres walk-off here, so let’s take another look at Roman’s triple.
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