There is no nice way to put it. At the halfway mark of the 2019 Major League Baseball season, the Boston Red Sox are an embarrassment to their fans.

This team that Chris Sale called “the greatest team ever to walk the face of the planet,” last August, won just 44 of their first 81 games in the first half of the season that ended Tuesday night.

They were in third place in the American League East, eight games behind the Yankees who, by the way, were on pace to win 105 games as they approached the halfway mark of their season. If their season ended after Tuesday night’s comeback win against the White Sox, the Red Sox wouldn’t even qualify for a Wild Card spot. They trailed the Indians and Rangers for the second Wild Card spot by one percentage point at that time. 

We watched them bumble their way to a humiliating 2-1 series loss to the hapless Blue Jays last weekend, which included blowing a 6-1 lead after six innings in Game 2 and being held to one run by the Jays in the finale. This after barely getting a win in Game 1 on a homer by Christian Vazquez in the last of the ninth to avoid a sweep. The Jays, of course, entered that series with a 27-48 record, 21.5 games back in fourth place with the unbelievably bad Orioles the only thing keeping them out of the cellar.

Then, the very next night, against the third-place White Sox, after going into the eighth behind 5-4, they got one in the inning to tie the score and won the game when Marco Hernandez hit a grounder to drive in the winning run in the ninth. The Sox celebrated that less than impressive win as if they had won the World Series all over again.

The only people who don’t seem to realize how bad they have been are the players, coaches and management of the team. Even the eternal optimist, Alex Cora, must get tired of making excuses for this overpaid and underperforming group of soon to be ex-champions.

From June 12 to June 21, they won seven of eight, beating the powerhouse Twins two out of three in Minnesota and Boston fans thought they might be turning their season around. Of course, three of those seven wins came against the Orioles who are well on their way to another 100-loss season.

After their dismal start, which saw them losing five of their first six games and 13 of their first 20, we should have seen the handwriting on the wall.

Something is terribly wrong with this team. It is as talented a group of players as the Red Sox have ever put together, virtually the same team that won 108 games last year. If they had not won the World Series last year, I would venture a guess that Cora’s job would be in jeopardy at this time. I know he can’t pitch and hit for them, but it’s his job to get them ready to play to their potential and, if any team has ever played to less than their potential it is this one.

The first sign that I saw that something was wrong here, beside the fact that they weren’t winning, was the routine fly ball that fell between Bradley and Betts in the outfield in a loss to Oakland on April 4. The two had almost collided on a routine sacrifice fly on opening day at Seattle.

This type of sloppy play has continued through the first half of the season. In the last few games of the first half, there were several signs that this team was not really into the game. Of all people, the usually reliable Xander Bogaerts, after starting a double play in Game 1 against the White Sox, did not know that there were only two outs and started off the field. In the same game, Rafael Devers, who has been most of the Sox offense for the past few weeks, got caught daydreaming off third base in the fourth inning and ended a rally.

The next night, after inexplicably throwing a ball away on a routine grounder in the first, Bogaerts let a ball go through him which cost another run in the second.

Taken separately, these and many other incidents like them don’t amount to much but they are symptomatic of a team with major problems.

The good news as the first half ended on Tuesday was that there were still 81 games to play and they had gone 16-9 in June after being 29-28 going into the month. The bad news is that at 29-28, they were 8 ½ games behind the Yankees and now, at 45-37, they are 9 games behind. The Yankees, who they now meet for two games in London, are not going to fold. Boston has got to catch them, and the Yankees get stronger every day as their injured players return.

The other bad news is that, as the second half began, with the White Sox in for the last game before the trip to London to face the Yankees in two games, things began to look worse, if that is possible. The Sox had their Ace, Chris Sale, on the hill, trying to sweep the ChiSox and get off to a good start. Sale gave up three runs in the first inning, but the Sox got two back on a homer by J. D. Martinez.

After McCann hit a solo homer off Sale in the third, Chavis fell asleep at first after taking a throw from Devers and John Jay scored from second as he held the ball. Game 82 started out, as former Yankees catcher Yogi Berra would have said, like Déjà vu all over again. It didn’t end there. After coming from behind to lead by a run in the ninth, Matt Barnes, pitching for the second day in a row, gave up a two-run homer and the second half already looked like the first half. Somebody should tell Cora that Barnes always has trouble pitching two days in a row because it has happened all season.

I will be in Detroit for the Sox games against the Tigers on July 5 and July 6. I hope that the real Sox have emerged from their hibernation by then. Of course, according to Cora, they didn’t get enough rest in the three months off between seasons so they may not be ready to wake up and make their move yet.

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