There was a genuine air of positivity washing over the Boston Red Sox at the start of the season, and even as they hovered around .500 for most of the first two months, the vibes stayed somewhat high.
As of Monday afternoon, that positivity has completely evaporated.
The Red Sox lost their 14th one-run game of the season, 3-2 to the sub-.500 Milwaukee Brewers, dropping them to 27-29. Less than 48 hours after a Rafael Devers walk-off single brought the Sox over .500, they’re a loss away from falling three games under for the first time all season.
After struggling to score all afternoon, the Red Sox got a run in each of the last two innings, but lost on the game’s final batter with the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position?
That final batter was the third slot in the Red Sox’s lineup, where Alex Bregman batted in 51 of the first 52 games of the season. But instead, as Boston needed a hero on Monday afternoon, into the batter’s box stepped… Connor Wong?
Wong was at the plate because manager Alex Cora, who is often superb at in-game adjustments, made a critical error. He’d used Wong as, of all things, a pinch-runner for fellow catcher Carlos Narváez in the top of the eighth.
Narváez had singled to put the tying run on base, but the Red Sox had a short bench and usual pinch-runner David Hamilton had already been taken out. Cora should have asked himself what the realistic chances of Wong scoring on a ball in play that Narváez couldn’t leg out would be before making the error.
As it was, Wong was immediately erased on a fielder’s choice on the Kristian Campbell RBI groundout that got the Red Sox on the scoreboard. And don’t think Wong’s defense didn’t cost them either; he missed a crucial frame job during a walk that extended the next half-inning, when the Brewers scored a gigantic insurance run.
Why was this such a big deal? Well, Narváez had a .391 batting average in his last 20 games coming into Monday, and he’d just fought off elite velocity for a base hit in his at-bat against Abner Uribe. Meanwhile, Wong was hitting .148 on the season with zero (yes, ZERO) RBI in 53 plate appearances.
To bring Wong to the plate, Brewers manager Pat Murphy intentionally walked Devers to put the go-ahead run on second base, something the Orioles chose not to do on Saturday. That allowed closer Trevor Megill, who had already thrown 29 pitches, to face the worst hitter on the Boston roster.
One manager made the right call. The other didn’t. And it brought the Red Sox as close to rock-bottom as they’ve been since the calendar flipped to 2025.
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