For yet another season, the Boston Red Sox are staring down the cruel reality of an August schedule full of teams that made bigger additions at the trade deadline.
After Thursday's deadline passed without any impact deals, the Red Sox play their next four series against teams that bought. They open with a series against the Houston Astros at Fenway Park, before hosting the Kansas City Royals, traveling west to face the San Diego Padres, then finishing in Houston for a rematch.
The Astros made one of the signature moves of this trade deadline by acquiring their former World Champion shortstop, Carlos Correa. It's the kind of move that injects life into a clubhouse, while the Red Sox's acquisitions of Dustin May and Steven Matz are unlikely to move the needle.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Red Sox will face Houston's two very best pitchers this weekend in Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez, both of whom have ERAs well under three. And Boston's starter for Friday's game was up in the air all week, presumably to leave room for a big name added to the rotation.
On Friday, the Red Sox announced their pitching plan for the Astros series, and it's about as uninspiring as could be. According to a report from MassLive's Chris Cotillo, right-hander Cooper Criswell will pitch the Friday opener against Brown, with Walker Buehler following on Saturday to face Colton Gordon, then May pitching Sunday against Valdez.
It will be Criswell's first start at the major league level all season, and he's only pitched 10 2/3 innings in total with Boston, surrendering six earned runs and two home runs.
May, who was acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers for prospects James Tibbs III and Zach Ehrhard on Thursday, has a 4.85 ERA on the season, and he took the loss in Sunday's game at Fenway Park, surrendering a go-ahead home run to Alex Bregman that provided the eventual final score of 4-3.
It's going to be a telling weekend at Fenway, as the Red Sox face a bona fide playoff team that did what they failed to do at the deadline. How will the starting pitchers, who look to be facing a taller task than they've proved themselves equipped to handle, respond?
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