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*Year after year, the Red Sox defensive issues haunt them. It happened throughout the regular season, and it helped spell their demise in the recent wild card series with the Yankees.
You can’t lead the league in errors — by a wide margin — as the Red Sox did and expect to be a successful team in October.
In each of the last three seasons, the Red Sox have had three different infield instructors. They fired Carlos Febles after 2023, then moved on from Andy Fox after 2024. Before they make 2025 first base coach Jose Flores their next fall guy, perhaps it’s time to try a different tact.
Ron Washington has long been regarded as one of the game’s top infield instructors. He managed the Los Angeles Angels in 2024 and the first half of this year before taking a medical leave to undergo heart surgery. At the end of the year, now recovered, he was told by the Angels that he wouldn’t be returning to their dugout next season.
The Red Sox should call Washington and see what they can do to make him a special instructor with the team. He could spend spring training with them, then make periodic visits to work with players during the season. At 74 and coming off major surgery, perhaps Washington isn’t interested in working full-time; this would be the perfect opportunity to contribute to a team and not have to withstand the rigors of a long season.
The Sox could tailor the job as Washington sees fit. Surely, he would have a positive impact, and it wouldn’t require an overhaul of the coaching staff or any needless scapegoating.
What have they got to lose?
*The upset the Patriots pulled off last Sunday night over the Buffalo Bills should be celebrated, but there’s a danger in overreacting to it, too.
It was encouraging to see Drake Maye play so well in a hostile environment and show poise in the fourth quarter. Performances like that validate his continuing development.
But Patriots fans would be wise to keep things in perspective. The Bills’ defense is no longer elite. And having won a game most didn’t feel they would, the Patriots now face a string of games in which they should win comfortably. If they can roll over New Orleans, Tennessee and Cleveland the next three weeks, they’ll make believers out of a lot of people.
*Connor McDavid’s decision to sign an extension worth just $12.5 million annually is still stunning and is basically without precedent. Sure, Tom Brady took less at times to help the Patriots with their cap number, but McDavid, in signing a two-year extension with the Edmonton Oilers, took about two-thirds of what he could have rightfully demanded.
On the subject of NHL free agency, hope the Bruins weren’t saving up for a big splurge in the next year or two. In the last 10 days alone, McDavid, Massachusetts native Jack Eichel, Kyle Connor and Kirill Kaprizov signed extensions and are now off the board. Great players seldom reach the open market in hockey.
*Don’t underestimate the impact of the season-ending injury to Antonio Gibson. It means that the Patriots will have to lean more on the untested TreVeyon Henderson or the untrusted Rhamondre Stevenson.
*Lookalikes: Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick (of Lexington and Boston College) and actor Jeremy Allen White.
*Just when you start to think that the Celtics might be better than you think, you take a closer look at their front court.
*It’s very early, of course, but the offensive spark shown by both Casey Mittlestadt and Fraser Minten through the first few games gives hope that the Bruins have some talent up the middle already on their roster.
*Somewhere, there’s a Fox Sports executive who keeps waking up in a cold sweat, having had nightmares about a Toronto-Milwaukee World Series matchup.
*If you’re thinking that a 40-year-old Joe Flacco is coming to save your season, it’s already too late.
*The Woman In Cabin 10, now on Netflix, is a rather boilerplate mystery, but I suppose there are worse ways to spend 93 minutes.
*Back in the day, Dodger Stadium used to feature A-List Hollywood stars at games. Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and others were Chavez Ravine regulars. Now, the best they can do is Mary Hart and Ashton Kutcher?
*If you didn’t feel at least a little sorry for Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering the other day, you have no soul.
*At what point does the Red Sox director of player development Brian Abraham start getting mentioned — either here or elsewhere — as a GM candidate? The Red Sox have consistently turned out top prospects from their system the last few seasons, and with all the emphasis industry-wide on internal development, Abraham should be on some teams’ lists.
*We’re not even at the LCS stage of the baseball postseason, and already, I’m dreading the World Series, knowing that we might be forced to endure John Smoltz for the final seven games of the 2025 seasons.
When Smoltz winds up for one of his tortured explanations with “What I mean by that is...” it’s time to go for a long walk.
*Had Dianne Keaton never done any acting after The Godfather and Annie Hall — released 53 and 48 years ago respectively — she would still go down as an immortal actress. And yet, there was so much more to her career. RIP.
*Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner looks like he would be a fun player to watch on a daily basis. He doesn’t have the same power, but there’s more than a little Dustin Pedroia to his game.
*Once again, ESPN’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are the best football announcing duo on TV and it’s not particularly close.
More Red Sox coverage
- Former Red Sox players who made it to ALCS, NLCS; Mookie Betts is red hot
- Red Sox 2018 World Series champ starting for Cubs in NLDS Game 5 vs. Brewers
- Ex-Boston Red Sox righty among the heroes in Seattle’s epic 15-inning win
- Two ex-Red Sox players disciplined following heated Wild Card series
- Red Sox roster: Two veterans elect free agency after cameos with Boston in 2025
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