The team is winning, much of the future core is locked up, and, for now, all is well with the Red Sox.
The team is winning, much of the future core is locked up, and, for now, all is well with the Red Sox.
COMMENTARY
Immediately before they became the best team in the American League — if not baseball — for six weeks, the Red Sox played a game in which the highlight was a scoreless inning from Nate Eaton.
This may spark multi-layered confusion. I’ll help: Eaton’s 14-game contribution ended a month ago when the 28-year-old went back to Worcester to make room for Masataka Yoshida. And yes, WooSox fans and diehards, you’re right: He’s not a pitcher.
Eaton was the white flag arm in the ninth of a 9-0 loss on June 27, when José Berríos and two Blue Jays relievers held a non-competitive lineup to four hits. The Sox were 3-7 since trading Rafael Devers to the Giants, yanked backward after winning seven of eight, including five straight against the Yankees when that seemed harder than it does right now.
“If you want to, pray for me to the baseball gods,” an ice-cold Jarren Duran told reporters, his team having scored 28 runs in 10 games.
That team, those guys, are 24-9 since. They won, 15-1, the following afternoon. They scored 13 two days later, ripped off 10 straight wins into the All-Star break, and that goofy Wednesday loss in Dustin May’s debut came hours after locking in Roman Anthony for the next decade.
“For me, it was simple,” the franchise’s next next-big-thing told reporters. “I wanted to be here.”
It has been, as my late father would say when bewildered and trying not to swear, something else. From baseball’s worst offense immediately after trading their best offensive player, to as close to the AL East lead as they are to falling out of the wild-card slots.
Only the NL-best Brewers have allowed fewer runs in this span, powered by rotation that’s pitching like it’s deeper than just Garrett Crochet. They hit the ball harder than any other team.
There’s another core coalescing.
