Only a few days ago, the Boston Red Sox were the talk of baseball. A blistering 10-game winning streak had shot them from a .500 team squarely into the middle of the American League playoff race. The bats were alive, the energy was electric, and October seemed like a real thing. And then that streak came to a halt in a series lost against the Cubs. Then came a series in Philadelphia. The first game concluded with a 3-2 loss on July 21, and then a humbling 4-1 defeat the following night. The potent offense disappeared, striking out 28 times and drawing only two walks. The sudden crash left one man to answer for it…
After the second of those losses, manager Alex Cora made a point. A reporter presented the damning numbers and asked: What needs to happen next? After a little joke, Cora turned serious. “Good stuff, man. Two of the best pitchers in the big leagues,” he said, crediting the Phillies. But he didn’t stop there. “Uh, if we want to play in October, we have to find a way to hit those guys, right?” Cora added that while they battled the night before, against Cristopher Sanchez, “he was outstanding… like just he had to take your hat.”
Alex Cora on the Red Sox struggles against top major league pitchers
“If we wanna play in October we have to find a way to hit those guys.” pic.twitter.com/rKC8ecHw2b
— NESN (@NESN) July 23, 2025
The first loss was particularly agonizing. Boston took the lead on July 21 in the first when Jarren Duran hit a leadoff home run. But Phillies ace Zack Wheeler was formidable, striking out 10 batters over six innings. The Red Sox starter, Walker Buehler, was good as well, giving up only one earned run in seven innings. The game was 2-2 in the sixth, following a run-scoring single by Trevor Story, but Boston’s bats went quiet from there. The score was tied until the bottom of the tenth.
With the bases loaded and no outs, the game ended in baseball absurdity. A checked swing by Phillies slugger Edmundo Sosa collided with catcher Carlos Narváez’s glove. The umpire called it catcher’s interference, and the winning run was walked in. It was a strange, walk-off gut punch, something that had never happened before in an MLB game since 1971. The confounding conclusion illustrated a cold, hard truth: Boston couldn’t score when it mattered most, leaving the door open for a fluke to beat them.
If the first game was an odd heartbreaker, the second was a complete dismantling. Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sanchez was untouchable, throwing a complete game with 12 strikeouts and zero walks. The Red Sox scored only on a solo home run by Rob Refsnyder. The Phillies, on the other hand, were quick to jump on starter Richard Fitts early, taking a 4-0 lead in the second inning on homers from Max Kepler and Kyle Schwarber. This is the very situation Cora issued a warning about: Total domination from an elite arm.
These two losses were not simply a fluke; they exposed a deep contradiction at the core of this Red Sox team. The offensive firepower that was so obvious for most of the year looked disturbingly feeble against top-tier pitching.
Red Sox’s high-powered, high-whiff offense
Coming into this series, the Red Sox were an offense fueled by numbers. The club finished fifth in the majors in runs scored (500), sixth in batting average (.254), and tied for fifth in slugging percentage (.429). Their 126 home runs were ninth in the majors. That production was fueled by a breakout season from Wilyer Abreu, who paces the team with 20 homers, and a strong season from the offseason acquisition Alex Bregman, who is hitting .910 OPS.
The Philadelphia series revealed the lineup’s fatal flaw. The entire offense appeared to fall apart against elite pitching. Top prospect Roman Anthony was completely overwhelmed, striking out seven times in eight at-bats. Key sluggers such as Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu were also shut down, registering just one hit and six strikeouts combined. The team’s only two walks in the entire series came from the bottom of the order. It was a top-to-bottom failure to control the strike zone, magnifying a problem that has surfaced at other times this season.
The consequences of this sudden cold snap are enormous for the AL Wild Card race. And it is the Red Sox who have the final playoff spot now, but the cushion has disappeared. Just ahead of them are the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners, and just behind are the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers, who are, respectively, one and three games back. A 10-game winning streak bought Boston a seat at the table, but after dropping four of their past five games, they have no margin for error in a crowded field.
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