The Red Sox could be in for some pain as they look to October

The Red Sox still have 23 games left on their regular-season schedule after Tuesday night.

​As evidenced by their own mid-season turnaround, that’s still plenty of runway for the Red Sox to seemingly stumble down the stretch.

But as fresh as the collapse of the “Chicken and Beer” Red Sox in September 2011 might be in some fans’ collective memory, Chad Tracy’s squad has to like its chances of punching a ticket back to October for the second year in a row.

Even after Boston’s frustrating 9-6 loss to the Mariners on Tuesday, FanGraphs still has Boston tabbed with a 97.5 percent shot of securing a playoff spot. 

Their playoff prospects are promising. But their odds of hosting a best-of-three series at Fenway Park are a bit more dour.

Even with three weeks to go in the regular season, Boston’s poor showing in the Bronx over the weekend has the Red Sox four games behind the Yankees for first place in the AL Wild Card standings — setting the stage for a seemingly inevitable Wild-Card rematch in New York later this month.

Boston dropping three out of four games at Yankee Stadium also gave New York the tie-breaker if the longstanding rivals are deadlocked in the standings at the end of the year — essentially giving the Yankees a five-game lead entering Tuesday night. ​

As such, Tracy’s club might just have to operate on cruise control over these next couple of weeks and prioritize health — rather than put their foot on the pedal in hopes of toppling New York.​

Such a reality was reinforced on Tuesday, considering that Boston opted to skip ace Sonny Gray’s spot in the rotation for this matchup against the Mariners.

Fresh off a dramatic comeback win over Seattle Monday, handing the ball to Gray — with 16 wins and a 2.82 ERA on his ledger — would have helped Boston’s odds of getting back on track and securing a series win at home.

Instead, the Red Sox chose to keep the 36-year-old off the mound, holding him out until Saturday’s road game against Baltimore.

For Tracy, there were no regrets over giving Boston’s top starter a breather and handing the ball over to 22-year-old Jedixson Paez — who was called up from Triple-A Worcester to eat some innings for Boston on Tuesday.

“I wouldn’t call it prioritizing rest. I think it was necessary,” Tracy said of resting Gray, who gave up seven hits and two runs over five innings of work in his last outing on Aug. 26.  “Wasn’t just like, ‘hey, let’s do this.’ It was necessary. It was a conversation that happened a while ago, and then as he had the last couple outings and continued to talk, it felt like it was necessary for him to get some rest, for him physically to stay online.”

“It’s not something we just walked into intentionally. It just was necessary, and if that has him in a really good spot on the back side of this, then that’s good.”

Tracy is right. The Red Sox will have few regrets if Gray’s time away from the mound gives him more bullets to use in October.

But that forward-thinking approach — be it for Gray or several other key cogs on Boston’s roster — might lead to some ugly results in the coming days.

Such was the case in Tuesday’s meeting against Seattle, which quickly devolved from an intriguing matchup to an outright punt of a game after the M’s teed off against Paez.

The young righty had a rough outing in his first MLB start — giving up 10 hits and eight earned runs over 3.2 innings of work. Even though Boston’s bats started to wake up as the game carried on, it was too little, too late for the Red Sox to overcome such a sizable deficit.

“Struggled a little bit,” Tracy said of Paez. “I felt like maybe he wasn’t able to land a ton of fastballs in the zone, and as you watch the at-bats unfold, I just think that there was a lot of damage on soft [pitches].

“He does throw a lot of soft changeups, sweeper-type stuff, and I felt like they were ready on some of the soft [pitches] and hit some of that hard. So obviously, had to gut it out for a while, but they were definitely on some soft pitches and hit some balls hard.”

Paez was sent down after Tuesday’s game, but it won’t come as much of a surprise if more spot starters and Triple-A arms are called upon down the stretch to relieve Boston’s current rotation.

​Beyond Gray’s age and workload, the Red Sox are already in uncharted territory — innings-wise — with a pair of young southpaws in Payton Tolle (131 innings) and Jake Bennett (93.2 innings).

Boston could opt to skip a start or two for both of those arms moving forward, while Ranger Suarez might also benefit from a breather, given his lackluster play since coming off the IL (5.01 ERA in his last seven outings).

As the Red Sox look to bounce back on Wednesday against Seattle, Boston’s lineup is still missing Willson Contreras — handed a 10-day game stint on the IL to rest up his ailing hamstring before the stakes are raised later this month.

Adley Rutschman’s nagging elbow issue could also prompt Boston to keep its top deadline pickup in bubble wrap — rather than trotting him out against the likes of Baltimore and Anaheim over the next week. ​

It may not make for the most riveting results over the next few weeks — an unfortunate far cry from the energy emanating from Fenway since the end of June.

But if Tracy and the Red Sox are truly playing the long game, this initial pain and patience might be rewarded when the calendar flips to October.

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.