By: Chris Felico
As the 2025 Boston Red Sox march toward their first postseason appearance since 2021, the excitement in Boston is real. But even in a year that will end in October baseball, the story of this team may ultimately be remembered as one of missed opportunities. Time and again, the Red Sox have put together improbable runs—seven or eight game win streaks, dominant road trips, or emphatic series wins—yet each time they’ve failed to create real distance from their rivals. Instead of pushing past the Toronto Blue Jays for the AL East crown or burying a collapsing New York Yankees squad, Boston has lingered just close enough to contend but never quite in position to control their own destiny.
The Yankees all but invited the Sox to take charge. After a blazing start, New York fell apart for nearly two months, watching a 20+ game cushion evaporate to barely above .500 by July. The division was wide open, yet Boston never took full advantage. The Blue Jays, gifted a division lead amid the Yankees’ implosion, were just as ineffective at closing the door, leaving a muddled race well into September. Nowhere was this clearer than in the past two weeks: Boston went into the Bronx and took three of four from the Yankees, then traveled to Baltimore and completed a four-game sweep of the Orioles—a stretch that should have propelled them into striking distance. But just as momentum built, the Sox nearly got swept at Fenway Park by the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, a team far removed from contention.
The roster itself mirrors the season’s frustrating inconsistency. The Red Sox shipped away one of their best pitching prospects, Quinn Priester, only to watch him thrive as a budding star with the Brewers while Boston struggles to remember who they got in return. They dealt away Rafael Devers, the team’s most proven big-league hitter, and received little that has helped fuel this year’s push. Walker Buehler, acquired to bring playoff experience, was designated for assignment and now suits up for a Phillies team with legitimate World Series aspirations. Kristian Campbell, a once-promising prospect who rose through the minors like a rocket, fizzled at the major-league level almost as quickly as he appeared.
For all the thrills this team has provided, the 2025 Red Sox season feels defined as much by what could have been as by what has been accomplished. They will play October baseball, and that in itself is a success after three straight years on the outside looking in. But with the Yankees collapsing and the Blue Jays never fully seizing control, the door to an AL East title stood wide open. The Red Sox, despite their talent and flashes of brilliance, never walked through it. And, if things stay the same the final month of this regular season, history may remember 2025 not only as a return to the playoffs, but as a season of opportunities lost.
I agree whole heartedly on the missed opportunities. I would like to include the Yankees series as a missed chance, too. Yes they won 3 of 4. But man that sweep very well could have broken the Yankees. The sweep would have been a sludge hammer. Instead they lost that game, the Yankees came to life immediately and we decided the Pirates were a decent team.
You gotta crush the windpipe and the Sox just can’t do it. They don’t have that killer attitude. I’ve been railing for weeks when people keep talking about just winning series. Fuck that. That’s April talk. That’s May talk. When you get to August and you’re in a tough race for playoff spots, series wins aren’t enough. You have to sweep the important series.
This team is ok settling. That’s the attitude from the front office in acquiring talent. That’s the attitude each time they’re content with a series win.
Hey, what if you all from the bastard let the season play out till the end before sentencing the season as a miss? A four-game-in-season-sweep doesn't mean sh!% compared to a 3-2 ALDS or 2-1 first round playoff... And better have a 88 wins season that results in a WS Championship than a 101 wins seasons that ends in losing the game seven of the WS... SO CALM THE FU*% DOWN and try to be a little positive for a change