Whicker: Pirates surprise, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies slump in season’s first full month
The Boston Red Sox poor April cost manager Alex Cora his job.
April 28, 2026
By Mark Whicker
Canadian Baseball Network
It’s been roughly a month.
And for some of baseball’s oligarchs, it’s been a rough month indeed.
But the good thing about April is that you can proclaim that you can see trends with the full knowledge that they’ll dissipate by May Day.
Here’s some of the leading developments in baseball’s least meaningful month:
THE OTHER 95 PERCENT
Pittsburgh began the season with two losses. Through April 26, it had not lost two consecutive games again. The Bucs were 16-12 which, surprisingly, only left them third in the N.L. Central, where all five teams are over .500 and the Reds, despite an MLB-worst batting average of .213, are leading.
The Cubs are the only big-buck team in the Central and they have been hot, despite the loss of potential ace pitcher Cade Horton. The Pirates made some small withdrawals and bought Brandon Lowe and Ed O’Hearn, and both have brought significant offence. The biggest news on that side is the belated emergence of Oneil Cruz, the 6-foot-7 ex-Dodger prospect who could hit a river-bound home run in the bottom of the inning and jeopardize the health of first-base-line fans with his throws in the top. The Pirates rescued Cruz from the shortstop position and put him in the outfield last year. At the moment he has eight home runs with an .838 OPS.
Most people suspected Pittsburgh would pitch. Paul Skenes continues to roll, leading the N.L. in WHIP. But the Pirates have a viable bullpen even with David Bednar in Yankee Stadium. Dennis Santana was one of baseball’s best relievers last year and hasn’t missed a beat as the closer, and he, Gregory Soto, Isaac Mattson and Yohan Ramirez have given up two home runs all told.
ANY MORE PINK SLIPS?
Alex Cora got fired on Saturday and maybe a half-dozen managers started sitting with their backs to the wall. The Red Sox skipper became an immediate candidate for the Mets and the Phillies. But Boston did make the playoffs last year and had legitimate hopes this year, and they got stuck in neutral from the beginning and haven’t recovered. It was nice of Garrett Crochet to point out that his bad pitching has been a big of a hurdle as Boston has, but it was also absolutely true.
Brayan Bello has given up 22 earned runs in 22 innings and has an unfathomable WHIP of 2.273 and a hit rate of 15.1 per nine innings. The pitching has been so bad that closer Aroldis Chapman has gotten into just nine of the first 28 games.
The fans want to know why the Red Sox didn’t sign Alex Bregman, who opted out after one season. Of course they’d still like to know why they don’t have Chris Sale, Mookie Betts or Rafael Devers. Pitchers Nick Pivetta (Victoria, B.C.), Nathan Eovaldi and Eduardo Rodriguez have slipped out of town, too, as have shortstop Xander Bogaerts and even Kyle Schwarber. Some of those players have run into problems in their new homes, and some weren’t performing much at Fenway, either, but the youngsters were supposed to fill those gaps. Roman Anthony and Marcelo Meyer have a total of two home runs and 10 RBIs.
Craig Breslow is calling the shots in Boston these days. He was a pitcher on the 2013 world champions and is widely-known as the smartest man in baseball, since he graduated with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale and was admitted to NYU medical school. Of course, “smartest man in baseball” is roughly the equivalent of “funniest man in a Cormac McCarthy novel.” Smarts, as most people define them, have little to do with spotting a real baseball player that lives inside a gangly 17-year-old body, or visualizing a 26-man roster that has all the answers.
It also has nothing to do with human interactions. Breslow & Co. fired five of Cora’s coaches, including Red Sox near-lifer Jason Varitek, and batting coach Pete Fatse and third base coach Kyle Hudson, a baserunning expert. The Red Sox kept Andrew Bailey, who is in charge of the compost heap of pitchers.
The new manager is Chad Tracy, whose dad Jim did distinguished work in Colorado, Pittsburgh and the Dodgers, and who managed several of the Sox in the minors. He is well-recommended. And there’s nothing that says the Sox can’t get it together in the 130 or so games that remain. But it reinforces the point about money in baseball. It helps you win. It guarantees nothing.
DESOLATION ROW
Misery usually loves company, but Philadelphia fans have a special strain of anger-laced despair that defies all vaccines. Particularly when the Phillies start out 9-19, which happens to be the Mets’ record as well, not that it comforts anyone in Citizens Bank Park. It’s bad enough that Trea Turner has an OBP of only .303, Alex Bohm is hitting .218, and Schwarber has only 11 hits that aren’t home runs. At one point the Phillies had 26 at-bats with men in scoring position, over six games, and went 0-for-26.
Even a fire-breathing offence would have trouble overcoming a starting rotation that has given up a .307 batting average and ranks dead last in National League WHIP. This, after the Phillies failed to keep Ranger Suarez (Red Sox). Like Chapman, closer Jhoan Duran has become a 26th wheel.
The long knives are waiting for manager Rob Thomson (Corunna, Ont.), but Hall of Fame-bound general manager Dave Dombrowski isn’t a mayoral candidate either. Zack Wheeler came back from thoracic outlet decompression surgery and pitched well in Atlanta Saturday, but that’s just a bread crumb for Phillies’ fans.
MY CITI WAS GONE
And then there’s the Mets, with a .625 OPS that’s easily the worst in baseball. They, the Phillies and Red Sox are a combined 30-55, with payrolls that rank first, fourth and 12th, respectively. New York said goodbye to Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz in the offseason, and the replacements haven’t overcome an alarming slump by shortstop Francisco Lindor.
So far the Mets have been swept at home by Colorado and the Athletics. This has dimmed the long-term future of manager Carlos Mendoza, who was hailed for his restraint and perspective when New York got to the NLCS two years ago.
NO MORE MILE HIGH ERAs
Colorado has the 11th-best ERA in the National League. That wouldn’t prompt a stampede to the box office, except that the Rockies have never finished a season better than eighth, and an 11th-place finish would be the third-highest in Rockies history.
Whether it’s the teachings of first-year coach Alon Leichman or just a mountain mirage, it’s certainly different. The current ERA is 4.07. Last year it was 5.97. Former starter Antonio Senzatela is in the bullpen and has given up eight hits in 18 innings. Former first-round pick Chase Dollander has become the bulk reliever, and has a 2.25 ERA in seven games. He did start in New York Sunday and gave the Mets nothing in seven innings. Michael Lorenzen pitched seven one-run innings against the Mets as well.
Leichman became the first Israeli-born coach in MLB history when Cincinnati hired him. He’s calling the pitches from the dugout and hoping that a new voice, plus a lineup full of promising young hitters, will drain the bad memories from veteran Kyle Freeland. He also won’t tell the young pitchers that Coors Field isn’t Cape Canaveral.
WHO DOES HE PLAY FOR?
The Player of the Week Awards don’t spark a lot of baseball conversation, but the two winners this week will cherish them. This is Ildemaro Vargas’ third go-round with Arizona, and he’s been with four other clubs, too. He’s a 5-foot-11 switch-hitter with 26 home runs in 10 major league years. But Vargas has six homers this year already and is hitting .367 for the Diamondbacks, and he’s put together a 23-game hitting streak that goes back to 2025.
The American League winner was Carlos Cortes of the Athletics, and it’s a highlight for him too. He was a third round pick of the Mets, from South Carolina, but signed with Oakland as a free agent before he surfaced. Last year Cortes got minimal time and hit .309, but this year he is hitting .377 with a 1.121 OPS. He’s also known as a switch-thrower — righthanded on the infield, lefthanded on the outfield. Everybody’s got something to offer, and everybody’s welcome in April.