As deadline nears, Red Sox postseason ambitions hinge on adding offense
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Ambition-fueled expeditions from Massachusetts to Sacramento come with an ominous history.
In 1849, as gold fever spread, the La Grange set sail from Massachusetts for a six-month journey around South America to Sacramento. There’s no evidence of any successful gold strikes by the mining company. Instead, the ship was sold to Sacramento County and turned into a floating jail. Ultimately, the La Grange sank during a flood in 1859.
The Sox — who surely flew west for a four-game series against the Athletics with visions of plundering wins from the Green and Gold — certainly haven’t been sunk by Sacramento, but their aspirations have taken on water with a jarring succession of events.
Foremost, the acquisition and immediate loss of power-hitting infielder Curtis Mead has left the team without a hoped-for offensive upgrade. The Sox made a move to upgrade their offense, but now Mead won’t be available to contribute for several weeks, if at all this season. The Sox are left to lament what could have been.
“Curtis obviously brings a lot of things, not just power,” said Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “The big one was power, [but] he gets on base, he gets on base [against pitchers of] both handedness. He walks, he doesn’t strike out a ton. So not only did he fit in with what we currently have on this team, which is a bunch of ball-in-play, really grindy at-bat type hitters. He’s that and also power.”
Of course, there’s one time-honored bit of reassurance to which the Sox can subscribe as they try to absorb Mead’s sudden loss: Pitching and defense — “run prevention,” depending on preferred nomenclature — wins in October.
Or does it?
There is, of course, danger in trying to characterize sweeping postseason trends, and what does and does not influence short series. A three-, five-, or seven-game sample attests to the broad possibilities of a small segment, not eternal truths.
Even so, as the Sox are left to contemplate their needs leading up to Monday’s trade deadline, part of their thinking needs to be not merely about bolstering their team’s chances of making the postseason but how to make noise in October.
There’s been a through-line among teams that have advanced in the playoffs and particularly among those that have won: The ability to mash.
Recent postseason history suggests teams struggle to advance without elite offenses. In an era where playoff games feature an unrelenting succession of high-octane arms, the great separator has been the ability to handle elite pitching.
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Since 2020, 24 teams have reached the League Championship Series (a level of success that would require them to win at least one postseason series). On average, those teams have ranked sixth among all teams in regular season runs scored, with 13 of the 24 ranking in MLB’s top five in regular season runs per game, and 19 finishing in the league’s top 10.
World Series winners in that span have been even more tightly clustered at the top. All six champions this decade finished in the top eight in scoring, with four ranking in the top three.
Surprisingly, the same teams haven’t been as consistently characterized by dominant pitching. On average, the teams reaching the LCS over the same span ranked 10th in runs allowed per game. Only seven of 24 ranked in MLB’s top five, while 13 ranked in the top 10.
This year’s Sox — armed with a dominant pitching staff that had held opponents to 3.75 runs per game, the third-best mark in baseball — entered Wednesday night at Sutter Health Park averaging 4.2 runs per game, 23rd in the big leagues. No team this decade has reached an LCS with an offense that was worse than 15th.
The Sox, of course, have been encouraged by the broader trends with their lineup over the last five weeks, a span in which they’ve averaged 5.0 runs per game. If they sustain such a pace moving forward, there’s a good chance they’d break into the top 15.
Still, they are far from taking their surge for granted, particularly given the lack of true thump in the lineup beyond Willson Contreras. The decision to acquire Mead — and his combination of power and on-base skills — made obvious what the team thought it was lacking.
“We’ve shown that we’re capable of winning games even playing small ball. And there’s games where we get going with the bats and we hit some home runs,” said Tracy. “But . . . if you just look at home runs, power would add another element. So that’s probably something that’s worth looking at and keeping an eye on.”
The Sox will be doing just that, as the final days leading up to the deadline clarify the players who will be available, and the ways a contending team can reshape its lineup into a postseason-worthy vessel.
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