The 2026 Boston Red Sox officially secured themselves a playoff spot after the Houston Astros lost 4-2 to the Atlanta Braves. However, the road to the playoffs has been anything but smooth. Just like in 2025, this year’s squad faced early-season hurdles that not many teams have overcaome. Here’s a breakdown of those obstacles and how they persevered through them to secure a playoff spot for the second year in a row.
The Red Sox were 14 games below .500, sitting at 32-46 after losing a three-game series to the Colorado Rockies on June 24th. Crochet was out for the foreseeable future with an injury to his throwing shoulder. Roman Anthony suffered what was initially diagnosed as a wrist sprain, but it was actually a torn ligament in his right ring finger. Trevor Story underwent surgery for a Sports Hernia injury in May.
Crochet, the 2025 runner-up in AL Cy Young voting, was projected by some to win the award in 2026. The southpaw finished atop the American League in innings pitched and strikeouts per nine, while leading the Majors in strikeouts. Anthony, the #1 prospect in baseball before getting called up and becoming the Red Sox leadoff hitter, posted a 139 OPS+ in his 71 games as a rookie.
Story had played his first healthy year in his Boston career last year and showed out in a major way. In 157 games, Story finished as the team leader in home runs (25) and RBI (96). Three main pillars of the Red Sox’s success were out for a significant amount of time, and most of the team was underperforming.
To make matters worse, the team’s plane was forced to land immediately after taking off because of a malfunction. This meant that the team’s plane didn’t land in Boston until around 6:00 a.m. the next morning. However, interim manager Chad Tracy decided to poke fun at the incident. It wound up serving as a rallying point for the Red Sox.
“We knew this could be something we use as an excuse for why we didn’t play well that night, or it could be used as a reason why the group came together,” Tracy said.
In 2025, the Red Sox finished tied for fourth in the league in ERA (3.70). Despite losing Lucas Giolito to free agency, the Red Sox added Sonny Gray and Ranger Suárez to complement Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello. The competition for the fifth starter was tense, as it could’ve been one of Johan Oviedo, Payton Tolle, or Connelly Early. However, the rotation suffered adversity almost immediately.
Despite earning the opening day win against the Cincinnati Reds with six shutout innings, Crochet went on a horrific four-start skid from April 5th to the 25th. He allowed 21 earned runs across the four starts, which included allowing 11 runs, 10 of them earned, in 1.2 innings against the Minnesota Twins. Despite another six shutout innings in a win against the Baltimore Orioles on April 25th, Crochet was placed on the injured list four days after due to left shoulder inflammation. What was supposed to be a 10-day IL stint is now approaching five months on the sidelines for Crochet. However, he has been on track to possibly be available for the Red Sox during the postseason.
Losing Crochet, along with Brayan Bello’s massive drop-off in performance, was brutal for the Red Sox. Bello wound up with a 6.34 ERA through his first 12 starts before being sent down. Bello allowed multiple runs in eight of those 12 starts, as well as seven or more runs in three of them. Bello struggled mightily when starting a game, with a 10.35 ERA as the starting pitcher until being sent down.
According to a YouTube video by Robbie Hyde published on September 9th, the Red Sox had a more passive approach at the plate and were trying to pounce on pitches they were looking for. Their inside zone-swing, inside zone contact, and contact percentages were all bottom 10 in the league for the month of April. Although they were top-10 in exit velocity, it wasn’t resulting in winning baseball. The Red Sox offense was 24th in runs, 27th in wRC+ (85), and 28th in OPS (.660).
However, from May until the making of said video, the Red Sox were top 10 in all three categories. Despite a two-mile-per-hour drop in average exit velocity, they upped their inside-zone swing percentage by 5% and zone-contact percentage by 2%. This analysis suggests that these changes were a huge reason why the Red Sox turned their season around.
Many hitters were around the Mendoza line through the first month of the season as well. Trevor Story (.197), Jarren Duran (.170), and Caleb Durbin (.172) were all hitting below .200 through April 29th. However, all three are now above .200 for the year. Duran’s managed to notch a 20-homer, 20-stolen-base campaign; Story has an .869 OPS since returning to the Red Sox on August 30th; and Durbin has a .778 OPS after April, managing to rebound nicely after a start to the season that saw him not record a base hit until his sixth game.
Although the team’s fortunes didn’t change overnight, they changed for the better. However, from June 25th to August 7th, the Red Sox went an astounding 32-5 over that 37-game stretch. That included a 14-game winning streak that tied the franchise record. One of Boston’s best performers during the stretch was Andruw Monasterio, who had a slash line of .377/.400/.576 during that stretch, serving as the primary shortstop in the wake of Trevor Story’s absence. Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela both had OPS above .800 and combined for 18 home runs and 50 RBI during that span.
The 2026 Boston Red Sox have also gotten some of their best, and most consistent, production from two offseason trade acquisitions. Sonny Gray has a 2.82 ERA and a 1.160 WHIP in 163 innings and recreated the magic of his 2023 campaign, where he finished as the runner-up in AL Cy Young voting to Gerrit Cole. He’s helped stabilize the rotation in the face of its ace being injured for most of the year. Willson Contreras has clobbered 27 home runs, driven in 81 runs, and posted a .905 OPS, all career-high marks for the 34-year-old, and is the middle-of-the-order presence the Red Sox desperately needed last year.
Even Bello has managed to overcome his early struggles, as coming out of the bullpen has given Bello more life this season. Since coming back from his stint down in Triple-A Worcester, Bello has pitched to a 2.28 ERA in 51.1 innings. He’s even started some games in September to much better results, earning a win against the Los Angeles Angels on September 7th with five shutout innings, and eight innings of one-run ball against the Tampa Bay Rays on the 19th, although he got a no-decision for that one. Bello provides Boston flexibility, being able to start a game or be a long reliever, as he has for most of his time back in Boston.
Payton Tolle has turned his 2025 promise into 2026 results. Although he finished with a 6.06 ERA and 1.592 WHIP in 2025, he’s churned out a 3.02 ERA and 1.070 WHIP in 143 innings this year, all while maintaining a strikeout-per-nine-innings rate of over 10.
The 2026 Boston Red Sox made the playoffs despite at one point being way behind the eight ball. Only three other teams have made the playoffs while being as many as 14 games under .500, with the most recent team being the 2005 Astros. Despite the injuries to the team’s core players, and early season struggles as a team, they turned it around in a major way.
As a result, Tracy has now been named the official manager for the Red Sox with a three-year contract through 2029 and an option for 2030. The man who has helped rally the troops through the tough times of the season is the man set to lead the clubhouse for the next three years, at least.
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