I find it hard to comprehend that this elite Red Sox player is in so much pain.

I find it hard to comprehend that this elite Red Sox player is in so much pain.

In Boston, the past few seasons have been forgettable. The Red Sox haven’t won a postseason series since the 2018 World Series and haven’t finished above.500 since 2021. Call it the Mookie Betts Curse, as he was permitted to join the Dodgers after the 2019 season.

Even before the season started and an insane wave of injuries engulfed the team, very few people had high expectations for this version of the Sox. The first player to go down was shortstop Trevor Story, who had a serious shoulder injury and will miss the entire season. Due to rib cartilage tears, slugging first baseman Triston Casas will miss a considerable amount of time. Tyler O’Neill, a recent outfield addition, is off to a fantastic start but has already lost time due to a concussion, and star third baseman Rafael Devers has so far avoided going on the injured list because of persistent problems with his knee and shoulder.

Oh, and did I also add that the pitching side has seen much more severe injuries? Brayan Bello (lat tightness), Garrett Whitlock (oblique strain), and Nick Pivetta (elbow flexor strain) are the three-fifths of their starting lineup that are presently out with unclear return dates.

So how in the world is this team in the middle of things in the usually competitive AL East, sitting five games above.500? Pitch, pitch, pitch would be the simple solution. The Sox pitching staff has the top major league ERA (2.59) going into Monday night’s games. Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford, the two healthy starters still on the team, have taken the lead. In his first 39 1/3 innings, Houck has already recorded one of baseball’s increasingly uncommon occurrences: a complete game. He has also had a 41/5 K/BB and 1.60 ERA. Crawford has pitched 33 1/3 innings with a 1.35 ERA and 34/11 K/BB, perhaps even better.

Both of the 28-year-olds accomplish it in quite different ways. Houck is a strikeout-prone ground ball grinder, but Crawford is one of Fenway Park’s few effective fly ball pitchers. Although both have long displayed glimpses of this kind of potential, it appears that Andrew Bailey, the new pitching coach, is helping them finally bring it all together. But the season is lengthy, and when the weather warms, both will be going into new innings-wise terrain. Crawford has a career high of 129 innings pitched, whereas Houck has never thrown more than 106 in a major league season.