Two weeks ago, the Boston Red Sox were getting ready for a yard sale. Sonny Gray, Aroldis Chapman, maybe even Jarren Duran — all lined up on the porch with price tags. That’s what a 36-46 ballclub does when the season’s halfway gone and the only thing left to play for is next year.
Then they won twelve in a row.
MLB insider Jim Bowden, writing for The Athletic on Friday, put it as plainly as a power-I formation: “They are just a half-game out of the wild card and are now clearly buyers looking for lineup upgrades.” Two weeks earlier, Bowden had the Red Sox cast as “a main character at the deadline as a seller.” The winning streak — nine straight heading into the All-Star break, then three more coming out of it — changed the whole playbook.
Here’s where I’d normally tell you a 12-game hot streak don’t tell you who a team really is. And I’d be right. You don’t crown a steer because he won one footrace. But the Red Sox rotation has been dealing, and when your pitching holds up through a stretch like this, that’s not luck. That’s cattle that can run. Garrett Crochet could rejoin the club at some point, which is like getting your starting tailback back from a twisted ankle right before district play.
Offensively, there are still holes. The middle infield has been leakier than a rusty water trough. But Caleb Durbin has finally shaken off whatever was eating him during his extended slump and is playing like the guy Boston thought they had. Roman Anthony’s return remains uncertain, though the expectation is he’ll be back at some point. The roster is getting healthier, and a postseason berth — which looked like a mirage in late June — is now a real conversation.
Bowden’s read is that the front office should act, and the logic is sound enough that even a man who trusts his eyes more than a spreadsheet can nod along. You don’t sell off parts when you’re a half-game out of a playoff spot. You don’t trade your closer when the bullpen might be the thing that gets you to October. Two weeks ago, dealing Chapman and Gray made cold, hard sense. Today, it’d be like trading your best linebacker because you lost your first two scrimmages — right before you ran the table.
The skepticism is out there. Some folks will tell you a 15-game stretch is too small a sample, that the Red Sox are fool’s gold, that buying at the deadline based on a hot July is how you mortgage the farm for a team that finishes fourth. Fair point. I’ve seen plenty of two-a-days where a kid looks like an All-American for a week and then disappears when the lights come on Friday night.
But the film doesn’t lie. Twelve straight is twelve straight. The rotation has been the engine, the lineup is patching itself together, and the standings say Boston is right there. If chief baseball officer Craig Breslow decides to buy, he won’t be doing it on a hunch. He’ll be doing it because his ballclub showed him something when it mattered.
The trade deadline arrives July 31. What the Red Sox do between now and then will tell the league whether they believe in what they’ve seen — or whether they’re still the team that was ten games under .500 a fortnight ago.
The film doesn’t lie. We’re about to find out who’s been watching.
