Has Red Sox's Reported 'Fatal Flaw' Doomed Their 2024 Playoff Hopes?

It wasn't hard to find an Achilles Heel with this Red Sox team...

Sep 10, 2024; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Kutter Crawford (50) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images / Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images

The Boston Red Sox aren't totally out of the hunt for the postseason, but they're getting dangerously close.

With a four-game deficit to the Minnesota Twins and 16 games to play, the Red Sox are playing on borrowed time. Having entered the All-Star break 11 games over .500 and in playoff position, the entire second half has felt like one slow collapse.

It's impossible to identify one culprit for the Red Sox's slide. There have to be a lot of things working in concert to drag a team down as far as Boston has fallen since mid-July. But one Major League Baseball writer found a scapegoat, albeit an all-encompassing one.

Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report said on Thursday that the Red Sox's pitching staff has been the "fatal flaw" keeping them out of playoff position as the season winds down.

"Teams who rank bottom 10 in the majors in runs allowed almost never make the postseason. And this Boston pitching staff is flirting with the bottom five," Miller said.

"That's after an incredible first month of the year, too. Since the beginning of May, only the Rockies and White Sox have hemorrhaged more runs than the Red Sox."

It's a tale of two halves for the Boston pitching staff, which ranked fifth in ERA before the All-Star break (3.63) and 29th after (5.15). The bullpen, in particular, has imploded since the break, with an MLB-worst 6.36 ERA, over a run higher than the second-worst team (5.13).

The painful part, at least for Red Sox fans, is that the pitching depth was an obvious concern before the season started. That concern mostly extended to the starting pitching early on, especially after season-ending injuries to Lucas Giolito and Garrett Whitlock, but that quickly spread to the bullpen.

The Boston bullpen has been overworked all season, and when the injury bug claimed reliable relievers Justin Slaten and Chris Martin, the Red Sox didn't have an answer. Trade deadline acquisitions Luis Garcia and Lucas Sims were no help, struggling mightily before both succumbing to injury in late August.

Assuming the Red Sox miss out on October, they will have a lot of work to do to rebuild this pitching staff by next season. Boston has shown a lot of promise at times in 2024, but they've also shown that the same Achilles Heel that has plagued them for the past three years is still their undoing.

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