Ryan Brasier immediately made Red Sox fans hate baseball

Ryan Brasier took the hill for the Red Sox for the first time in 2023 on Opening Day and the results had fans wishing baseball never existed. 

Have you ever seen the buildup to a car crash? Someone is just completely out of control behind the wheel, and it’s inevitable that something bad is going to happen. And yet, there’s nothing you can do to remedy it and just have to watch things go poorly from there. The feeling of dread and disaster sets in.

Anyway, Ryan Brasier came in for a relief appearance on Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox.

Brasier has long been maligned by the Red Sox fanbase for his propensity to blow up at awful times. So when Alex Cora put him on the mound with Boston trailing 5-2 against the Orioles, any hopes that the right-hander would somehow change that narrative were immediately dispelled.

The first at-bat yielded three-straight balls, a waste pitch strike, and then a hit-by-pitch. Then Brasier got a groundball for a double play. And then the wheels came off with Brasier staying loyal to his brand.

The reliever walked the next batter, allowed a helpless stolen base, gave up an RBI single, then another easy stolen base. That runner then advanced on a wild pitch that was part of another walk before giving up another stolen base that allowed both runners to score on another hard-hit single. And it was finally a laser hit to center field that ended the inning on the warning track, with the deficit growing to six for Boston.

Red Sox fans were literally through one Ryan Brasier experience in the 2023 season and already prepared tho ship him to Siberia.

Yes, if you saw those stats, Brasier threw only 16 strikes in 35 pitches, allowed two walks, a HBP, two hits, and now has an ERA 27.00. Red Sox baseball is so unbelievably back, baby.

If there’s any sort of fairness to Brasier after that outing, it’s that Corey Kluber also had control issues and got shelled for five earned runs over 3.1 innings as Boston’s Opening Day starter. But even then, it’s hard to defend the 35-year-old reliever.

Even though the Red Sox bullpen issues have been well-documented over the past couple of years, how a player who had a 5.78 ERA a year ago and hasn’t had a WHIP under 1.30 in three seasons is beyond comprehension. He’s part of the problem — a big part of it.

It’s a sour taste to start the season for the Fenway faithful. But then again, that’s a familiar flavor when it comes to Brasier.