There’s a disgracefully long list of reasons the Red Sox lost Game 2 of last year’s Wild Card series to the Yankees, and I don’t think any of them are brought up enough.
Ceddanne Rafaela tried to get a bunt down twice on a pair of pitches that were each about a foot outside of the strike zone (all while the Yankee bullpen was trying to giftwrap the go-ahead run). The team grounded into three double plays to kill rallies. And Nate Eaton couldn’t turn his elite (98th percentile) sprint speed into a run on this
play thanks to below some average baserunning, and even more below average third base coaching by Kyle Hudson.
It remains one of those plays that gets worse every time you watch it.
On the other side of the ball, there was also this defense debacle from Jarren Duran in the fifth inning:
If virtually any of those plays go the other way, the Red Sox probably advance to the ALDS with Garrett Crochet slated to pitch twice in a best of five series. But alas, we’ll never know the details down that rabbit hole.
Instead, we have to look back; because before the brutal bungles that begat the breakdown in Boston’s season, Brayan Bello was bounced from the battle in favor of the bullpen following just 2.1 innings of bleak and borderline abysmal pitching. He faced just 11 batters, failed to get five of them out, didn’t strike out a soul, couldn’t keep Ben Rice in the ballpark, and was largely saved from complete disaster by an Anthony Volpe double play in the second inning, and Alex Cora’s quick hook in the third.
This is all a long way of saying Brayan Bello absolutely sucked in this game! If it wasn’t for the ensuing embarrassing events later in the evening, this outing, and the general lack of a true No. 2 starter that spawned its existence, would’ve caught the lion’s share of the flack from fans.
But do you know one place where it didn’t go unnoticed? The Red Sox front office. Over the last two months, Craig Breslow has been busy on the trade market, acquiring multiple arms including both Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo. And now, he’s also finally entered the free agent fight, landing Ranger Suarez to a 5-year, $130 million deal on Wednesday.
Switching gears to analysis mode, the two biggest knocks on Suarez are that his fastball only tops out in the lower 90s in world increasingly obsessed with velocity, and he’s never pitched 160 or more innings in a season. But you know what? I can live with both of those things.
Velocity wise, our own Jacob Roy broke down why Suarez is so effective despite his lack of elite heat, and even pointed out how it might help him age more gracefully in a Red Sox contract that will take him through his age 34 season.
On the durability front, he’s almost guaranteed to miss a handful of starts every year, landing somewhere between 22 and 29 outings in each of the last four seasons. But do you know what starts he generally doesn’t miss? The ones in October. He has a 1.48 postseason ERA in 11 outings that include eight starts and three relief appearances, and last year, in a Game 3 the Phillies absolutely had to have in Dodger Stadium, he pitched five innings while only allowing single run. If Orion Kerkering didn’t throw the ball away to end Game 4 in horrific fashion, there’s a decent chance Suarez, who is known to be willing to take the ball in any spot, racks up more postseason innings in a potential Game 5 and maybe beyond. And if that happens, his deal is probably even larger than the $130 million the Red Sox just gave him.
So the bottom line here is the Red Sox have their guy to throw behind Garrett Crochet if they make it back to a short October series in 2026. Suarez might not be a king to Crochet’s ace, but he’s absolutely a face card pitcher you wouldn’t mind throwing on the second trick of the proceedings.
Just as crucially, the addition of Suarez combined with Gray and Oviedo buries Brayan Bello to at best, the back of the rotation. The righty had his shot, didn’t seize the opportunity, and now, he’ll be lucky to ever get the ball that early in a playoff series again. Under this revamped rotation, the Red Sox pitching depth now looks something like this (courtesy of Hunter Noll):
Even more bonkers is the opportunity the Red Sox now have to to truly take this run prevention unit to the next level if they deal from a position of strength in either the outfield or the overflow in their rotation. Suppose for instance they work a trade with the Cubs for Nico Hoerner and his elite defense at second base. Given the Red Sox have a surplus of outfielders and a hole in the infield, and the Cubs have a surplus of infielders and a pending hole in their outfield, that feels like a reasonable place to start.
A move like that and now all of a sudden you have Ceddanne Rafaela, Roman Anthony and Wilyer Abreu in the outfield, and Hoerner, Trevor Story, Marcello Mayer (playing third), and Willson Contreras in the infield. Any fan of defensive metrics would drool over that arrangement.
Or perhaps the Boston and Arizona front offices reconnect after their recent acquisitions Suarez and Nolan Arenado and are more open to finding a path to move Ketel Marte out of the desert.
Of course, this would all depend on what the issue was that prevented a deal back in December. Did the Sox balk at the thought of moving Connelly Early or Payton Tolle? Or was the issue more about the amount of money flowing cross country in a deal including both Duran and Bello? Who knows, but with fewer free agent prizes left on the board and each team a little more solidified in positions of strength, I wouldn’t be shocked if this door reopens.
Oh, and one more thing on Duran and Bello. Not only were they both big reasons the Sox lost that pivotal Game 2 in New York last year, but they also represent nearly $17 million in combined luxury tax hits on the 2026 payroll ($9.2 million for Bello, and $7.7 million for Duran). So if the front office is still being ordered to stay below that second luxury tax threshold of $264 million, moving one or both of these guys is a great way to accomplish that after adding money, depth, and postseason dependability to the roster in Ranger Suarez.
At this point, it’s not a matter of if, but rather who is getting moved from either the outfield or rotation surplus. I just think it’s more poetic if it’s the guys who helped sink the ship in New York last year. Losing postseason games in that building should always have consequences.
