As it turns out, the Red Sox are a bad baseball team

BOSTON -- If you watched the Red Sox over the weekend, then you surely noticed the vibes. They were off the charts.

Saturday saw the Red Sox complete an insanely unlikely comeback after trailing 7-1, with Adam Duvall's walk-off homer sending the fans who stuck around into a state of delirium. On Sunday, the Boston bats were hot, fueling a 9-5 win to get the Red Sox out to a 2-1 start to the season. 

Perhaps, we wondered, the Red Sox weren't going to be so bad after all.

We wondered wrong.

Those vibes were short-lived. A painful reality check at the hands of the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates forced that shift at Fenway in the form of a three-game series sweep.

Monday night wasn't great, with the Red Sox losing 7-6, but it was at least a competitive ballgame. Tuesday wasn't nearly as encouraging, with the Red Sox mustering just four hits in a 4-1 loss. But an appropriately gray, cold, windy and miserable Wednesday afternoon provided the perfect backdrop for Boston's worst game of the set.

The Red Sox lineup had no answers for Mitch Keller. The Red Sox had just three base runners (one single, two walks) through six innings and were on their way to a 1-2-3 seventh inning when Bryan Reynolds dropped a routine fly ball near the base of the Monster (though the drop was somehow not ruled an error). That miscue led to the Red Sox scoring their first run of the game and then nearly tying the game on a pinch-hit three-run homer around Pesky's Pole by Reese McGuire, only for the umpires to eventually determine that the ball had actually gone foul. Replay quickly confirmed that ruling, McGuire struck out looking two pitches later, and that threat was extinguished.

Boston fell into that 4-1 hole in an interesting fashion. Part of it was the new norm, with starter Corey Kluber giving up a home run. But part of it was certainly new, with Boston's shaky defense taking center stage.

In the sixth inning, with John Schreiber relieving Kluber after the starter had thrown just 67 pitches, Reynolds hit a leadoff "double" that should have been caught by Masataka Yoshida. 

Andrew McCutchen then hit a slow roller down the line, leaving Rafael Devers with nothing to do but eat the ball to set up a first-and-third situation.

After Carlos Santana struck out, Ke'Bryan Hayes dropped a bunt down the first base line. It was a good bunt, but Schreiber likely could have scooped it on the run and flipped to Triston Casas to at least get the second out of the inning at first base. But Casas decided to make a play on the ball, fielding it before diving back to the baseline to try to make a tag. It didn't work out.

Schreiber walked the next batter but ended up pitching out of any further trouble. But it wouldn't be the last ugly defensive moment for Boston on the day.

In the seventh inning, after Jason Delay led off with a double, Oneil Cruz hit a grounder to Casas. Instead of taking the out at first, Casas opted to throw across the diamond to try to cut down Delay. Once again ... it didn't work out.

Delay beat the tag from Devers, setting up a first-and-third, nobody-out situation for the Pirates. And that set up a moment that will unfortunately hover over the Red Sox for the near future.

Reynolds hit a towering but shallow pop fly into left field. Yoshida made the catch. Delay tagged and broke for home. And then ... all hell broke loose.

Devers set up for the cutoff throw well out of line between Yoshida and the plate. Yoshida made the throw to Devers. Devers pulled his glove back and let the throw go through, as if there'd be a play at the plate. But his alignment led to the throw flying about 10 feet wide of home plate. Catcher Connor Wong was merely a spectator, raising his arms in confusion as the ball bounced to the backstop.

There, pitcher Kaleb Ort was in position to back up the throw, but Cruz recognized that nobody was at third base, so he took off running. Devers tried to race Cruz to the bag, and Ort connected with Devers like a quarterback hitting a tight end near the sidelines. Yet downfield passes on the gridiron often result in some painful collisions, and Devers and Cruz couldn't escape that fate on this play.

It was ugly.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, their $313 million man escaped unscathed. Cruz was safe due to the dropped ball but ended up leaving the game after the inning -- not without scoring first.

Santana, who hit the aforementioned homer off Kluber earlier in the game, lined a single into right to bring home the Pirates' fourth run of the game. That 4-1 score would hold as the final.

The Pirates also stole a couple of bases against the Red Sox, who have now been run on at a historic rate through six games.

(Those '87 Expos weren't that bad, finishing 91-71. So there's a consolation.)

Expectations were, obviously, not all that high for the Red Sox entering the season. But coming off a 78-84 season and just two years removed from an ALCS trip, it was fair to believe the team would be good enough to beat the bad teams. Instead, after riding the high of winning the opening series, the Red Sox have been swept. By the Pirates.

At the conclusion of Wednesday's game, Red Sox starters had allowed 13 home runs, five more than any other staff. The starters' ERA did drop by 1.65 runs, thanks to Kluber allowing just one run over five innings. But Wednesday's game showed that defense and offense can jump in line with pitching as issues that figure to plague the Red Sox at various times in 2023. (After scoring nine runs per game against Baltimore, the Red Sox scored eight total runs in the three-game sweep by Pittsburgh. Six of those eight runs came on Monday.)

Now at 2-4 on the season, the Red Sox will play another bottom-of-the-league team in Detroit starting on Thursday. Like the Pirates series, the three-game set with the Tigers was one that most folks expected to help the Red Sox get out to a positive start in the standings. But now? Now it seems the Red Sox may merely be among their peers when facing these MLB bottom dwellers.