Red Sox 25-Year-Old Star Gets Real About Dismal Start To Season On Offense

Plenty of the top players on the Boston Red Sox are struggling offensively, but one star has been wearing much of the criticism on the chin.

First baseman Triston Casas is off to a dismal start, slashing .175/.242/.281 so far through 62 plate appearances. He's been worth -0.5 fWAR so far this season, ranking seventh-worst among all position players in Major League Baseball, per Fangraphs.

Any player who struggles like this is going to catch some flack, but Casas is the Red Sox's most outspoken player, and he plays an offense-first position. If he can't hit, he'll have quotes like his pledge to chase a 40-homer, 120-RBI season shoved back in his face.

Casas began the year as the cleanup hitter, but he's hit sixth in his last two games and will bat seventh behind rookie Kristian Campbell when the Red Sox face the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night. He hasn't been starting against lefties of late, either, though manager Alex Cora had said before the season the Red Sox planned to give him that opportunity.

Amid the struggles, though, Casas remains confident. He's gotten off to a slow start before (in 2023, when he was hitting .128 through 96 PA), and he believes can weather the storm again.

"You never like to approach the season on a bad note or get off to the wrong start, especially on this team," Casas told Monster Territory's Robbie Hyde on Monday. "We have so many expectations, a lot of good players and stuff, but everybody is just in my corner.

"All my teammates, they're instilling the confidence in me that we're gonna get through this together... So just the feel, the support of the whole organization feels good, but yeah, ultimately, it's about having good at-bats. It's about having results and it's going to start with... hitting mistakes, swinging mistakes and letting go of balls."

To illustrate how small a sample it's been, consider this: Casas hit a ball against the St. Louis Cardinals on Apr. 6 that would have been a home run in 24 of 30 ballparks, but was caught in deep right field at Fenway Park. If it had been a long ball, Casas' slugging percentage now would be .350, 69 points higher than it currently is.

If the struggles continue for a few more weeks, fans and pundits will have reason enough to be concerned. But for now, the Red Sox slugger just has to take it on the chin and get back to doing what he knows he's capable of.

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