Let\u2019s start with the good news, because there is some.<\/p>\n
Garrett Crochet threw a live BP this weekend and is traveling with the team to New York. Willson Contreras DHed in the finale after a hand injury that scared everyone\u2014he\u2019s healthy enough to swing a bat, even if nobody\u2019s declaring him fully healthy yet. Ceddanne Rafaela was back in the lineup for the Cubs series. Tanner Houck made it back to the mound in Game 162. Those are real things.<\/p>\n
Mickey Gasper is dealing with a significant biceps injury from Friday\u2019s doubleheader and is almost certainly not going to be available for the Wild Card Series. Tyron Guerrero\u2014one of the four bullpen locks Boston was counting on in October\u2014is also banged up and may not pitch again until next year. Eli White\u2019s foot injury is in fact season-ending, having had Lisfranc surgery last week. Justin Slaten is out. Masataka Yoshida is out (though we\u2019ve known that). The enigma that is Curtis Mead is down in Fort Myers, and nobody seems to know what his actual status is.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a utility man who provides quality at-bats against right-handed pitching, a back-end bullpen arm, a speedy outfielder, a late-inning reliever, a left-handed power bat, and a middle infielder\u2014all gone or in serious doubt for a three-game series that starts Tuesday at 8.<\/p>\n
Not to make excuses for this team. But damn. These guys are hurt.<\/p>\n
Payton Tolle, Sonny Gray, and Ranger Suarez will start in some order. Chad Tracy says the current sequencing against Cleveland didn\u2019t give anything away, and maybe that\u2019s true. What matters is that all three are healthy and available, and that\u2019s more than a lot of teams can say.<\/p>\n
Brayan Bello and Jake Bennett give Boston a pair of genuine multi-inning options out of the bullpen. Bennett\u2019s numbers against the Yankees this year\u20142-0 with a 0.73 ERA and 10 Ks\u2014can\u2019t be ignored even if he\u2019ll be pitching out of the pen against them. Those two going two or three innings in the middle of a game gives the starters a real off-ramp. This is also where Garrett Crochet could end up\u2014bulk innings behind your main starters to get to your true back bullpen weapons in Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman.<\/p>\n
The back end hinges on Chapman. He last pitched on the 23rd\u2014locking down three Ks and the save against the Guardians in a 1-0 win\u2014but the question is whether a full week off means he comes back at his usual level. Nobody knows the answer until he\u2019s on the mound.<\/p>\n
Crochet and Houck: the upside bets<\/p>\n
Houck back on the mound in Game 162 is the kind of moment you wanted to see. He wasn\u2019t sharp, but he hasn\u2019t pitched in a Major League game since July 2025\u2014some rust is expected. It\u2019s not clear whether he\u2019ll make the postseason roster, but four solid rehab outings and then a real appearance in a real game is enough in my book to use him some time in the next two days. He\u2019s not at his best, but compared to other options like Jovani Moran or Alec Gamboa, a healthy Houck in a short series could be a legitimate weapon.<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t seen Garrett Crochet pitch at all, but he\u2019s determined to make an impact. He\u2019s the most talented arm on the Red Sox and one of the best pitchers in the world. It would be foolish to count someone like him out.<\/p>\n
Contreras DHing in the finale is the good news we all needed. The hand is healthy enough to swing. Whether he can handle the rigors of a full Wild Card series is a different question, but he\u2019s available.<\/p>\n
Rafaela back in the outfield means Boston\u2019s defense gets considerably better (sorry not sorry to Jahmai Jones and\/or Nate Eaton). He changes that center field situation completely, and in a series at Yankee Stadium with Max Fried and Carlos Rod\u00f3n likely on the hill, having an elite defender out there to cut down extra-base hits matters more than people will think.<\/p>\n
The Gasper loss hurts the bench big time. Tracy loved having him available against tough righties. Hell, Tracy loved him more than Connor Wong, who really felt like he was on the outs with the way Evil Mickey was producing. With Gasper out, Jahmai Jones becomes even more important as a right-handed option to deploy against Fried or Rod\u00f3n\u2014and Boston will almost certainly see both of them. Not ideal, but Jones knows what his job is.<\/p>\n
This roster is more battered than anyone would like going into a playoff series. The bullpen without a healthy Guerrero and with Chapman still proving he\u2019s back to his expected level is thinner than the numbers suggested it would be a month ago. But Houck and Crochet could give the relief corps real upside if everything breaks right.<\/p>\n
What wins this series isn\u2019t going to be one player. It\u2019s going to be Bello throwing three innings in the middle of a tight game, Bennett navigating a lefty-heavy Yankees lineup, Roman Anthony continuing to do what he\u2019s done over the past 10 days (aka actually see the ball and put it in play), and Adley Rutschman being Adley Rutschman when it counts.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s going to be a total team effort or it\u2019s not going to happen. That\u2019s the honest take. No excuses, even with the sizable list of banged up players. The real season begins now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s start with the good news, because there is some. Garrett Crochet threw a live BP this weekend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64,133786],"class_list":["post-359585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-red-sox-discussion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}