A May to Forget
I had just sat down yesterday morning to write this Editor’s Take about what a dismal month it has been in Boston sports. Saturday’s rain and gusty winds seemed like the perfect backdrop.
My ten-year-old son came in.
“Uh, Dad, we have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I was swinging the mini-bat you got me in my playroom and lost control of the handle, and it went through the window.”
And when I went into his playroom to assess the damage, it was a good metaphor for the month of May in Boston sports — broken glass, a big hole in the window, and a few May flowers outside getting rained on.
The aftermath of Jackson’s swing.
The few flowers were at the amateur level. Local high school pitcher Brody Bumila pitched a seven-inning no-hitter, striking out 20. CBS Sportsline says he could be the next Randy Johnson (‘The Big Unit’) or Chris Sale (why can’t we get guys like that?).
Mock drafts have the lefty going in the first round, with MLB Pipeline’s Jonathan Mayo’s recent mock draft having the Red Sox selecting the local kid at pick 20.
‘The Mass Unit’ pitching at Fenway sounds good to me.
Local colleges Endicott (D-III) and Bentley (D-II) made their respective divisions College World Series, with Endicott winning their opening game Friday night to play through the winners’ bracket. Northeastern and Boston College made the Division I field of 64.
For the local professional teams, however, this ‘May’ have been the bleakest month we have had in a long time. Consider the following:
May 1st — Bruins eliminated from the playoffs in six games by Buffalo at TD Garden. They go down with a whimper, not putting up much of a fight in several of the games after improbably blowing a 2-0 third-period lead in Game 1.
May 2nd — Celtics shockingly blow a 3-1 Series lead and a double-digit lead in Game 5 to lose to the 76ers in seven games. Jayson Tatum misses Game 7 with an injury. Joe Mazzulla begins the game with the oddest starting five since the Jackson family. The Celtics claw back from 18 down late in the third quarter only to go Siberia cold in the last few minutes to lose 109–100.
May 4th — Roman Anthony leaves a game against Detroit with what is later found to be a partially torn ligament in his right ring finger. He was placed on the IL May 7th with the expectation of missing the minimum ten days. It is now the end of May, and he still cannot swing a bat without feeling pain and is currently shut down from swinging altogether.
May 5th — Brayan Bello pitches behind an opener as a bulk reliever for the first time. It works miracles, and the Red Sox win. Bello continued to pitch behind an opener the rest of the month, save for one disastrous traditional start of the ‘if it is now fixed, why break it’ variety.
The good news — Bello has been great behind an opener. The bad news is that the openers have been arsonists — the latest being Tyler Samaniego, giving up four runs on six hits in the first inning Friday night in a 4–3 loss. Before that, it was Jovani Moran as the Zippo lighter, allowing the Twins to get off to a fast start last Saturday as part of their three-game sweep.
May 6th — TMZ reports that Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini rented a boat together back in 2021 on a Tennessee lake. The Vrabel story keeps getting thornier. It has quieted down some since then, but it is a dark cloud hanging over 1 Patriot Place.
May 14th — The NFL Schedule drops. The Patriots have the hardest opening four games by opponents’ prior-year winning percentage since the 1986 Eagles, plus a trip to Munich.
May 22nd–29th — After a promising sweep of the Royals in Kansas City, the Red Sox drop five of six at Fenway to Minnesota and Atlanta. They fall to 9–19 at home. After losing Friday night to make it six losses in their last seven, they are at a season-worst ten games under .500 and seem well on their way to being sellers at the trade deadline.
The gaping hole in the window was that for the first time in a decade, neither the Celtics nor the Bruins was playing beyond Mother’s Day. The cracks in the window and shards of glass are the Red Sox season to date.
Fortunately, our handyman came and at least McGyver-ed a solution to stop the rain from coming in. Craig Breslow couldn’t McGyver his way out of a pizza box.
Eliot Wolf and Mike Vrabel seem likely to trade for A.J. Brown, and we will dive into how that will change the Patriots’ offense.
And despite the ‘sell the team’ chants at Fenway to John Henry, the Red Sox have issues in player evaluation and player development that are likely bigger culprits than Henry, even if he makes for an easy target.
So LFG — on to June.
Second Acts — This Tuesday, June 2nd, 2 PM ET
A conversation with former Major Leaguers Jason Botts and Braden Bishop.
One of the most difficult periods for many professional athletes is when they decide to or are forced to retire. Their identity, community, daily structure, and paychecks all go the way of “it is high, it is far, it is gone,” to quote the late great John Sterling.
Botts and Bishop, two former Major Leaguers, now have fantastic Substacks where they are both open and vulnerable about this transition. We will discuss their journeys.
Our goal is to help anyone going through a transition or reinvention figure out their second (or third, or fourth) act. We hope you can join us live.
Moneyball Minus the Money
Fans at Fenway are chanting “Sell the team.” Airplanes are flying over Fenway with banners that say “Sell the team.” There are two perceptions right now about owner John Henry — he does not care much about the Red Sox, and he does not spend on them.
The first one is questionable. You don’t get to be John Henry by not being competitive and caring about winning. He might be an odd duck, but he is no dumb bunny.
Are he and FSG less obsessed with winning than they were when they first bought the Red Sox? Absolutely. But so is the fanbase.
Four championships will do that. Nobody remembers their fifth kiss.
But let’s say you held everything else constant and John Henry took the fanbase’s advice and sold the Red Sox. And let’s just hypothetically say that the owner of an orchard full of money trees as far as the eye could see bought the Red Sox. And they chopped down so many that The Lorax pulled an Antonio Brown, and gave up, and went home.
It might not matter as much as you would think. Just ask Steve Cohen.
This year, Boston has the 9th-highest payroll in baseball and the 25th-best record. The team just above the Red Sox in record is indeed the Mets, who spend more than anyone except the Dodgers.
On the flip side the teams ranked 27th, 28th and 29th in spending (Tampa, Cleveland and the Chicago White Sox) would all be in the playoffs, Tampa and Cleveland as division winners and the White Sox as a wild card.
Milwaukee ranks 19th in spending, leads its division, and is now an annual fixture in October, having made the playoffs 6 of the past 7 years.
The Red Sox have made it twice.
They say money doesn’t buy happiness. That is debatable.
But this year it certainly is not buying wins. Spending explains just 4% of winning so far this season.
That is anomalous for sure, and we are only 60 games in. But Zack Scott, who worked in front offices including Boston’s for 20 years and was acting GM of the Mets, took a longer view. He analyzed the past five seasons and found that spending only accounted for about 1/3 of winning.
So if spending does not matter, what does?
Player evaluation and player development.
Both are in question right now with Boston.
Let’s take a couple of examples, though there are numerous.
Chris Sale came back to Fenway on Thursday and led the Braves to a win over Boston. Since going to Atlanta, Sale has won a Cy Young in 2024 and been one of the top pitchers in baseball. The Red Sox traded him for Vaughn Grissom.
It seemed somewhat reasonable at the time. Grissom had hit well in the Braves system and, as a rookie, posted an OPS+ of 119, meaning he was 19% better than league average. Grissom had all of 105 at-bats for the Red Sox and put up a .485 OPS, which equated to a 33 OPS+.
He was sent to Triple-A Worcester, was, by some accounts, pouty down there, and is now with the Angels. Grissom was hitting third for the Angels on Saturday, right after Mike Trout. That says a lot about the Angels, and he still has only a .694 OPS, but the MLB average is .708, so he is now almost league average.
Caleb Durbin and his 46 OPS+ is another example. Last year, he was essentially a league-average hitter with Milwaukee (101 OPS+). He had 11 home runs and 18 steals as a promising rookie. This year, with Boston, he is on pace for 3 home runs. What kind of odds could you have gotten before the season that Grissom would be hitting better than Durbin?
That’s all well and good, you might say; the Red Sox can certainly develop pitching. And to some extent, that is true, as demonstrated by Connelly Early and Payton Tolle.
But take the case of Kyle Harrison. He was the primary return in the Devers trade. He languished in Worcester for three months while they tried to develop him.
They traded him to Milwaukee in February for Durbin after the Bregman debacle.
Milwaukee raised his arm slot, moved him to the first base side of the rubber, changed his pitch mix, and helped him develop a changeup.
To put a spin on Bob Lobel’s old line, ‘Why can’t we teach guys like that?’
It is not a fluke either. Last year’s model was Quinn Priester.
Worse yet, it is not just me questioning the player development.
In an article by Julian McWilliams, after Cora and his staff were fired, McWilliams notes that the front office was asking the same questions.
Um, hello, McFly. Isn’t that your job to figure out?
Or is John Henry not paying you enough?
Another setback in Anthony’s rehab. Chad Tracy’s most telling line: “It’s a nagging injury on a hand when he’s trying to hit. We have to be patient with that.”
The bright spot in a brutal month. Contreras hit .458 with a 1.355 OPS over six games. His 157 OPS+ entering the week ranked 10th in MLB.
A short video on how the Rays do what they do. If evaluation and development are what separate contenders from also-rans, this is the team study tape.
View on X → — Bello as a bulk reliever has been excellent. The openers in front of him have been arsonists. The full picture.
View on X → — Current major leaguers by birth state. Context for the Bumila Long Game piece below.
What Can A.J. Brown Do For You?
The Patriots quietly scored the second-most points in the NFL last year, averaging nearly 29 points per game. If they add A.J. Brown — and the poker game with Philadelphia suggests they will — what changes?
In a nutshell, Brown not only replaces Stefon Diggs’ production but he will open up the field for the Patriots’ other pass catchers, similarly to how Jayson Tatum spaces the floor for the Celtics’ spot-up shooters.
A.J. Brown will replace Diggs as the number-one receiver, but he will be used more like Kayshon Boutte.
Like Boutte, Brown is a home-run hitter. More than half of his career touchdowns have come from outside the red zone. And he has done that with Jalen Hurts and Ryan Tannehill as his two primary quarterbacks. Drake Maye throws the best deep ball in football.
Contrast that with Diggs, who has collected nearly 2/3 of his career TDs in the Red Zone. In that regard, Romeo Doubs replaces Diggs as a chain mover on third down.
Brown is one of the top receivers in the NFL against man coverage. Pro Football Focus ranked him 1st in 2024. Defenses tend to play a lot of man in the red zone — and the Patriots scored 29 points per game the hard way, ranking just 17th in red-zone TD percentage in 2025.
Brown’s red-zone TDs have likely been suppressed by playing in run-heavy offenses in Tennessee and Philly with Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley.
Brown will also force defenses to play more zone, creating more open windows for the Patriots’ other receivers than Jackson does with a mini baseball bat (sorry, still on my mind).
Play man, and Brown beats you deep. Kyle Williams beats the number-two corner. Maye scrambles for first downs.
Check-mate.
Josh McDaniels is one of the best offensive coordinators in NFL history. Brown is not Randy Moss, but he would be the closest weapon McDaniels has had since then. You may recall Moss had 23 receiving TDs that year, which is still an NFL single-season record.
Let Josh cook.
Albert Breer reports the framework is set for a trade early next week that will make Brown a Patriot. The June 1 cap deadline is Monday.
The analytical case that Brown’s 2025 dip was a scheme problem, not a player problem. Crossing routes, aDOT, and the rest of the diagnosis.
The local Patriots-fan piece walking through the domino effect on every receiver’s role. Pairs nicely with the national analytical takes above.
View on X → — Drake Maye hosting a charity softball game with Julian Edelman, Zdeno Chara, and comedian Matt Rife. A guy who gets it.
View on X → — Former Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo lands at Fifth Down Capital, a Boston-based PE firm. A second act, on a quiet schedule.
View on X → — Tom Brady on why practice squad players rarely succeed: most of them don’t actually want the pressure.
The Celtics’ summer story is whether they can land Giannis. The harder question — what they do if they can’t and still have Jaylen Brown to navigate — is the one I floated in Friday’s daily recap. We’ll break the glass on that next week. For now, here’s what’s worth your time.
Marc Stein reports Boston and Miami are the two destinations that currently most intrigue Antetokounmpo. Conor Ryan with the local read.
Milwaukee wants a trade done before the 2026 NBA Draft, less than a month away. The piece argues a Boston deal is “legitimately impossible” without Jaylen Brown.
View on X → — If not Giannis, then who? A look at the big-man options the Celtics could pursue this summer.
View on X → — Brian Robb on how draft lottery rule changes affect the Celtics’ long-term asset picture.
View on X → — Former Celtic Luke Kornet made arguably the biggest play of Spurs-Thunder Game 7. The big-man depth conversation, in real time.
The Bruins put up 100 points and lost in six to Buffalo. The real work starts now — $16.4M in cap space, four first-round picks across the next three drafts, and Marco Sturm in year two trying to turn a playoff team into a contender. The international stage is offering early clues.
Combine, draft, free agency, training camp. The dates fans need on the calendar for the offseason ahead.
The toolkit: $16.4M cap space, four first-round picks across three drafts, free agents to re-sign or let walk. The complete picture.
View on X → — Team USA lost the World Championship title; Mason Lohrei remains the subject of Bruins trade speculation. Both topics explored for Black N’ Gold Productions.
View on X → — Conor Ryan: should Bruins fans panic over James Hagens’ performance at Worlds?
One place. Every game. Every network. No hunting.
| Sun 5/31 |
Tue 6/2 |
Wed 6/3 |
Thu 6/4 |
Fri 6/5 |
Sat 6/6 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⚾ Red Sox | @ CLE 1:40 PM · NESN |
vs. BAL 6:45 PM · NESN Lou Gehrig Day |
vs. BAL 6:45 PM · NESN |
vs. BAL 1:35 PM · NESN |
@ NYY 7:05 PM · NESN |
@ NYY 7:35 PM · FOX |
Could the Next Randy Johnson Be from Massachusetts? Maybe.
Julian McWilliams of CBS Sports profiles Brody Bumila, the 6′9″ high school lefty from Bishop Feehan who just threw a seven-inning no-hitter with 20 strikeouts. The MLB Pipeline mock draft has the Red Sox grabbing him at pick 20. The Mass Unit at Fenway, anyone?
The piece is also a window into how rare Massachusetts pitching prospects actually are. The state simply doesn’t produce the volume that California, Florida, or Texas do. Read McWilliams on what scouts are seeing — and what they aren’t.
▶ Read: Brody Bumila — CBS Sports →Thanks for reading Issue 7 of The Boston Sunday Sports Section. If you’re not yet a subscriber, we’d love to have you. And if you enjoyed it, please share it with your fellow Boston sports fans.