Astros 9, Red Sox 2: Horrific baseball in every facet imaginable

Mar 30, 2026; Houston, Texas, USA; Boston Red Sox right fielder Wilyer Abreu (52) reacts after striking out during the second inning against the Houston Astros at Daikin Park. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images For the fourth day in a row, the Red Sox managed to play their new worst game yet of the young season. And while there’s still 157 more of these after tonight, that’s suddenly starting to sound more like a threat than a reason to get comfortable.

Only two good things happened in this one: It ended quickly (two hours and 30 minutes), and nobody got injured. On the mound, Brayan Bello got clobbered, allowing 11 baserunners and six runs in just 4. 2 innings of work.

(It was really five innings, but we’ll get to that more in a moment. ) In the meantime, here’s three other irritating details from this outing that stood out to me the most: There were two, two-out walks that helped jumpstart unnecessary Houston rallies. Bello showed a familiar inability a finish off hitters, and this was despite generating some encouraging swings and misses on his cutter.

It’s that familiar “the stuff is there, but he can’t seem to put it all together in a package” trope we’ve seen from him. Cookies were repeatedly handed out to one of the best hitters on the planet in Yordan Alvarez. I mean, get a load of this pitch: At the plate, the Red Sox struck out 13 times (that’s 27 over the last two games) and recorded just four hits, with most of them coming late in the proceedings when the house was already on fire.