Red Sox might have swagger back for playoffs
BOSTON – For three months, the Red Sox were an aggravating enigma, a firstplace team relegated to wild-card status thanks to their ragged play and maddening inconsistency, fueling doubts that this club that sent a league-high five players to the All-Star Game might be anything but championship caliber.
If the Red Sox sauntered cautiously onto the Fenway Park field for Tuesday’s American League wild-card game against the similarly fickle Yankees, they earned every right to swagger off it.
After a dominant and at times electric 6-2 triumph over their archrivals, the Red Sox are giddily pondering something besides their own validity.
Specifically, can a 3-hour, 12-minute display of startling baseball rid them of the second-half wobbles and launch a potential championship run?
“We just did something pretty spectacular,” says shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who made the two biggest plays of the night – a two-run, first-inning home run off Gerrit Cole that tossed figurative kerosene over an already lit Fenway Park crowd, and a perfect relay throw to cut down Aaron Judge at home plate and preserve a 3-1 lead in the sixth.
Bogaerts’ struggle mirrored those of his team. The Red Sox imperiled their postseason chances when the Yankees flattened them in a three-game sweep at Fenway in late September, with Bogaerts’ 1-for-12 performance the beginning of a season-ending 5-for-32 skein.
They did not back into the playoffs – a 1-5 skid stopped with a season-saving sweep at Washington to equal the Yankees’ 92 wins – but the narrative was established.
The Red Sox could not find their footing after a COVID-19 outbreak ravaged the roster. Their many defensive and base running lapses would be their undoing and certainly, they were in too deep against Stanton and Cole and the imposing Yankees. But they overcame the Yankees. And maybe looking in the mirror isn’t so daunting anymore.
“Sometimes it looks horrible,” says manager Alex Cora, “but 93 times this year it hasn’t looked horrible, so we’re going to keep rolling.”
All the way to Tampa Bay. Game 1 of the AL division series is Thursday (8 ET, FS1) at Tropicana Field, with the Red Sox strangely in the role of underdog. Ace Nathan Eovaldi – who dazzled with eight strikeouts and no walks in 5 1⁄3 innings Tuesday – won’t be available until Game 3 Sunday at Fenway Park.
The Rays seized the AL East lead from Boston on July 31, and the defending AL champions won 100 games for the first time in franchise history.
“They are a very clean team, to be honest,” says Bogaerts. “You see with the pitching staff or especially defensively, they don’t give any extra outs. That’s a team that plays best.”
The Red Sox now have a chance to topple the Rays and claim their second championship in four years.
“Now we go to the next one,” says Cora, “and we’ve just got to be ready to face a great baseball team. We have a huge challenge. But we’re ready for it.”