As Tampa Bay Rays Dominate And New York Yankees Struggle, Boston Red Sox Start Surging

While the absurdly strong start of the Tampa Bay Rays, who are on an 1984 Detroit Tigers’ pace and the struggles of the New York Yankees dominated the landscape in the AL East this week, the Boston Red Sox suddenly getting on an upward trajectory might have gone overlooked in some corners of the world.

Especially in a weekend when oft-criticized Brian Cashman spent 28 minutes Wednesday saying he believed in the Yankees, who are barely over .500 and playing with a crowded injured list while showcasing some of the same tedious tendencies from two years ago.

Speaking of two years ago, that was when the Red Sox surprised and not only won 92 games but knocked off the 100-win Rays in the Division Series before succumbing to the Houston Astros in the ALCS. Two years ago, not much was expected from a team who sleepwalked through the pandemic 2020 season, won 84 times in 2019 as defending World Series champions and then dealt with the fallout of trading Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

This year not much has been expected for the Red Sox, who signed a handful of veterans along with Masataka Yoshida from Japan. Those moves occurred in an offseason when the Red Sox seemingly made little effort to prevent Xander Bogaerts from signing with San Diego and then re-signed Rafael Devers to a similar contract as Bogaerts.

And when this week ended with the Yankees nine games back of the Rays, the Red Sox owned the longest active winning streak at eight games.

A lot can be attributed to an offense that began Saturday leading baseball in hits, doubles, ranked second in runs, extra-base hits and average. It is the same offense that recorded at least 10 hits for the 17^th time to lead the majors, including six times in the past eight games.

While Yoshida did not play Saturday, he is batting .433 (26-for-60) during a 15-game hitting streak that is the longest active run in the sport.

Boston also is getting significant production from the main return piece of the Betts in Alex Verdugo, who is a .316 hitter so far. Verdugo and Yoshida are in the top-10 in the early batting race featuring nine AL East players in the upper echelon so far.

The Red Sox are so productive lately and for most of the season that starting pitchers have lasted fewer than four innings in 11 instances, including Saturday when Bailey Falter retired the first nine and faltered in the fourth, raising the opposing ERA for starters against the Red Sox to an unsightly 6.36.

Even there are encouraging signs on the pitching front, especially from Chris Sale, who before this season was last spotted breaking his left pinkie on a line drive by Aaron Hicks July 17 at Yankee Stadium.

Sale began slowly with an 11.25 ERA through his first three starts and allowed five runs at Baltimore in his fifth start. Perhaps the most encouraging sign occurred Friday with the coveted velocity returning to 2018 levels at times.

It reached 99 on occasion Friday in Philadelphia, including two to Bryce Harper, who is in three games into his remarkably quick return from elbow surgery. Sale reached 99 on a called strike to Harper and a foul ball and finished off the at-bat to Harper with a whiff on a 98 mph pitch.

Sale made a combination of 11 starts in the previous three seasons due to various injuries and showcased some of the form that made him so effective in 2018 by getting 17 swings and misses.

According to Baseball Savant, which tracks all sorts of things, Sale threw the four-seam fastball 55 times at an average of 96.0 mph, including the first pitch to hit 99 since Aug. 2018 when Sale was in the midst of pitching to a 2.11 ERA.

“My expectations are pretty high of myself, so I’ve been kind of waiting for it, honestly,” Sale told reporters in Boston. “Those are things I want to continue to do. I want to continue to build and to get deeper into games.”

There is a lot for the Red Sox to feel good about these days. Now it is a matter of seeing if they can sustain it like curious observers will wonder if the Rays will return back to earth or if the Yankees will get rolling once their injured list decreases.

“There are a lot of parts that are firing right now,” Corey Kluber told reporters. “I think that’s how win streaks tend to happen.”