A sweep would have been nice, but Red Sox may be on right track
The Red Sox won two of three during the weekend series with the Yankees.
Commentary
After taking three of four from the Yankees over the weekend, the Red Sox’ won-lost record stands at 59-48.
That, among many other things, means this: They need to go 49-6 to match last season’s franchise-best 108-54 mark.
Out of reach? Well, yeah, detective. No ballclub is stringing two Morgan Magic-type runs in a row (the ’88 Sox won 24 in row at home), and this team, as talented as it is down to the 20th spot on the roster, gets in its way too much to tear off a double-digit winning streak.
But I’ll tell you this, too: Had they been able to complete the four-game sweep of the series Sunday night, and in the same overwhelming fashion that they won the first three games of the set, I’d have at least have humored the daydream.
That the Red Sox could not pull off the sweep certainly is frustrating in the moment. At his best, Chris Sale comes through with a double-digit-strikeout masterpiece when situation demands it, and the Red Sox head into their three-game series with the Rays having cut the Yankees’ lead in the AL East from 11 to 7 games.
But Sale hasn’t been at his best with any regularity or consistency all season, and Sunday night he delivered one more bewildering performance, allowed five runs in five innings while throwing just 56 of 100 pitches for strikes. He allowed two home runs, including one to a member of the Romine family (dad Kevin was a bench player on those ’88 Sox), and the Yankees prevailed, 9-6.
The Sox made the kind of fundamental mistakes that we’d call uncharacteristic if we hadn’t seen them so often this season – Jackie Bradley Jr. and Xander Bogaerts, two unlikely suspects, both made costly defensive miscues. And so the Sox still trail the Yankees by 9 games even after outscoring the Yankees 44-22 in the four games.
Still, something feels different, better than it has for most of this season. No, it doesn’t feel quite like last year, when virtually everything went right. Last year’s Sox would have finished the job Sunday night. But it didn’t feel like the one-step-forward, one-step-back approach that has plagued them for much of this season any time they seemed to be gaining momentum.
I’ll admit it: I figured after the Sox routed the Yankees in the first two games, I cynically assumed they’d lose the next two in some annoying fashion. It was just a week ago Saturday that the Sox dropped 17 runs on the lowly Orioles, then followed up Sunday afternoon by getting one-hit by journeyman Asher Wojciechowski and two relievers. That was their pattern. That seemed to be who they were.
But three out of four against the Yankees? That’s an achievement worthy of optimism, even if the opportunity at going 4-for-4 slipped away.
The reality is that the Red Sox have it right for a while. It may not always seem that way because of the aggravating shoulda-had-that-one losses along the way as they tried to climb out of that early ditch. But they have gone 48-31 since April 29, a 98-win pace.
