Red Sox Coach Under Scrutiny After Series of Baserunning Disasters

Remember when the Boston Red Sox had a runner thrown out at home plate at the worst possible time?

It's probably not a great sign that you have to be hyper specific to follow up on that question, even if we limit the time frame to the last week.

Beginning with last Saturday's loss to the Minnesota Twins, the Red Sox had four runners gunned down at the plate in the span of six games. On Friday night, Mickey Gasper made the third out of the second inning at home plate after Cleveland Guardians left fielder Angel Martinez made one of the throws of the year in Major League Baseball.

Angel Martinez immediately erased his shortstop's error with a perfect throw home pic.twitter.com/qMHFpApkTb
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) May 30, 2026

Is Chad Epperson costing Red Sox as third-base coach?

There would be scrutiny over any third-base coach who played a role in four outs at the plate in a week, but the fact that the coach is new only heightens the drama. Chad Epperson, who was managing the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs just over a month ago, has taken over in the wake of the firings of manager Alex Cora, ex-third-base coach Kyle Hudson, and four others.

The Red Sox have had plenty of third-base coaches the fans disagreed with on occasion. Just in the past decade, they've gone from Brian Butterfield to Carlos Febles to Hudson to Epperson. All four faced derision from the fan base at some point.

Interim manager Chad Tracy, who rose up from the minor-league ranks on the same day as Epperson, wasn't sure whether to attribute the string of outs at the plate to bad sends or great throws from the outfield (Martinez's was easily the best the Red Sox have seen).

“Probably a combination of both,” Tracy said, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. “There are certain situations where you want to go and feel like, ‘This could be the chance.’ We’ll look at it. Obviously, better on both ends. We’ll keep looking at it.”

Epperson's two sends against the Twins last weekend were both disastrous, as the first resulted in a bench-clearing incident between Willson Contreras and Victor Caratini, and the second derailed a comeback attempt in the ninth.

Benches clear after Contreras collides with Caratini at the plate 👀 pic.twitter.com/MZlIWbVcat
— NESN (@NESN) May 23, 2026

When an offense is struggling as much as Boston's this year, you don't want to give away outs on the bases if you can avoid it. Epperson definitely won't have much grace from the court of public opinion moving forward.

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