Through June, the 2026 Red Sox were 37-47 and 13 games out of first place in the AL East. They’d fired their long-time manager Alex Cora after a 10-17 start and “Chief Baseball Officer” Craig Breslow seemed destined for the fate of all the team’s top baseball execs after Theo Epstein broke the franchise’s championship drought: fired before the end of the season.
Instead, it’s sort of worked itself out in that the elevation of triple-A manager (and former Diamondback) Chad Tracy has helped reinvigorate
the team (they’re 58-42 with him as the manager) and the underperforming talent — their lineup was projected to be a fair bit better than league average — really stepped up. They went 21-4 in July (+54 Run diff.) and are 10-8 in August (+40). So, the losing Giants roll in to town less for a “revenge” series with Rafael Devers (and possibly Marcelo Mayer) in tow and more like a proper spanking by a playoff-bound team. Boston is +5.5 in the AL Wild Card.
What has been the Giants’ biggest lead in the 3-Wild Card era?
Eh, who cares.
The 2026 Giants are maybe playing to avoid 100 losses, but then again maybe not. Do a search for “Buster Posey 100 losses” and the tone of the results is that the team is resigned to this being the case. I guess I should’ve figured as much given how little people seemed to care before the season about the Giants needing to have a winning season to avoid having five consecutive non-winning seasons for the first time in franchise history.
I guess the standards are lower now?
That makes sense. The Dodgers are so much better, and so is most of the league. The Giants won their three championships. Most living fans just think 100 losses or several years of losing are just the norm after a run of success. Call it the tankification of fandom. Or the NFL infantilization of all sports.
For what it’s worth, the Red Sox last had a 100-loss season in 1965. In 2012 they lost 93 games and 91 in 2014. These are just 3 instances of 17 where the Red Sox have lost at least 90 games. That’s 17 seasons out of 126.
This year will be just the 13th time the Giants have lost at least 90 games, and that’s out of 144 seasons. Only the three teams from the New York era make this list: 1943 (55-98), 1946 (61-93), and 1899 (60-90). Otherwise, San Francisco can boast that some of the losingest teams in franchise history belong to the city:
1985: 62-100
2017: 64-98
1984: 66-96
1996: 68-94
2007: 71-91
1979: 71-91
2008: 72-90
1992: 72-90
1974: 72-90
Anyway, Boston has had the second-best lineup in the sport (118 wRC+) since July 1st (trailing only the Nationals), but have actually scored the most runs in that span by far: 240 to #2 Cubs’ 231. The Giants have scored 170 (23rd) and have hit 9% worse than the league average (.233/.303/.378 — 91 wRC+). Boston has also had the most valuable pitching (+7.9 fWAR) compared to the Giants’ 12th-most valuable (+4.5).
A couple of highlights from both teams: Bryan Bello went from the worst starter in the sport (10.35 ERA in 7 GS and 31 IP) to one of the best relievers (0.85 ERA in 57.1 IP). Boston, whose pitching coach is former Giants’ pitching coach Andrew Bailey, has used him as more of a bulk starter pairing him with an opener in all but one of his appearances since mid-July.
The Giants seemed like they had done the same thing with Adrian Houser, who had a 5.73 ERA through his first 14 games this season (all starts), but since being pushed to a long reliever he’s posted a 1.50 ERA in 42 IP (11 G). He did get a start in an outing 10 days ago and it worked, but the Giants resumed the follower/bulk role in their sole win against Cleveland the other day. So, you know, as much as Giants fans have hated it, openers work.
Rafael Devers has faced his former team just once since the big trade, and it was that Oracle Park series that took place soone after. So, is his 2-for-12 indicative of what’s going to happen in this series, or will his career .884 OPS at Fenway assert itself?
Erik Miller has appeared in 7 games for Boston since the Giants traded him, and in 7.1 IP he’s struck out 12 and walked only 3. Walks and health are the biggest issues with his game, but otherwise, he can be a dominant reliever. The Giants don’t figure to be much competition against the Red Sox in general, but seeing Miler mow down Devers and Jung Hoo Lee will certainly be tough to watch.
With two lefties starters in the series, maybe this will be a great opportunity for Victor Bericoto. That Green Monster has to seem awfully tempting.
Series Overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (52-75) at Boston Red Sox (68-59)
Where: Fenway Park | Boston, Massachusetts
When: Friday at 4:10pm PT, Saturday at 4:15pm PT, Sunday at 12:15pm PT
National broadcasts: FOX TV (Saturday), NBC/Peacock (Sunday)
Projected starters
Friday: Logan Webb (RHP 8-7, 3.50 ERA) vs. Sonny Gray (RHP 15-3, 2.65 ERA)
Saturday: Blade Tidwell (RHP 0-0, 4.33 ERA) vs. Patrick Sandoval (LHP 1-2, 4.76 ERA)
Sunday: TBD vs. Jake Bennett (LHP 7-6, 3.46 ERA)
Prediction time
Logan Webb has yet to beat the Red Sox in his career and although his start in game one would seem like the best chance to win a game in this series, I’ll predict that the Giants will instead win a game in spite of Webb’s start. Maybe he’s bad and they win anyway or he’s great (he has a 0.90 ERA in 20 IP this month) and they lose but then pick up a win in some other game. Predicting sweeps is such a bummer. I kinda like this .333 run they’re on. It really turns the screws on how the front office thought it had built a good team but all they’re being shown is that they’re a different kind of losing one. Too good to totally tank, not good enough for literally anything else.
