The Red Sox 2026 Season Is Starting to Look Up
Slowly but surely, the Boston Red Sox are turning their 2026 season around, as evidenced by an impressive victory at St. Louis’ Busch Stadium Sunday afternoon. It is important to remember that an MLB year is a marathon, not a sprint. Nevertheless, the collective breath of New England was held as their beloved team stumbled through the first mile or so of that marathon, dropping the first three series of the year and slipping to a disconcerting 2-7. Though the baseball played since has still not been perfect, back-to-back series wins are hard to fault. The Sunday dub, which helped the squad climb to 6-9, was emblematic of things the Sox are starting to do right. A series against the Twins, starting Monday, presents further opportunities to build momentum and get Boston back on a successful marathon pace. Hopefully, improved starting pitching, situational hitting, and appearances from a new talent will be the norm moving forward.
Bello Rights The Ship
The starting rotation for Beantown, thought in the offseason to be amongst the league’s best, struggled an awful lot in that opening skid. Since then, however, guys are demonstrating their true potential, with Brayan Bello’s outing being the newest example. Brayan managed to hold the Cardinals to two runs on six hits over six and two-thirds innings. He drew a lot of weak contact, a comforting sign after the eight runs he allowed in his first two starts, which actually only amounted to eight innings. This, coupled with Ranger Suarez’s elite outing on Saturday night, is a sign that maybe the Sox rotation is still one to watch with anticipation.
Boston Bats Improve with RISP
It is one of the most maddening failures in not just baseball, but sports in general: a team loads up the bases early in an inning, only to squander the moment and not score at all. This has not been uncommon for the Red Sox over the past few weeks, but a high-scoring afternoon suggests that the lineup is still promising. Their nine runs mark a season high, but another, almost as positive, stat is the minimal four strikeouts the team committed. Poor plate discipline threatened to plague the rest of the year, so the fact that fans and players alike can point to Sunday as a counterexample to their batting problems is a huge plus.
Contreras Continues His Excellence
Another huge plus is the weekend’s best hitter having himself one more great game. Willson Contreras lit up his former team, going four for five with three RBIs. His signature moment came in just the first inning. Cardinals pitcher Andre Pallante missed his spot on a sinker, and Contreras made him pay with a 411-foot bomb. It marked his third of the season, a team-high he shares with right fielder Wilyer Abreu. There was a lot of talk in the offseason about how the nine-time World Series champs would replace Alex Bregman, their 2025 third baseman and lineup highlight. Though the literal position was filled by Caleb Durbin, the veteran and the consistent threat presence at the plate seems to now be Contreras’ for the taking.
