Red Sox

The Red Sox have played their way into truly unexpected territory

These Red Sox have given off the vibes of a sum greater than their parts all year.

By Jon Couture

July 15, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Sunday’s first-half finale began with Jarren Duran turning a run-of-the-mill 12 hopper to center field into a double and Rafael Devers smashing a seat 400-odd feet from home plate. It ended with Ceddanne Rafaela, who played the day’s first seven innings at shortstop, throwing out Kansas City’s Garrett Hampson at third base from center field.

Now, that’s not a perfect representation. The Royals led already when Duran came to the plate, Brayan Bello’s fourth pitch ending up over the bullpens. And Kenley Jansen still had a mess to clean up after Rafaela’s rocket. He promptly did, stranding the tying run on second for the first six-out save of his regular-season career.

I think you’ll excuse the minor fudges. These Red Sox have definitely strayed, at least for a moment, into “write the legend” territory.

“These young guys started to believe,” Jansen told reporters after the 5-4 victory, “and it’s about to be scary.”

“We have bigger goals than having a good first part of the season. We’re 4½ games back for the lead in the East and that’s what we’re shooting for,” manager Alex Cora followed. “The whole talk about the wild card and all that should be in the past. Let’s think big and see what happens.”

My instinct is to seek out the international symbol for “hold your horses,” but you know what? It’s the All-Star break. It’s four days to exhale, hit some dingers, and complain about those burlap-sack uniforms.

Friday brings the Dodgers. The sort of highest-end talent that these plucky upstarts, outside of that Phillies/Yankees homestand, still don’t feel in the range of. They’re not built to coast, and any stumble will be met with an immediate, “Well, that was fun while it lasted.”

That’s Friday’s problem. This is a moment to celebrate the rarest thing: The story no one saw coming. The team that can play the “nobody believed in us” card and have it not be hyperbole.

A Red Sox team with a ceiling, but one with a skylight letting all sort of brightness in.

Over the weekend, Boston’s playoff odds as calculated by Fangraphs crested 50 percent for the first time. More probable than not, as we used to say. Those odds remain seventh-best in the AL, with New York, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Minnesota a clear cut above and Seattle and Houston still noses ahead.

It’s meaningless anyway, so just take the good. Being here won’t mean a whole lot once they play the games, but it doesn’t change that they were never supposed to sniff here. The most generous spring thoughts were they were 1 out of 4 to be a playoff team, with Lucas Giolito and Trevor Story and Garrett Whitlock and Triston Casas and Vaughn Grissom.

Without them?

How did we get here again?

Forty-four players, Wilyer Abreu to Masataka Yoshida. Not really a notable number — league average is 42, and five teams at or equal to Boston’s 53-42 start have more. Five MLB debuts, led by Cam Booser and Justin Slaten, but again . . . Cleveland and the Dodgers have debuted six, Houston seven, and Milwaukee nine.

Surprised by this? I suspect not. These Red Sox have given off the vibes of a sum greater than their parts all year. They are learning on the job, as Cora reminds almost daily. They are playing free, as Duran reminds almost every inning.

The memories are myriad, to the point we’ve all forgotten some, to be sure.

Connor Wong’s hitting .378 with two outs, and has a .993 OPS when there’s men in scoring position in those spots. Abreu’s not far behind, .924 overall when it counts the most.

Romy Gonzalez has a walkoff. David Hamilton’s got 23 steals and started 38 of the last 50 games without much in the way of defensive disaster. Tyler O’Neill’s start was so torrid, he’s still in the top 15 percent of all the big power percentages (barrel rate, hard-hit rate, expected slugging) despite being a .220 hitter since the start of May.

Rob Refsnyder’s a sneaky team leader, and the likes of he, Dom Smith, and Masataka Yoshida have all played a role. (Yoshida this month: .302/.348/.465, two homers, 11 RBI.)

The pitching? Its praises were locked in when it was baseball’s best staff in April, but it’s back after a swoon, sixth in ERA in July (3.41). Pick your favorite numbers, but here’s mine at the moment: Bello on Sunday made it a full run around the rotation of six-inning starts, with Kutter Crawford going seven on Saturday, and Bello and Nick Pivetta getting into that frame.

I’m sure the week off for the All-Star Game played a part, but it’s not as though any of the five went absurdly far — Pivetta’s 105 pitches were the most. They’ve showed the skill, they’ve earned the trust.

And now, they’ve started to earn the expectations of a hot start.

The Red Sox put out all sorts of friendly numbers, but one really struck me Sunday. It was Boston’s sixth straight victory in a rubber game — the difference between winning a series and losing one. They’ve had 12 of them this season and won 10.

It’s not a huge surprise; NESN’s given some traction to the “15-1 on Sundays” stat that implies a lot of wins in those opportunities. It is, however, a reminder that these Red Sox, time and again, are converting on their chances.

Teams that win two out of three a lot tend to play into a lot of Octobers. Hot teams that pitch well do too. Not anything hugely insightful there.

But it’s the assemblage of all these sorts of things that create the one word we keep coming back to with the 2024 Red Sox: Something.

They are something. How they’re learning is something, and how they’re winning in something. Something just for the sickos when this season began in the quiet of a West Coast trip, now something for whom the bar of success rises a little bit every successive series.

Being up to the challenge only creates more challenges. Amazing to think it remains exciting to watch this group try to puzzle their way through them in the summer swelter.