Yankees fans can't forget fired hitting coach's role in Red Sox's offensive disaster

Call it a slump or call it something more, but the Boston Red Sox - who owned the upper hand on the New York Yankees from 2004 through 2024 with only one blip - didn't score a run against the Yanks from the sixth inning of Game 2 of last year's Wild Card series until there were two outs in the ninth frame last night. Who knows where things go from here, but that's malfeasance of the highest order.

It's safe to say it's scapegoat season in Beantown, and since Boston can't fire Alex Cora for his role in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal a second time, that means the braintrust will have to look elsewhere. Will it be Craig "Run Prevention" Breslow who receives the axe? Will a Jarren Duran trade swiftly follow his strong performance on Wednesday? If you ask furious Bostonians, the most likely candidate to be the first fall guy is ... hitting coach Pete Fatse.

Ah, yes. Always the hitting coach. What do they do, exactly? Is there really an "approach" out there that's so bad that it turns major league hitters into slugs immediately? What is this magic advice that can break Caleb Durbin and Willson Contreras' brains in one fell swoop? Surely, it's the hitting coach's fault that Contreras ended the eighth half-heartedly swinging a tennis racket with no strings.

When the offense suffers, there's a high probability that roster construction, player regression and, yes, poor approach are all at fault in unison. But dismissing the hitting coach is the easiest possible reflex, and the Yankees know it well, sending Dillon Lawson and his simplistic "Hit Strikes Hard" mantra packing back in the summer of 2023. We were assured, when Lawson was elevated from overseeing the minors to shaping the majors, that he was a modern revolutionary, even though he sounded like kind of a dolt when he spoke (and the offense under his watch, for lack of a better word, Toileted). Whatever his secret sauce was, it didn't seem to have any effect on the Yankees, and he couldn't explain the gap. Hey, what happened to that guy, anyway?

OH, RIGHT. OH MY GOD.

Yankees fired hitting coach Dillon Lawson has coordinated the Red Sox since 2023

Lawson was hired to return to his roots and focus on Boston's upper minor leaguers, and shared great reverence for Fatse's (now widely despised) approach when hired.

“I’m excited to be joining a great team that’s already moving in the right direction,” he said of Fatse's system after receiving an olive branch from his old rival 2.5 years ago.

Since then, not only has Fatse become a target of tomatoes, but the Red Sox have faced the same issue that plagued the Lawson Yankees: a whole lot of upper-minors greatness never seems to translate. Kristian Campbell, inked to a mega-extension after a mere cameo in the bigs, saw himself demoted and learning a new swing midway through 2025; he has yet to return. Marcelo Mayer, Boston's wünderkind (whom they draft after they unabashedly tanked the 2020 season before hiring a correctly exiled Cora back), has morphed into a platoon player with a 73 OPS+. Even the great Roman Anthony has become exceptional at squandering opportunities to begin the 2026 season, struggling to succeed quite so plainly without a veteran running mate.

It's very difficult to adjust to the pace of major league gameplay after emerging as a centerpiece in the upper minors. It's seemingly even more difficult to do so when Lawson is your guide. Hopefully, Boston fans get what they've been yearning for here, and Fatse is dismissed. After all, if the natural order of succession occurs again, it'll mean Lawson's elevation.

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