Last night was bad, but it could have been even worse.
In the seventh inning of last night’s ghastly loss to the Reds, Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit a game changing, go-ahead, grand slam that nearly hit the Pod On Lansdowne studios after sailing Over The Monster — And yet, it was his at-bat the following inning that nearly proved even more disastrous for the Red Sox (and my mental well-being).
When the ball in the seventh reached its apex, I was infuriated. When the ball in the eighth reached its apex, my heart stopped! See if you can spot why:
This is a brutal play to watch. Not just because of what happened, but also because of who it involved and the fact it could have featured a major collision. Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer are the two prized prospects in the Red Sox organization, and sadly, they looked completely lost and unprepared in this moment.
Here’s Christopher Smith grabbing quotes from each of them after the game:
Red Sox’ Roman Anthony on the ball that dropped in between him and Marcelo Mayer in shallow right: “Just bad communication on my end. I’m the outfielder coming in. He’s going back. And the ball just kind of stayed up. So I gotta make that play and gotta make that throw at the…
— Christopher Smith (@SmittyOnMLB) July 3, 2025
Red Sox’ Marcelo Mayer on the play: “I know I was super close to the play. It’s a play that I think I should make every single time. But yeah, I think he just placed it really well and we’ve got to do a better job of communicating.” https://t.co/csT0MMK3pW
— Christopher Smith (@SmittyOnMLB) July 3, 2025
Red Sox’ Roman Anthony: “Just gotta be better at the little things. You can make all the great plays you want but those little plays late in the game are the ones that kind of sting the most.”
— Christopher Smith (@SmittyOnMLB) July 3, 2025
There’s so much to unpack here. First of all, I love that they’re both accountable after a rough play, including taking the interview and owning up to the mistakes. That bodes well for the future.
Then there’s the defense itself … and … yikes! These are the guys the Sox hope help change the culture on the field in time, and yet on this play, they fit in perfectly with all the other dumb mistakes we’ve seen from this roster over the years. In fact, we could even compare it to the laundry list of lethal leather lapses we’ve had to labor through all year, but we’re not going to dwell and do that here because there’s an even more important detail worth exploring.
Unequivocally, something about this play just wasn’t right. From the moment the ball went into the air, it had bad juju written all over it.
Personally, when I saw this:
I immediately turned into this:
Thankfully, the baseball gods decided to spare us a major collision on the play, ultimately opting for the circus act instead of the car crash.
If you can, watch it again. Both Anthony and Mayer were uncharacteristically unsure of themselves. Neither knew how the other was going to react, and as a result, neither knew how to react themself. They looked so unprepared to handle that specific moment, it was almost as if they never converged on that part of the field before.
And well, that got my antenna up. These are two highly talented, hard working, slick fielding, charismatic friends. They should have no problem figuring this out with even a little bit of practice. So with my curiosity piqued and concerned heightened, I went back and took a tour through their minor league game logs.
Added all up, Anthony’s played in 303 minor league games, and Mayer, 315. With that known, guess how many times out of those hundreds of minor league games Roman Anthony started in right field and Marcelo Mayer started at second base in the same contest?
Is that not so perfectly Red Sox?!?
This front office spent years telling us it was all about when the kids got here, and that they were building towards the future. In the meantime, the pups had to grow and develop while the front office made some difficult roster decisions so everything would be ready to go when the time came.
Well guess what? Now they’re here and these jamokes have their star pupils playing in a defensive alignment combination they literally never played once together in their years down on the farm. You! Flaming! A-Holes!!!
Anthony and Mayer won’t say this because they’re sweet, delightful, accountable boys, but I will: Jerking them all over the diamond while they learn how to hit major league pitching is doing them a disservice. They should not be converging on fly balls from angles they literally never had to communicate with each other from in the minors. If there was any sort of grand plan in place to have them playing this combination in Boston, then they should have been doing it in Portland and Worcester.
But as we know, there was only one plan: A business plan to manipulate their service time and squeeze an extra year of control out of them in 2031. As far as the baseball side of it goes, they completely winged it. From being slow to get the roster pieces in place last winter, to failing to trade Jarren Duran and open up roster room when his value peaked between six and 12 months ago, to not calling up Mayer and Anthony until there were injuries to Alex Bregman and Wilyer Abreu, everything about this front office is reactive when it comes to baseball decisions.
If it’s a savvy business or asset based decision, they never miss a trick. (It’s almost surgical!) But if the decision involves being prepared on the diamond as opposed to acquiring one, you’re going to get straight up embarrassment. It all ties back to the developing slogan for the modern Red Sox: Smart business, dumb baseball. What an enigma!
I guess we should just be thankful Mayer and Anthony didn’t get swept away last night in the on field rip tide that’s always lurking on the edge of their sea of stupidity.