Monday Morning Brushback: Love and loss

The Red Sox week in review dives into the fallout of Triston Casas’ injury, and the team’s…uh…suggestive celebrations.

This really could’ve—nay, should’ve—been an absolutely banner of a week in Red Sox baseball.

We should be sitting here on Monday in the wake of two decisive series victories, including a sweep north of the border. Instead, back-to-back god awful losses at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays left a bad taste in my mouth, and then a series loss to the Twins made me want a new mouth altogether. We should be riding a wicked high in this edition of the Brushback. But nay—that’s not the way this sport works.

The 2025 Red Sox have an interesting knack for losing in different fashions. These close, razor’s edge losses aren’t all falling into one bucket. One night it’s bad defense, another it’s the starter getting shelled, the next is the bats going cold, and then it’s the bullpen not holding up their end of the bargain.

The two defeats at the hand of the Blue Jays and yesterday’s loss to the Twins all fall into that latter group, of course, and it’s especially weird considering that the major culprits were Garrett Whitlock and Justin Slaten — two guys that I generally have a great deal of trust in. The two-strike curveball that Slaten threw to Vlad Jr. on Thursday resulting in a three-run homer wasn’t even that bad of a pitch—he tried to get it on his back foot, and it didn’t catch the plate. Sometimes you just get beat by a damn good hitter; it happens. Am I upset at Whitlock and Slaten? Not so much; I just feel more disappointed, like a father who catches their kid staying out past curfew (Note: I’m not a parent yet, I don’t know if this a proper analogy).

So yeah. Scattered thoughts, I know, but this MMBB should’ve been written with higher spirits in mind. This past week wasn’t all bad—and we’ll get into one positive development later in the article—but it could’ve been way better.

It’s Monday Morning Brushback time, y’all.

First Things First: What Now?

Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

Unfortunately, the first major topic of this week’s Brushback was pretty easy to establish. While running to first base during Friday’s game against Minnesota, Triston Casas suffered an injury to his left patellar tendon. The rupture in his knee will end his season, according to Boston’s CBO Craig Breslow on Saturday.

First off, I feel so bad for Casas. The dude genuinely seems to care about this game, but now another injury is going to keep him on the shelf for a prolonged period. Regardless of how you feel about him, this is such a disappointing outcome. He’s a human just trying to go out there and do his job as best as he can, but now he’s going to have to tend to another injury.

I imagine he’s going to be slapped with the “injury prone” label at this point—a label I’d consider to be a bit unfair, considering that this knee injury and his rib issue last year weren’t chronic but rather pretty fluky in their nature. It’s like calling Chris Sale injury prone when his last two injury instances with Boston were the result of a comebacker and a bike ride gone wrong; those aren’t chronic issues, and neither have been these past two Casas injuries.

No matter how you want to classify the nature of his health issues in recent years, 2025 was always going to be a pivotal year for Casas; our fearless leader Dan Secatore said so just a few days ago. Now, he’s facing months of additional rehab and recovery before he could get the chance to suit up in the bigs again. It just sucks, man. I hate to sound like a doomer, but this is a huge blow to both his short-term and long-term outlook. I want nothing more than to see his flourish into the player that we know he can be, but this week’s injury is a major obstacle he now has to navigate. I’m crushed for him. I hope he can fully recover from this setback, but it’s a devastating blow.

Those short-term and long-term questions extend to the organization as well. The Red Sox called Abraham Toro up from AAA in the wake of Casas’ placement on the 10-day IL (he’ll eventually be put on the 60-day IL), and it looks like he and Romy Gonzalez could be called upon to be stop gaps at first base for the time being.

What will the Red Sox do at first beyond the immediate future? I…………I don’t know, dude.

I understand why some folks might want Rafael Devers to get a shout at first, even if I’m not sure if I’m fully on board with the idea. Breslow categorically denied the idea of top prospects Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer putting on a first baseman’s mitt (and rightfully so; it’s a bad idea). Vaughn Grissom has gotten a few reps at first over in Worcester, but I don’t know if that will be enough to convince the team that he’s the solution for now. Maybe there’s a trade coming down the pipe in the coming months (One of the bottom feeders in the league might be willing to make a move with us; the first feasible guy who came to mind for me when I was spit-balling ideas was Ryan Mountcastle, especially if the O’s keep stinkin’ up the joint, but making a trade with a division rival for a guy who’s gotten out of the gates slowly this year might not be wise). Maybe they give Papi a call and see if he wants to play for the league minimum; even if his defense was never his calling card, I’m sure he could still drive in way more than his fair share of runs.

Of course, there’s always my way of solving this conundrum…

And then, what do we do in 2026 and beyond? Not to belabor the point, but the front office needs to ask themselves if they believe that Casas can get back to being a producer after this major blow. I sure hope he can, but that question has to be asked—no matter how unfair it feels to do so. The Red Sox have a major conundrum on their hands. I have no clue how the organization will proceed from here. There’s no obvious solution, and that concerns me.

It just sucks. This whole situation sucks. It makes me sad because it sucks so much. I don’t want to keep talking about it because it sucks. Fuck. I hate it. Get well soon, Triston.

Brayan’s Been Flyin’

Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

Brayan Bello’s contributions this season were a question mark for many of us heading into the year. After a season that had its ups and downs followed by a stint on the IL to begin 2025, the righty has been pretty solid across his first three starts. After hurling 6.2 innings on Saturday, his ERA stands at 2.55 across 17.2 total frames. While his strikeouts-per-nine in the smaller sample size in 2025 have dropped to 6.1 compared to the 8.5 mark he posted in 2024, his WHIP has also gone down from 1.36 to 1.19. Outside of a few hiccups—a solo shot that went……..Over The Monster.……at the hands of Ryan Jeffers on Friday and a three-run shot last Sunday in Cleveland—Bello did a great job of limiting damage in his last two starts.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that his 2.55 ERA and 165 ERA+ is complemented by a 5.43 FIP and 5.41 xERA. Perhaps Bello’s gotten some good luck (and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice that he was coughing up some loud contact at times on Friday), but some pitchers are able to simply exceed those predictive metrics.

My guess is that these models don’t love the fact that he’s not inducing a lot of swing-and-miss (his overall whiff rate of 22.7% is in the bottom third of MLB, while the whiff rates on his three primary offerings—the sinker, slider, and changeup—are all down from last year’s marks), but Bello’s not a guy who depends on generating whiffs to succeed. He’s still inducing ground balls at an elite rate (his 55.8 GB% is good for the league’s 87th percentile), suggesting that he’s still got his bread and butter clicking.

Even if he’s not getting a plethora of punchies, I like that he’s incorporated a true four-pitch mix thus far, according to Baseball Savant. His four-seam fastball usage has rebounded back to the levels we saw it in 2022 and 2023. He’s thrown the four-seamer just over 16% of the time this year, compared to just under 5% last season. He’s located it pretty well, too, giving him a good complement to his main offering in the sinker.

It’s also worth noting that Bello’s now getting more vertical and horizontal movement on his slider (don’t know why I had my cursor on the changeup line, sorry about that but I’m too lazy to take another screenshot).

So even if Brayan isn’t going to set the world on fire with strikeouts, he’s demonstrating a nice knack of being able to offer a few different pitches—north and south, east and west—to keep hitters off balance. If he can reel in some of the loud contact, I think we’re cookin’ here.

Bello, in spite of his contract extension, doesn’t have to be the primary guy for this Red Sox pitching staff. After a strong end to 2024 and a solid start to 2025, hopefully he’s evolving to becoming a solid middle-of-the-rotation.

NSFB (Not Safe For Baseball)

In this day and age, baseball players have to get creative with their celebrations. Gone are the days of rally monkeys and simple beards doing the trick; we gotta see some more juice from these guys now.

Not only have the 2025 Red Sox shown some juice with their celebrations, but they’ve shown some………how should I put this………..hormonal urges in the dugout.

After Alex Bregman knocked his 393rd double of the season, Garrett Crochet decided that the best way to show his pleasure was to, well, simulate some other type of pleasure.

Bow chicka wow wow, indeed.

The horny-be-gone spray was nowhere to be found last week in Cleveland, as Jarren Duran let everyone watching NESN know what he’s all about when it’s time to get down to business.

Doesn’t leave much to the imagination, does it?

Both of these instances of suggestive celebrations (which rule, by the way; we’re not prudes here at OTM) were made following hits from Breggy. Are the boys in the clubhouse also getting in on the #Preggy4Breggy movement and just setting the table for the dirty work to come? Many are asking this question.

My one thought: what’s next? Are we gonna up the game a bit as the season goes on? What other lewd celebrations do we have in store? Hey, I’d say we’re gonna find out sooner rather than later if Bregman keeps on hitting like this.

The Boston Red Sox: they’re hitters, they’re lovers, and damnit they’re lovers.

Song of the Week: “The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)” by Car Seat Headrest

One of the singles off of the new album that these guys just dropped. Had to give it some love.

Same time and same place next week, folks! Go Sox.