The Red Sox Can’t Even Clean House With Dignity

Baseball managers have very little say in whether or not their teams score 17 runs in a game, and only marginally more in whether or not their teams only allow one. Nevertheless, the optics of firing a coach—amendment: six coaches—right after a 17-1 victory are at the very least strange enough that Boston Red Sox management might have considered deferring the decision for one more day. They did not, and so, in full, manager Alex Cora, bench coach Ramón Vázquez, hitting coach Peter Fatse, third-base coach Kyle Hudson, assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson, and hitting strategy coach Joe Cronin departed Baltimore unceremoniously after a 17-1 victory, on a black van that had COACHES4HIRE printed on its side. (The website coaches4hire.com is currently down.) This being baseball, it is not the first time a coach has been fired after winning by a 16-run margin, though the last time was on May 30, 1887, and included such proper nouns as "Cyclone" Ryan, "Lip" Pike, and the Cleveland Blues. In this case, the New York Metropolitans beat the Blues 18-2 and then fired manager Bob Ferguson. According to Baseball-Reference, the Metropolitans were eighth in the American Association with a record of 6-24, and the game, despite featuring 20 total runs, only lasted about 1:50. The Red Sox, though they are last in the American League East, have at 11-17 a better record than the New York Metropolitans did, but the rationale behind "fire everyone but the pitching staff" is at least clear. With a wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created plus, perhaps the most complete catch-all metric for baseball offense) of 84, the Red Sox are currently the third-worst offensive team in baseball, ahead of only the modern-day New York Metropolitans and their wretched nemeses-in-arms, the Philadelphia Phillies. Most notable would be the performance of former rookie Roman Anthony, who is undergoing a pretty dramatic sophomore slump, posting a wRC+ just over 90 compared to his previous season's mark of 140. That said, Red Sox pitching has hardly been stellar in isolation. Though the precise ranking depends on which standard and/or peripheral metrics the beholder favors, it firmly in the range of below average to very bad.