The Sox stormed out to a 3-0 lead: one run in the second two in the third, all manufactured. Then Brayan Bello's wildness caught up with him, and he exited with a bases-loaded situation and the Sox up 3-1.
I was pretty meh on the pool play format given two teams of five advancing in each pool, which felt like it was going to water down the proceedings a bit... but I ended up really enjoying the days of wall-to-wall pool play.
The Braves were linked specifically to Chris Bassitt and Lucas Giolito as targets for their starting pitching pursuit, which apparently remains active at this stage in the offseason. While those are by no means sexy options, they likely wouldn't require eye-watering contracts and would preserve the Braves' 2026 draft capital, as compared to Framber Valdez or Zac Gallen. Bassitt has been quite durable and consistent in the ~2.5 fWAR per (regular length) season range for seven seasons now,
