Red Sox President Reacts To 'Low Point' In Boston's 2023 Season

The Red Sox’s rollercoaster 2023 season is at risk of flying off the tracks.

Boston wrapped up its August schedule with a 13-15 record for the month, an underwhelming mark that entering Thursday had the Red Sox 14 1/2 games back in the American League East and 6 1/2 games behind the AL’s third wild-card spot.

Playing in the Major League Baseball postseason is looking increasingly unlikely for the Red Sox — FanGraphs had their playoff odds at 4.8% on Thursday — and the overall optics around the club aren’t great after Boston suffered a three-game sweep at the hands of the Houston Astros at Fenway Park.

Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy even acknowledged Thursday during an appearance on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” that this week’s losing streak is a new “low point” in Boston’s up-and-down campaign.

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“Yeah, for sure. It is a tough, tough blow,” Kennedy said. “We’re just not pitching. We don’t have the depth right now, and we saw it manifest itself the other night. When you’re really thin with your starting pitching, and you don’t have starters that you need to go deep, and you’ve got 15 games in a row against the class of baseball, it just was not a good recipe.

“We’ve had a really brutal August. I think we’re 13-15. So, look, it does feel like the low point. The odds are stacked against us. But no one’s giving up. Until our playoff odds are zero, I think that the clubhouse, our players, Alex Cora, the staff — they’re going to grind to try and get back in this thing here. We’ve got 28 games to go, so let’s jump onboard and see what we can do over the next four or five weeks.”

The Red Sox had a chance to prove themselves over the last couple of weeks, starting with a three-game series against the New York Yankees on Aug. 18-20. They began with a bang, sweeping the Yankees, who have their own set of problems, but since stumbled against the Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Boston went a combined 3-7 against Houston and Los Angeles, a stretch that culminated with four straight losses and raised further questions over whether the Red Sox should’ve been more proactive about addressing their pitching deficiencies at the MLB trade deadline.

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“It is a tough, tough blow.”

Sam Kennedy on the Red Sox being swept by the Astros

“I think it’s natural to question and to look back and examine everything, but it’s not appropriate for us now — for those of us in the front office who are accountable for these things, starting with me and our whole organization. We’re a team,” Kennedy said. “Others can look back and question and pick apart, but for us, we’ve got to focus on what’s in front of us the four weeks in front of us and staying positive and trying to get back in this thing, regardless of moves that were made or not made.

“The great thing about baseball is you could debate every element of offseason, trade deadlines, moves up and down, bringing guys up from Triple-A, sending them down, when to use them. But our job is to block out the noise and keep moving forward.”

The Red Sox return to action Friday night, when they begin a three-game series with the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. After that, they play 13 consecutive games against AL East opponents, with a homestand against the Baltimore Orioles and Yankees sandwiched between road dates with the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays.

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Do the Red Sox have one final push in them? It’ll sure take a lot to rebound from this most recent setback.