It was Patriots’ Day yesterday in Boston, which meant for the 130th straight year a whole bunch of fast people–and way more slower ones– took to the streets on their day off to indulge in the tradition known as The Boston Marathon. CBS SPORTS needed the combined efforts of Neal Riley, Matt Schooley and Riley Rourke to assemble these bullet points that it sure appears like AI gave them a hand with:
- Marcel Hug won his ninth Boston Marathon in the men’s wheelchair division, while Eden Rainbow-Cooper won her second title in the women’s wheelchair race.
- Kenya’s John Korir won his second straight Boston Marathon in the men’s professional division and set a new course record.
- Sharon Lokedi of Kenya also defended her Boston Marathon title in the women’s professional division.
Gotta hand it to Bari Weiss, her minions are carrying on traditions in the own right, too.
Meanwhile, at that bandyard on Landsdowne Street, where they’ve been sharing the spotlight with the runners for a bit more than a century, the Olde Town Team was doing something they haven’t been doing much of lately–winning an actual American League baseball game. With an actual reporter–BOSTON SPORTS JOURNAL’s Chris Henrique–on hand to actually chronicle it:
With the early 11:10 a.m. start putting added pressure on the pitching staff, Boston turned to Sonny Gray in need of length, but got the opposite. The right-hander exited after just 2 2/3 innings and 40 pitches due to right hamstring tightness, leaving the bullpen to pick up the slack early. “I can honestly say it doesn’t feel like it’s a horrible thing,” Gray said after an 8-6 Red Sox win. “It’s just something that’s going to take however long it’s going to take to get right. I don’t know what that is right now.” After Gray’s exit, the bullpen came up huge. Alex Cora turned to seven relievers who combined to cover the final 6 1/3 innings, keeping Boston within striking distance until the offense finally broke through.
As a key hit came from the lone Red Sox on my underperforming fantasy team, the utility knife named Ceddanne Rafeala, I was momentarily distracted from having to bemoan how horribly the team I root for–and foolishly have several representatives of on said sucky team–the New York Mets have been doing. Unlike what they have done for the prior 11 days, they didn’t lose a game. They also didn’t play, which I suppose might be the only logical reason why that was the case. And if I’m to believe the whining, carping and thinly veiled threats from the fan bases that dominate my social media timelines, we’re likely to see the same fate until End Times Jesus shows up to put us all out of the misery its Earthly doppelganger has gifted us with.
But thankfully, FRONT OFFICE SPORTS’ Eric Fisher dropped this timely reminder yesterday that put our reality into perspective:
MLB’s No. 2 payroll club is in a historic freefall, but they’re hardly alone as four other top-spenders are similarly struggling, upending the league’s normal order and putting several managers on an early hot seat. The Steve Cohen-owned club entered the season with a big budget, as their luxury-tax outlay now stands at $381.7 million, and even loftier ambitions as it chases the two-time defending champion Dodgers. New York, however, has been stymied in the season’s early going by a series of factors including a leaky bullpen and an anemic offense…The team’s 7–15 record is tied with Kansas City for MLB’s worst mark, and even trails the long-struggling Rockies by two games.
For all the Mets’ on-field problems, though, several other top-spending franchises are having their own issues in the early part of the 2026 season. Among them:
- Phillies (No. 4 luxury-tax payroll, $314.2 million): Philadelphia was just swept at Citizens Bank Park by the Braves to complete a 2–7 homestand, the club’s worst nine-game run at home since 2009. The Phillies are now 8–13, just ahead of the Mets. “You’ve got to take the emotion out of it,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “This isn’t football, it’s not hockey, where emotion can help you. In this sport, over-emotion can often hurt you. You’ve got to take it out.”
- Blue Jays (No. 5 luxury-tax payroll, $309.5 million): After last-year’s dramatic run to Game 7 of the World Series and large-scale ambitions under owner Rogers Communications, injuries and underperformance have created a hangover for the 8–13 club. A 10–4 rout in Phoenix of the Diamondbacks on Sunday, fueled by an eight-run first inning, suggests a potential turnaround, though. “That was the Blue Jays that everyone saw [in 2025],” Toronto outfielder Nathan Lukes said. “That’s what we were missing. We’ve just got to take it with us moving forward.”
- Red Sox (No. 6 luxury-tax payroll, $266.1 million): After starting a woeful 2–8 andraising the ire of local fans, Boston has since improved somewhat to an 9–13 mark but the club’s uphill climb continues. A critical series at Fenway Park against archrival Yankees begins Tuesday.
- Astros (No. 11 luxury-tax payroll, $236.5 million): After missing the postseason last year for the first time since 2016, Houston has faded even further from its prior dominance and now stands in last place in the AL West division. “We definitely have to look at each other in the mirror and see what things we can do better,” Astros shortstop Carlos Correa said.
Misery may not love company, and I’d offer that I occasionally do so laments from fans and scribes of these other clubs as well. They may not be quite as homicidal or suicidal as Mets fans, but they ain’t thrilled, to be sure.
But then I took a look at the actual standings as well as the calendar. For as pathetic as the Mets are doing, they are eight and a half games out of first place and six out of a playoff spot–a rung which currently is being shared by four clubs including the Cubs. And I know regular readers of these musings know far too much about how thrilled its fan base is about that. And there are still 140 more games to be played.
Yeah, yeah, I know all about how the Mets missed the playoffs last year by one game, and a loss in April counts as much as one in September. I also know April’s weather has been downright schizophrenic–summer-like one day, freezing and drizzling the next. The Yankees–currently in first place in their division despite having the same record as the Cubs–played two consecutive Sunday afternoon home games after weather delays of several hours. If you want to try and man-splain how this all is a representative sample of how the entire season will unfold, you go right ahead. I’ll wait.
So I’m not going to call just yet for any beheadings , deserved though they may be. I’m willing to at least wait a tad longer to see how things unfold. May Day might be appropriate. Cuz that’s what the fan bases of those big spenders will be shrieking if things don’t get a little better by then.
Courage…