Commentary

Red Sox’ sweep of the Rangers gives hopeful glimpse of a better future

Trevor Story (pictured) and Xander Bogaerts drove in all five Red Sox runs during Sunday's victory. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

By Jon Couture

September 5, 2022

3 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

Triston Casas, Brayan Bello, Connor Wong, Trevor Story, Xander Bogaerts. Five names from this final 2022 Red Sox weekend before they are subsumed by the Patriots.

Who among them will be part of the next great Red Sox team?

Four-game sweeps are notable regardless of the competition, though Texas is hardly anyone’s idea of a contender as it finishes a sixth-straight losing season.

“That’s the challenge, is to stay motivated when you don’t see a prize,” interim Rangers manager Tony Beasley told reporters before Sunday’s 5-2 capper.

The Red Sox have to be thinking similarly. They’re five games adrift of Baltimore in the race to leave the AL East cellar, though five straight wins had them back within a game of .500.

After Thursday’s comeback, our quintet put on a show. Wong obliterated a ball for his first career homer to cap Friday’s blowout. Bello earned his first career win on Saturday with six shutout innings that felt all of eight starts in the making.

Casas had his first career hit in his first career game Sunday, though he was hardly the star. (His pregame earthing stint, which he explained as, “I feel better after I get some sunlight on my body,” definitely outshone that shift-aided single.)

Story ruled Sunday, from his three-run homer in the first to his leaping catch and his acrobatic tag for a caught stealing in the sixth. His double-play mate Bogaerts wasn’t far behind, with his eighth-straight multi-hit game briefly putting him atop the American League batting race.

Bogaerts is — I suspect you understand — the one of these things that’s not like the others. The game’s best offensive shortstop by the numbers this season, who’s having debatably the best defensive season he’s ever had, is likely going to free agency this winter.

It would be an upset if Bogaerts was back in 2023. How upset you are about it likely has a lot to do with those other four, all of whom should have all the runway they need to prove their worth the rest of the way.

Wong is probably the most squeezed of them, in a three-way mix with the recently acquired Reese McGuire and Kevin Plawecki. The offense has come quicker this season, and the confidence is increasingly easier to see.

Wong declared to reporters last week: “I’ve found I don’t really need to swing that hard to make solid contact and hit the ball far.”

The non-offensive growth figures to come spending this last month around Jason Varitek — Rich Gedman being part of the Triple-A staff clearly hasn’t hurt — and in the daily planning mix, a role certainly available for 2023 given the opening day catcher the last five years now plays for Houston.

The same parameters exist for Casas, given Bobby Dalbec’s regression to a .644 OPS and general lack of improvement at first base. The hype is real for a player who’s been the next big thing since high school, though he’s probably going to rack up 30 doubles well before he hits 30 homers. (He’ll fit in perfectly in the modern homer-optional Red Sox lineup…)

Of course, it may not come immediately, as we were roughly reminded by Bello looking out of his depth for most of July. Speaking to The Athletic, Sox farm director Brian Abraham cited bad luck and an early reluctance to challenge in the strike zone as part of the growing pains. (And lest we forget, Bello is not even four months removed from Double-A.)

Every one of them offered something hopeful this weekend for the future. The one Chaim Bloom will begin to truly shape when the season ends. The one he’ll shape with increasing scrutiny — “Time is up,” blared the headline from Ken Rosenthal last week — on him and the organization to do it well.

If only it were all as easy as the Red Sox made it seem when they played the AL West.