Yankees’ weekend visit is about rivalry, but also these Red Sox’ identity

These sorts of weekends are the ones that get the conversation flowing.

Reese McGuire and the Red Sox took two of three from Isiah Kiner-Falefa and the Yankees last weekend in New York. Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

By Jon Couture

June 16, 2023

4 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

When Red Sox manager Alex Cora yanked Kiké Hernández from the starting shortstop slot earlier in the week, he offered the sort of disorganized quote befitting a team still trying to prove itself something more than mediocre.

“You get X amount of opportunities to play the position. You have to make adjustments,” Cora told reporters. “Is it late [to make a move]? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. We’ve just got to move on.”

Seconds later, Cora moved on to say “at the same time, the game will dictate what we do. Don’t be surprised if he’s there in the ninth inning playing short.”

It’s somehow both boilerplate and damning. We’re a year removed from innings of Christian Vázquez playing second base and Connor Wong playing third, lest you forget baseball seasons are weird things with weird occasional needs.

But it says something of the state of things in Boston when the demotion of a player with more throwing errors (12) than four entire teams needs to be interrupted by an admission that, yeah, he’ll probably be back there soon.

Need is the state of your Red Sox at the moment, in that modern sports limbo of being within arm’s reach of a playoff spot more mathematically than practically. Tampa made last year’s playoffs as an 86-win team. The Red Sox, at one below .500, need to close 52-41 to get there.

That’s a 91-win pace beginning with Friday’s weekend visit from the Yankees. That’s asking a lot from a bunch that, while it has a clear case to be the best last-place team in the sport, is a rousing 1-5 actually playing those other last-place teams — at home, no less — after the Sox snuck that finale with the Rockies on Wednesday.

And that’s if 86 is enough in 2023, as opposed to 88 or 90.

Again, baseball’s weird. The A’s beat the Rays twice. The A’s got $380 million from Nevada despite treating the Indians’ construction in Major League as a how-to guide. Heck, it’s so weird, the A’s aren’t even the A’s at the moment given Kansas City lost nine straight and fell behind them in the standings.

But we can safely pencil the Rays into October, and assume the AL Central will be a one-bid division. That leaves four playoff spots for eight teams — Boston, New York, Orioles, and Blue Jays, Rangers, Astros, Angels, and Mariners.

The Rangers and Orioles have built strong resumes. The Astros and Yankees have the pedigree to always feel one win from a torrid month. And yet all eight could end up with 80-something wins. That means all eight are a good couple series from talking themselves into something.

Enter a series like this weekend’s at Fenway Park. Enter quotes like those offered in the gloaming of Wednesday, when a five-run seventh was Boston’s only real outburst in three games against the worst pitching staff in the National League.

“We’re pitching. That’s the cool thing about it,” Cora told reporters. “Early in the season, we didn’t pitch and we were hitting. But obviously over 162 [games], if you pitch you’re going to have a chance.”

“It’s frustrating to see us be so inconsistent,” Sox architect Chaim Bloom told MLB.com. “I do think it’s going to come back. A lot of these games where we haven’t scored runs, we’ve had plenty of traffic. Usually when you do that, you’re gonna find a way to get your share of runs on the board.”

These Yankees are beatable. Just ask the people who watch them every day.

Anthony Rizzo, a key catalyst last season to the point he got a $40 million contract extension in November, is 2 for 37 since a collision with Fernando Tatis Jr. cost him three games. The infield production across the board has been dreadful, and a team alarmingly mum on when it might get Aaron Judge back has shown little ability to cope with his absence.

With a payroll of $280 million, the 2023 Yankees have been Judge (who’s out indefinitely), Gerrit Cole (who started Wednesday’s loss to the Mets), baseball’s best bullpen, and little else. The Red Sox don’t have a Judge, and their aces are merely building foundations, but they’ve locked down games they’ve gotten to their bullpen and sport a lineup perpetually capable of getting hot.

With New York’s relief corps being leaned on heavy by Aaron Boone? Against a team that still grinds down starting pitchers like few others in the league? The Sox won two of three in the Bronx despite a complete absence of momentum and clutch hitting.

Even if they were to sweep New York this weekend, the standings and numbers wouldn’t look much better.

But they’d sure feel a lot better.

When we’re coming off a year where Bloom tried to be both buyer and seller at the trade deadline — a somewhat logical call in the moment that fell apart almost immediately?

Well, the Astros just lost Yordan Alvarez for a month. The Sox have hung right with Baltimore head-to-head. They’re 4-0 against Toronto, and the Rangers haven’t proved anything yet, and . . .

You can talk yourself into almost anything in modern baseball. These sorts of weekends are the ones that get the conversation flowing.