Nobody is beating these streaking Red Sox
COMMENTARY
Nobody can beat the Red Sox.
Certainly not now. But it’s doubtful next month will be any different.
Sunday’s controversial, 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays was Boston’s 11th win in a row during this dazzling month of September. The Magic Number to clinch the American League East is now at two, and because the Blue Jays refused to lay down over the weekend against the Yankees, the Red Sox can’t clinch the division until Tuesday evening at the earliest.
No worries.
These are going to be your American League champions.
Toronto can’t catch them. Neither Cleveland nor Texas will get past them.
The 92-64 Red Sox are a postseason-bound machine, streaking into October as the best team in baseball. They have a 5 1/2-game lead on Toronto in the East, and eliminated the Orioles from division contention Sunday afternoon after Dustin Pedroia bizarrely riverdanced his way to a 10th-inning run in Tampa. Theo Epstein and the Cubs await. Nothing stands in their way.
Boston is perfect since Hanley Ramirez, now in line for some MVP votes, swatted that game-winning blast to beat the Yankees in Game 1 of a four-game sweep that would eventually leave New York limping into irrelevance. If the Orioles had any inkling on actually playing in October, they certainly didn’t show up (nor did their fans) in their own four-game weeping at the feet of Camden Yards Crusher Mookie Betts. It was, indeed, the last-place Devil Rays who might have put up the biggest fight over the weekend in Tampa Bay. But if Pedroia isn’t beating you with fancy footwork, then he’s launching grand slams to sink you, just as he did Saturday night.
Eleven.
As the New Bedford Standard Times’ Jon Couture pointed out after that victory, Boston’s 10th in a row, it was only the second time in the 116-year history of the franchise that the club had put together a 10-game winning streak in September. The other: Eleven-straight in 1949.
In 116 years of franchise history, #RedSox have exactly one 10-game winning streak in September: 11 straight in 1949.
— Jon Couture (@JonCouture) September 25, 2016
Now, eleven-straight in 2016, as well.
No team has scored more runs than the Red Sox this month (134). No team has a higher OPS (.819). No AL team has a better ERA (2.77) than the Red Sox. Nobody has won more games (18-5).
If David Ortiz imagined a scenario where he could retire from the game as a World Series champion, then welcome to his perfect world. He could leave the team with its fourth title under his watch, walking away from a team with a remaining core nucleus that is among the brightest in the game.
John Farrell is, against all odds, going to win the American League Manager of the Year. Betts should win the Most Valuable Player award, barring Mike Trout fanboys mucking up the process. Rick Porcello has probably done enough by now to warrant the Cy Young.
Koji Uehara has found the fountain of youth. David Price is itching to turn around his reputation in October after a sizzling finish in the regular season. Pedroia has seemed ready to play every bit the parts of spark plug, motor, and hammer in one.
The Red Sox are the complete package you envisioned they could become all season.
Just in time.
Porcello will get Game One of the ALDS at home, Price, Game 2, and Eduardo Rodriguez (he who began the pitching staff’s 21-strikeout brigade against the Rays on Sunday) in Game 3. The argument over Clay Buchholz or Drew Pomeranz for Game 4 starter can wait until the next round. Nobody is beating the Red Sox before then.
They are in New York for three before finishing the season at home against the Jays over the weekend. It could be an ALDS preview, should Boston overcome the Texas Rangers for the league’s best record, and the Jays emerge victorious in the one-game Wild Card playoff. Maybe it’s a Cleveland double-dip to look forward to; the Indians in the ALDS, and Tom Brady’s return to the New England Patriots against the Cleveland Browns.
They could end the regular season with a 17-game winning streak. It won’t happen, because it doesn’t have to. Win two more in a row, and the division is theirs. That’s all that comes to matter.
On Sept. 14, the Red Sox lost to the Orioles, 1-0, at Fenway, Porcello’s only loss at home during the 2016 season. They were a game up on Baltimore at the time, two on the Jays.
Less than a fortnight later, they haven’t lost since. These Red Sox stepped on any semblance of adversity that sat on the remaining schedule in September — one with a healthy diet of direct competition on the road that was prognosticated to be their downfall by more than one observer — and ground that theory into aura that has enveloped them. Win. Dance Repeat has given us the Carlton. The Apache. The Marcarena. Better start planning the Blues Brothers’ “Soul Man” for the Wrigley Field outfield in October.
The Red Sox are going to be there.
Nobody — absolutely nobody — stands in their way.
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