Red Sox players ‘know we’re chasing’
After slow start to season, Boston no longer struggling
BOSTON — The reminders hang over every member of the Boston Red Sox. At the top of each locker in the home clubhouse at Fenway Park is a nameplate with a logo commemorating the 2018 World Series title. It was the achievement of a lifetime for these Red Sox, and they still cannot quite fathom how it happened with such ease.
“We didn’t lose three games in a row last year,” starter David Price said Friday. “That’s crazy. That’s nuts. We did everything really well at all times, essentially. I don’t know what we didn’t do really well. We built that feeling up in spring training and we got it rolling right out of the gate.”
Those Red Sox started 17-2. They set a franchise record with 108 victories in the regular season. They romped through October, losing only one game each series. A city that once expected baseball heartbreak now expects championships. For the fourth time in 15 seasons, the Red Sox delivered.
Following up in the same way was bound to be challenging, and so it has been: The New York Yankees are running away with the American League East, and the Red Sox are stuck in a wild-card scramble. They started 11-17 and have spent months trying to recover.
“We know we’re chasing,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said. “So just go out there and try to win as much as possible, since you know you’re in that position.”
Last year’s joy ride obscures how good these Red Sox still can be. After bludgeon
ing the Yankees on Thursday, 19-3, they were leading the majors in runs, hits, batting average (.274) and on-base percentage (.347).
They followed up with a 10-5 victory Friday anda 9-5 win Saturday that put them a season-best 12 games over .500, at 59-47.
“I don’t know about a statement or whatever,” manager Alex Cora said. “We know we’re good. We know we’re very talented.”
The top three Red Sox hitters, Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers and Bogaerts, held the top spots on the AL leaderboard for runs scored through Thursday. Only one AL player — the incomparable Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels — had more runs batted in and extra-base hits than Devers and Bogaerts.
Betts did most of the work Friday, lifting three homers over the Green Monster off James Paxton and adding a double. Betts is only 26, but already has five career three-homer games; only Johnny Mize and Sammy Sosa, with six, have had more.
“You’re not really thinking, I think that’s the main thing — kind of turn your brain off and just play,” Betts said. “That’s when everybody’s at their best.”
Betts was the league’s MVP last season, and Bogaerts signed a six-year, $120 million contract extension in April. Devers, 22, has been the season’s breakout star with a .326 average, 21 homers and 82 runs batted in through Friday.
“Just how he’s able to control his atbats,” Betts said, when asked what most impresses him about Devers. “When he has a bad at-bat, the next one is a good one. Stringing together good at-bats, hitting the ball hard, controlling the strike zone, I think that’s the main thing for him, because his bat-to-ball skills are off the charts.”
The Red Sox’ offensive surge has boosted some of their starting pitchers: Rick Porcello, for example, had a 7.54 ERA for his last four starts but won all of them. His victory Thursday gave Boston a streak of five consecutive starts lasting at least six innings, and Andrew Cashner made it six in a row Friday. That does not sound like much, but this was the first time it happened this season.
“The way our offense is swinging the bats,” Porcello said, “as long as we can go out there as starting pitchers and pitch deep in the game and give us a chance to win, we’re going to be in good shape.”
For the Red Sox, that was the plan all along. Their projected five-man rotation (Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Eduardo Rodriguez, Price and Porcello) is earning about $83.5 million this season, more than the total payrolls for Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Miami and Tampa Bay.
When the rotation struggled early, it exposed Boston’s bullpen, which lost Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel to free agency.
Eovaldi needed elbow surgery in April, but now he is back in a bullpen role, with Cashner — acquired from Baltimore this month for two low-level minor leaguers — in the rotation.
The Red Sox’s relievers had a 4.56 ERA through Thursday, the worst among AL contenders.
But with Matt Barnes and Brandon Workman, Cora has reliable veteran options to go with Eovaldi. Cora has been careful not to designate a closer, but Eovaldi should get his chances.
“More winning is going to bring more Nate for us,” Cora said.
Re-signing Eovaldi (four years, $68 million) seemed like an emotional decision, a reward for his extraordinary effort in Game 3 of the World Series: With only one day’s rest, he fired 97 pitches at the end of an 18-inning loss at Dodger Stadium.
The Red Sox have been leery of adding much more to their major-leaguehigh payroll (roughly $240 million), and with the Cashner deal, they might have already made their biggest move before Wednesday’s trading deadline.