Thirteen in a row for Boston. Seven straight for Baltimore. And now they share a dugout rail at Fenway Park.
The All-Star break couldn’t cool off either club. Boston completed a sweep of the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays before the midsummer pause, pushing its winning streak to 13 — two shy of the franchise record of 15 set in 1946. Baltimore, meanwhile, rolled into Houston and took three straight from the Astros, extending its own run to seven.
What you’ve got here is two bulls that got out of the same pasture and are now charging down the same fence line. Only one can keep running.
The standings sharpen the stakes. Boston sits at 50-48, above .500 for the first time in a long while, and holds the American League’s third wild-card spot. Cleveland, in the second slot, is just one game ahead. Seattle trails the Red Sox by a game, and the Orioles are another game back of that. We’re talking about four teams separated by three games in late July — and the Aug. 3 trade deadline bearing down on all of them like a fullback in the open field.
Eight days ago, both these ballclubs looked like sellers. Boston was under .500 and going nowhere. Baltimore was treading water. Now? The front offices are sweating over whether to buy or sell, and the next week of baseball might make that decision for them. You don’t trade away pieces when your team’s playing like it hasn’t lost in two weeks.
The Red Sox haven’t dropped a game since before the break. They swept the Rays — the team leading the AL East — and did it convincingly enough that nobody’s calling it a fluke anymore. Thirteen straight is thirteen straight. The franchise mark of 15, set by a 1946 club that had Ted Williams and went to the World Series, is right there on the horizon. If Boston wins the first two of this series, they tie it. Three, they break it.
Baltimore’s seven-game tear came at the expense of the Astros, who got swept at home and now sit 4½ games out of a wild card — though they’re only four back in the AL West, which gives them a second path to October. The Orioles took all three in Houston and didn’t just survive; they controlled those games.
One game separates these two in the standings. One game, with a three-game set at Fenway and the deadline eight days away. You win two of three, you’re climbing. You get swept, you’re rethinking everything.
The film doesn’t lie. Both these teams are playing their best baseball of the season at exactly the right time. Now they’ve got to play each other.
