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It’s still very early in the 2026 MLB season, but the Red Sox victory anthem of “Dirty Water” is instead turning bloody as the club sinks to unexpected lows.
Boston lost to Milwaukee on Monday, 8–6, to sink their record to an ugly 2–8, worst in the league. The club’s mark through the first 10 games matches a franchise low, and it already ranks poorly in a series of key league metrics, including run differential, staff earned run average, and errors.
Red Sox fans who are expecting a return to the postseason this season are already showing their displeasure, chanting “Sell the team!”—a pointed barb at the John Henry–led Fenway Sports Group.
“That’s how it works,” Red Sox Manager Alex Cora said of the chants. “That’s why we love it here, right, because their expectations are up there with us. Right now, we deserve whatever they’re thinking. We’re not playing good baseball, and we know it.”
Past vs. the Present
In FSG’s 24 years owning and operating the Red Sox, the ownership group has amassed a record that any other MLB club would love to have—one that includes four World Series titles, a successful restoration of Fenway Park, and nearly $150 million in charitable donations through its foundation.
Those highs for the Red Sox, however, have been joined by several painful lows during the FSG era, including six last-place finishes in the AL East division.
Additionally, the Red Sox have no playoff series wins since 2021, and the club’s baseball operations, currently led by chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, have shown a highly analytical approach that has run cold with many fans.
“The idea of deploying our players in a way that maximizes positive outcomes by creating the most favorable matchups that we can is a term that I would call optimization,” Breslow said during his arrival to the post in 2023. “I think that’s synthesizing analytical information, it’s synthesizing the real-time feedback that we would be getting from our players and our coaches who are interacting with each other every single day to ensure that we’re doing that and making sure that we’re not leaving wins on the table.”
Liverpool Unrest
Fans of another FSG-led club, meanwhile, are growing even more restless.
Spirit of Shankly, a supporters’ group for Premier League club Liverpool FC, is organizing protests over rising ticket prices, beginning with a scheduled match this weekend against Fulham. Liverpool recently confirmed plans to increase those prices in each of the next three seasons.
“Fans do not accept this decision. And if the club’s owners won’t listen, then we make them,” Spirit of Shankly said in a statement. “This is no longer about consultation. That opportunity has been and gone. This is about action. Supporter groups are already organizing a coordinated response. We are doing so at speed because time is against us. But the direction is clear: protests will take place. If the club does not value supporter voices, we will make ourselves difficult to ignore.”
Ticket prices across the Premier League have already been a sensitive topic in recent years. Liverpool said the planned hikes are necessary because “matchday operating costs have significantly increased, with rises of 85% since 2016–17, and continued rises in the costs of football operations in general.”
Sagging on-field performance, however, is exacerbating the issue in Liverpool. After winning last season’s Premier League title, the club now sits in fifth place in the current table, and it was just blown out in the FA Cup quarterfinals by Manchester City.
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