What Can We Take Away After 3 Weeks?

The 2023 Boston Red Sox baseball club. Are they a bad team? No, I wouldn’t say that. But, also, they aren’t really a good team either. Three weeks in, the 2023 Boston Red Sox are an enigma. Even looking a little closer beyond just the team’s record, there aren’t that many strong takeaways from the first tenth of this season.

Good, bad, or even ugly, it’s been difficult to grab on to anything this season. One could take a glass-half-empty or a glass-half-full view on that. Me? I choose to look at it both ways and also neither way, therefore I’m always right. Let’s try and break down a few things in three sections: Offense, Rotation, and Bullpen.

Offense

We miss Adam Duvall very much and can’t wait for his return. Get well soon Adam. XOXO.

Far and away the most positive development of this season is the apparent breakout of Alex Verdugo. For three years now we’ve been waiting for him to put it all together, and it seems like he finally has. Hitting almost .350, Verdugo has completely embraced the leadoff spot in the order. I say we get those extension talks going!

Rafael Devers is still very good. Not much to talk about there.

Justin Turner seems to have finally turned a corner and is beginning to look like the JT we’re used to. He’s gotten his average up to .277 and even stroked his first Red Sox home run this weekend.

Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images

After that, it’s been ugly. My two Rookie Of The Year picks, Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida, have both been abysmal. The pair are both hitting well below the Mendoza line. I’m not hitting the panic button yet, as they are both rookies adjusting to MLB, but I would certainly like some more out of them. Kiké Hernandez is in a similar boat, with all three players having an OPS in the .500s. We can only hope they’ll all be turning a corner soon.

Christian Arroyo has been mind-bogglingly bad. His OPS+ is 8. I’ll leave it at that.

Rotation

The last few games have given us some hope for the Red Sox rotation, with Garrett Whitlock and Chris Sale both delivering dazzling performances against the Angels. Other than those two starts though? Yeesh. The rotation of Sale, Corey Kluber, Tanner Houck, and Nick Pivetta, along with poor starts by Kutter Craword and Brayan Bello, has been a complete disappointment.

Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

Most of these pitchers have pedigrees of varying success, and the rotation is finally getting healthy, so I am once again not hitting the panic button here. But my God, if this team is gonna go anywhere, the rotation has got to come around.

Bullpen

In complete contrast to the rotation, there’s truly not much to complain about here! Almost every reliever has been average to great. Kenley Jansen looks completely rejuvenated, John Schreiber looks great (he is walking a few too many though), and Josh Winckowksi looks like he might be a fantastic reliever? Even Kaleb Ort and Ryan Brasier (who did successfully close a game against Ohtani and Trout. I swear.) have been around league average.

Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

The Chris Martin injury is unfortunate and Joely Rodriguez isn’t back yet, but hopefully those are short-term things. Also, as the rotation continues to get healthier, some good pitchers will end up in the pen as well. There’s a lot to like here!

Conclusion

I don’t know! Go Sox!