Plucky and revamped Sox have been rolling
Chaim Bloom never wanted to say the Boston Red Sox were rebuilding. The team’s chief baseball officer spent the offseason explaining the decisions to further dismantle a World Series-winning outfield, to rehire manager Alex Cora a year after he fired him when Cora’s role in a cheating scandal became clear and to spend selectively on the free agent market when his roster had obvious holes.
He warned against counting the Red Sox out, the kind of thing a front office executive says to a grizzled baseball city to head off frustration — even though grizzled baseball cities can usually see right through that. He assured reporters that the team intends to win as many games as possible. He delivered the requisite offseason platitudes about a World Series title always being the goal.
“I would hope that no matter how this year goes, even if it ends with us popping champagne, for me I would love to get to the end of this year and be able to see that next core,” Bloom said in spring training. “. . . that next core that is going to be the center of a sustainable championship contender, to see that core taking shape.”
In other words, this was supposed to be the year Red Sox fans got a glimpse of the future, a year spent navigating angst and frustration tempered only by the promise of what may be next. This was not supposed to be the year Red Sox fans fell in love again.
But just three weeks into the season, their remodeled Red Sox are in first place in the always rough-and-tumble American League East, complete with a personality all their own — a gritty roster with fewer big names than usual, a team that has matched up well with last year’s pennant winners and this year’s pennant favorites and AL East competition, too. As of Thursday, they were tied with the upstart Oakland Athletics for the most wins in the American League, second only to the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers for most in the majors.
The Red Sox are not the only team exceeding expectations with a strong start. After opening with six losses, the A’s won 11 straight to charge to the top of the AL West. Close behind them are the Seattle Mariners, who were supposed to be a year or two away, but they look ready to emerge as a pest this year. The Mariners began a four-game series at Fenway Park on Thursday.
And while the Chicago White Sox seem built to contend for the pennant, they are chasing the Kansas City Royals in the AL Central. The low-budget Cincinnati Reds have emerged as a legitimate force in the wideopen National League Central. The San Francisco
Giants have elbowed their way into second place in the NL West, between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
But the Red Sox, not exactly used to sneaking up on people, are sneaking up on almost everyone.
“This atmosphere that we have right now, it’s definitely fun to come to the ballpark every day, show up and have fun with each other,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said after his team beat the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday. “We’re definitely enjoying ourselves, enjoying the moment, and hopefully we can just continue this for a long time for the whole season if we can keep it up.”
Bogaerts is one of the holdovers from the 2018 World Series team, one of a handful of players Bloom sees as part of the old core as well as the new one. He, injured ace Chris Sale, noninjured ace Nathan Eovaldi, third baseman Rafael Devers
and starter Eduardo Rodriguez are among those who remain, survivors of a small-scale teardown that included sending annual MVP candidate Mookie Betts to the Dodgers, shipping left fielder Andrew Benintendi to the Royals and letting Gold Glovewinning center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. walk to Milwaukee.
He spent part of Tuesday’s
win with his backside in a laundry cart hurtling through the dugout under a tunnel of his teammates being bombarded with high-fives. It’s a ritual that has become habit for this Boston team, one of those celebratory routines that seem to signal some level of camaraderie — or at least, that signal a team that is far from resigned to six months of angsty mediocrity.