Boston Red Sox v Detroit Tigers | Duane Burleson/GettyImages

The Boston Red Sox won the battle for Alex Bregman’s services this offseason, but the Detroit Tigers already have the upper hand in the season series.

The final two games of Boston’s series in Detroit were a tight back-and-forth race between an underperforming AL leader and an unexpected juggernaut. The Tigers’ first brutal beatdown and eventual sweep of the Sox make them feel like the team Red Sox fans wish they had this year.

The Red Sox were twice walked off by the Tigers in games with multiple lead changes and dramatic, sometimes never-before-seen plays — not even a two-man home run robbery could save Boston from its own issues. On May 14, Boston racked up five runs against Tarik Skubal, but couldn’t do enough with them.

Skubal, the reigning AL CY Young and Triple Crown winner, owned a 2.08 ERA with 60 strikeouts on the season before he ran into the Red Sox. They racked up five runs on him, a season-high in any of Skubal’s starts, including a homer from Bregman. But Boston’s 11 strikeouts kept it from doing much significant damage. It finished the night with 14 strikeouts while Detroit fanned only seven times.

As good as Bregman has been for the Red Sox, they could do with the flexibility the roster had last year before signing him. Granted, that wouldn’t reverse their bullpen issues, but a more varied offense could minimize one-run losses and increased run support would reduce blown saves.

Alex Bregman has played at an MVP level, but signing him has clouded the Red Sox’s plans (or lack thereof)

The Red Sox have struck out an MLB-leading 189 times with runners in scoring position and own a league-worst 11 blown saves. They’ve lost 12 one-run games, and if those outcomes were reversed with a slight offensive boost, the Red Sox could be 34-11 after 45 games.

Signing Bregman pushed Rafael Devers into the designated hitter slot in the batting order and Masataka Yoshida off the lineup entirely. He can still swing a bat and posted a .286/.286/.400 slash line in spring training, but he’s being held back from playing because he hasn’t fully recovered from offseason labrum surgery and cannot throw from the outfield. Yoshida doesn’t strike out and owned a 97th-percentile strikeout rate in 2024, he could be making the Red Sox’s lineup much longer in the DH slot. Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Jarren Duran, Rob Refsnyder and, eventually, Roman Anthony will all need reps in the outfield, and Yoshida doesn’t make sense there with so many superior defenders in the mix.

Anthony and fellow top prospect Marcelo Mayer could also give Boston’s offense a spark, but the Red Sox’s roster is so poorly constructed that there’s no plan or place for them. The Red Sox have already said they won’t promote Anthony or Mayer without everyday roles, and the outfield is stocked and Trevor Story is under contract until after the 2028 season.

Bregman is playing at an MVP-level and is on pace for the best year of his career (.314/.392/.589, .981 OPS), but signing him solved one of the Red Sox’s needs and created many more. The new rigidity in Boston’s DH spot has created a second logjam in the outfield to go with the one in the middle infield, with a complete lack of depth at first base, despite Triston Casas’ injury history. The Red Sox’s roster issues aren’t Bregman’s fault, but signing him hasn’t made their future plans any clearer.