Tuesday night the 2025 Red Sox season officially reaches its midway point. The Herald’s Red Sox beat writers, Mac Cerullo and Gabrielle Starr, discuss how things have played out and what we can expect in the months ahead.
Preseason predictions: Fair or foul?
Gabrielle Starr: Before Opening Day, we both felt more optimistic than we had in over half a decade. I said the Alex Bregman signing “really moved the needle,” and it certainly has been a game-changer in more ways than one. However, my biggest takeaway from the offseason and spring training was the Red Sox “being perceived like THE Red Sox again,” and with the Rafael Devers trade, that sentiment took on a very different meaning.
MLB Predictions: Should Red Sox be considered the favorites in wide-open AL?
Mac Cerullo: I think it’s safe to say neither of us had that on our bingo card. The Devers trade was obviously a shock to the system and really unearthed a lot of the hard feelings that the Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman acquisitions seemed to smooth over. The fact that the team has been pretty disappointing hasn’t helped matters either.
GS: Whether someone likes the Devers trade or not, and regardless of if the decision ages well, the Red Sox have officially left no room for doubt about their reputation with homegrown stars. Nomar Garciaparra paid off, but Jon Lester, Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and now Devers? It’s an ugly pattern. Just when free agents were starting to choose Boston again, too. I don’t see how any player will feel like they can trust this front office now.
MC: That’ll be a question for the future, but the good news is that — this past weekend notwithstanding — the club actually has been playing better lately. As of this writing the team is 40-39 going into Monday night’s late game in Anaheim, so they’ll reach the halfway point hovering around .500. That’s pretty good considering how grim things were looking a couple of weeks ago, but also a far cry from the AL East title we both predicted.
GS: The umpiring was appalling this weekend, too. I was shocked Alex Cora didn’t get ejected from Sunday’s game earlier! No so-called moral victories at this point in the season, and this team’s defense is indefensible, but San Francisco was a mess, and not entirely of their own making.
Anyway, considering they lost Triston Casas almost two months ago, are fielding a starting nine with at least three rookies every night, and had the Devers saga hanging over their heads since February, the turnaround between May and June has been pretty impressive.
MC: One added bonus, all of the “Big Three” have finally reached the majors, as we expected they would by midseason. Well, kind of. Kristian Campbell’s first stint didn’t go well towards the end and he’s back in Triple-A for some seasoning, but the long wait for Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer has mercifully ended.
GS: I don’t want us to linger on the Devers situation for too much of this, and the ‘What if’ game is an exercise in futility, but it is fair to wonder what this team would look like now if they hadn’t rushed Campbell onto the Opening Day roster. As of Monday morning, the Red Sox led the majors in errors. Would keeping Devers at third and moving Bregman to second really have been worse than what we’ve seen from this team?
MC: If they’d gone that route Devers would probably still be on the team, so in that respect it would probably have gone better, but that’s total hindsight. We and almost everyone else thought they made the right choice going with Bregman at third and Devers at DH.
GS: Yes, third base was stronger with Bregman… until he got injured five weeks ago. But no way around it, the offense is worse without Devers. Abraham Toro has been pretty great, though.
Can Sox still compete?
MC: So looking ahead, the Red Sox obviously haven’t played nearly as well as anyone expected, but if we’re being honest the pitching has had as much to do with that as anything. The starting rotation has been maddeningly inconsistent outside of Crochet, but over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen just how good the team can be when the starters actually do their job. Is it sustainable?
GS: Honestly, probably not. Pitching rarely is, right? I’m worried about Crochet down the stretch. He threw a career-high 146 innings over 32 starts last season, and that was with the White Sox keeping him on what he described as a ‘leash’ in the second half. He’s already up to 102.1 innings over 16 starts. The Red Sox need to be careful with him, especially because, as you noted, beyond him this rotation is full of question marks. Brayan Bello and Lucas Giolito have shown strong improvement, but Walker Buehler has been woefully inconsistent, Tanner Houck’s season has been all thorns, no roses, and it seems like we won’t see Kutter Crawford any time soon. The plan for Kyle Harrison, the lefty from the Devers trade, is also unclear. But hey! At least there’s quantity for a change, if not enough quality.
MC: That’s the big difference between this season and the past few years, which is why I still think there’s a chance the Red Sox can still make a push in the second half. Between Harrison, Crawford, Houck, Richard Fitts, hopefully Hunter Dobbins and eventually maybe even Patrick Sandoval, the club is going to have arms it can plug in. Jordan Hicks should help out the bullpen too, and obviously getting Justin Slaten back eventually will be huge. Call me crazy but I think if the Red Sox hang in there and get Bregman back soon, they could still reach the trade deadline in position to buy.
GS: After signing Bregman, calling up all of the ‘Big Three,’ and especially trading Devers, I don’t see a world in which they have any excuse not to go for it this year. And at this point, they owe it to the fans to make a legitimate effort.
MC: They need a big bat. Obviously they should explore the pitching market as well, but if this team can add a first baseman with some pop, that will go a long way towards fixing the lineup.
GS: Rhys Hoskins?
Second half predictions
GS: I think the Red Sox might go big at the deadline. Thus far, Craig Breslow is proving to be savvier and more aggressive in trades than Chaim Bloom, and it’s paid off in guys like Crochet and Carlos Narváez.
MC: Call me crazy, but I’m not ready to back off my Red Sox winning the AL East prediction.
GS: I don’t know about the East, but I think these crazy kids can definitely snatch a Wild Card. And when the Red Sox get into October baseball, they tend to take things to another level.
MC: It’s been a wild and bumpy ride so far, but there’s still plenty of baseball left to be played. If the team gets healthy, makes some moves and if Anthony and Mayer settle in, there’s no reason why the Red Sox can’t be the team that heats up in the second half.
