It is the Red Sox who have done the most so far this season to remind us -- as if we ever need reminding -- of the magic of the long season in baseball. Even in what has turned out to be a long week for them.
They became the story of the summer, a few days after summer officially began. They were 14 games under .500 entering a four-game series against the Yankees at Fenway Park. The Red Sox were in last place, looking very much as if they might end up there for the fourth time since winning the World Series in 2018.
Going into the opener of that series on June 25, they were 15 1/12 games behind the second-place Yankees. And by the end of last week, Boston had briefly tied them in the loss column. There was a historic 15-game winning streak for the franchise. There was a 32-5 run and a 21-4 record in July, also a franchise record for a full month of baseball. Finally, there was another nine-game winning streak. All dizzying stuff.
But then that last streak ended, as if everybody fell off the magic carpet ride at once. The Red Sox lost the last two games of a home series against the Athletics. Entering Wednesday, they had lost the first two games of a road series against the Blue Jays, now showing some life of their own from last place in the American League East.
Long season. Long week for the Sox. Now they see how the rest of the season turns out, especially now that they have Adley Rutschman on their side. Rutschman, off the 10-day injured list, made his Red Sox debut in Toronto on Tuesday night. He had a single and a couple of walks and hit a rousing foul ball to right that looked like a home run coming off his bat.
The Red Sox still lost, 5-3. Just like that, struggling for four days after being on the kind of amazing heater they were for six weeks, they have reverted back -- if briefly -- to the team that struggled to get big hits and score runs on their way to their 32-46 record before the series that began the turnaround.
“You’re not going to get the clutch hit for six straight weeks and keep getting it,” interim manager Chad Tracy said. “There’s going to be times [when] you’re just going to have to grind through it, and we’re in that space right now. We’re just going to keep grinding.”
Red Sox fans just sat back in wonder as their team swept that four-game series against New York in late June and just kept going from there. And those fans are well aware that in the same baseball season, the Sox have now swept series from Yankees, Rays, Dodgers, White Sox -- all of them in first place at the time. I’ve mentioned this before, but as the Red Sox continued to make their run -- not just at a Wild Card, but at both the Yankees and the Rays -- a Sox fan I know texted me with this simple message:
“Summer back on.”
Dave O’Brien, the terrific television voice of the Red Sox on NESN and someone who kept finding ways to capture the moment, said this:
“I’m starting to run out of words.”
What made it all more amazing is that the Red Sox have done what they’ve done, and changed their own narrative as dramatically as they have, without Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony. Crochet was the second-best pitcher in the league last season, finishing runner-up to Tarik Skubal for the AL Cy Young. Crochet is on the 60-day IL and made his last start four months ago. No one knows if -- or when -- he might pitch again this season. And the kid Anthony, who had turned into Boston’s best player as a rookie a year ago, also has been sidelined since late May because of a torn ligament and a partial tendon tear in his right ring finger. Finally, the Red Sox hope he is on the verge of a rehab assignment.
And after their streak of good luck, the Red Sox have also had some bad luck lately, even before the second winning streak stopped. They traded for Curtis Mead, who had hit 23 home runs for the Nationals, and Mead promptly got hit by a pitch that fractured his left wrist in the first game with his new team. Willson Contreras, who had been their best player and team leader this season, hasn’t looked the same since getting hit on the helmet by a Will Klein fastball at Dodger Stadium a couple of weeks ago.
Of course, the Red Sox aren’t the only ones reminding us of just how long the season is. The Dodgers, cruising along and having just acquired Skubal, just pulled themselves out of seven-game losing streak. The Tigers? They’re the one who traded away Skubal and are now making a run at first place anyway in the AL Central. Maybe their fans, too, are about to feel as if summer is back on.
The Red Sox, despite the current bump in the road, are still in the second AL Wild Card slot. They believe they will turn things back around as quickly as, well, they turned everything around at the end of June. You know why? It’s baseball. Gives you all the time in the world.