Sox go from long shots to top dogs in AL East
BOSTON KNOCKED OFF THREE RIVALS IN ONE WEEK
In a six-game stretch did the Boston Red Sox just alter the way we’re supposed to evaluate the state of the American League East?
If that’s the case, how does it affect the Toronto Blue Jays’ competitive window going forward?
And one final question ... could that have been the Jays had they snuck into the fray on the final day of the season?
What a stretch it was for the Red Sox, who are a surprise participant in baseball’s final four and one of the hottest teams going now.
This is the same Red Sox outfit which began the 2021 season effectively being dismissed by many as a team still rebuilding and one expected to be a non-factor in the stoutest division of Major League Baseball.
They also began the post-season as the longest shot on the American League betting board but became the first team to advance to the league championship round.
It all happened in a Sunday-to-sunday stretch of electrifying play, that in some ways was a mini American League East tournament that saw the Sox effectively eliminate three division rivals.
It began with the finale of regulation play with a dramatic comeback win over the Washington Nationals to secure win No. 92. That victory took the potentially dreaded Game 163 scenario out of play and also, in part, eliminated the Jays.
Subjective as it may have been, there was enough buzz around baseball that the undeniably powerful Jays offence made them a threat that no team wanted to face in the post-season, especially in the quick-hit nature of the first week of baseball’s playoffs. The Red Sox and Yankees each winning Game 162 squelched that notion.
Next up were the New York Yankees, favoured in the AL wild-card game despite being wildly inconsistent and staggering into a post-season winner-take-all date at Boston’s Fenway Park.
A 6-2 win there earned the Sox a date with yet another division foe, the 100-win, regular-season champion Tampa Bay Rays who were expected by many to cruise to the World Series for a second consecutive year.
The series started on form for the Rays, who rolled to a 5-0 win at home in Game 1 and it certainly looked like it was going to be a short bestof-five. Instead, the Red Sox laid down three straight wins — including a 14-6 thumping at the Tropicana Field — followed by a pair of dramatic walk-off victories back in Boston.
The Rays were basically left to ponder what hit them. In the first 11 innings of this series, the favourites outscored the Sox, 10-5. The rest of the way it was Boston 24, Tampa Bay 10.
Monday’s clincher, a 6-5 win after the Sox had blown a 5-0 lead, extended Boston’s post-season winning streak at Fenway to six games, which included games in their 2018 World Series title run. After getting shut out in the opener in Florida, the Sox banged out 47 hits in the next three, a staggering barrage on offence that the Rays couldn’t counter.
The Fenway factor didn’t hurt, either, especially when compared with the environment at the Trop. At least there were fans in the seats for the first two games, but unfortunately for the Rays there appeared to be thousands supporting the Red Sox.
The atmosphere at the historic Boston park is magical any time it’s full, but exponentially more so in October. Throw in a festive Monday crowd on Boston Marathon day and the place looked to be rocking for the series clincher.
Certainly the Red Sox are a team with flaws, beginning with their starting rotation. But they did enough right to continue defying the doubters all season. After posting a 50-31 record at the end of June, they appeared to slip back to reality, ceding the AL East race to the Rays with a 12-16 August.
The Red Sox weren’t done, however, as they survived some uneven play to claim the AL’S top wild-card spot.
So how did it all fall into place for team that had an over/under total of 80 regular-season wins? For starters, the Sox were tightly managed by Alex Cora, who returned after a year’s suspension for the 2018 sign-stealing scandal. Cora, who blends analytics with old-school instinct, clearly gets the most out of his team.
The team has an explosive enough offence — particularly at Fenway — that would help ride out winning streaks or snap losing runs throughout the season.
“Here we are surprising everybody but ourselves,” Red Sox outfielder Henrique Hernandez told reporters in Boston. “We knew in spring training we had the team to make it this far and here we are.”
Where “they are” is a team that had widely projected to be fourth best in the AL East as it restocked but instead out-duelled them all in a magical week of Beantown baseball.
For a Jays team that got nosed out at the wire of the regular-season it’s a painful image of what could have been. It’s also a rather vivid reminder of just how tough it is doing business in the American League East.