The Red Sox may or may not make the playoffs, but their resilience makes them likable, and other thoughts
For a manager leading his team through a 162-game season, the reaction made perfect, logical sense. Baseball requires patience incomparable to other pro leagues, the sporting embodiment of the cliché about the season being a marathon, not a sprint. Looking too far ahead only invites trouble.
But with the trade deadline looming on Thursday, at the end of their fourth post-break series against the Twins, there was no denying the gauntlet facing the Sox in that moment, a litmus test for their viability as a playoff contender.
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The verdict is still out, but after watching the Red Sox lose the opening two games against the Cubs and then rally to win four of the next seven, including thrillers Saturday and Sunday against the Dodgers, one word to describe this team keeps coming to mind: resilient.
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It's a brand of resilience that makes them eminently likable, evident in their locker-room vibe, in their cohesiveness as a unit, in their ability to rally from a few bad games, or a few bat at-bats, to stay in the hunt for a playoff spot. All the more reason it falls to the front office to deliver on its promise of
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The team's likability factor was evident from that first stop at Wrigley, when they couldn't even wait until the Friday night series opener to get the band back together. With clubhouse favorite Alex Bregman on the way back from his quadriceps injury and looking to get some practice in, his Thursday night plan quickly blossomed into a voluntary team workout amid Wrigley's ivy-covered walls.
'I think we miss each other,' veteran shortstop Trevor Story said by way of explanation for the high attendance. 'Believe it or not, we're with each other every single day, but when you go three or four days without it, it's like, 'Man, where the boys at?' You know? I think it's just a sign that the boys love being together. We love the vibe that we have, and obviously shows the focus that we want to start the second half.'
So far, they're hanging in, despite the Rafael Devers trade, the Kristian Campbell demotion, the early Story struggles or similar scuffling from Walker Buehler, the fielding miscues, including two costly catcher interference calls against the Phillies. They're hanging in with Garrett Crochet brilliance, Roman Anthony emergence,
⋅ Women's golf has another new star shooting up the ranks in 21-year-old English star Lottie Woad. With a
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⋅ Congrats to
⋅
⋅ Loved Terry Francona's response to President Trump's latest silly tangent that the Cleveland Guardians (
To USA Today, Francona said: 'I guess my retort would be, 'There's probably a lot of people in this country who don't want it like it used to be.' And if you're white, [you're] probably just fine. That's not how it's supposed to work. Like, I didn't even care what they made the name in Cleveland. I really didn't. I just know how I was in on those conversations, and we were trying to be respectful. And for that, I gave those guys a lot of credit.'
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Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
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Let's revisit how this became a running trend in Boston. The Red Sox hovered outside of a playoff spot in 2022 when the trade deadline rolled around. Boston had a semblance of a path to the postseason, but it also had several expiring contracts that could've returned impact young players to benefit the organization's already improving farm system. The issue was, Boston's chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom failed to pick a lane. He bought and sold on the margins. He brought in additions in Tommy Pham, Eric Hosmer and Reese McGuire. Those moves didn't get the team any closer to October. On the other side, the one sell move Bloom did execute panned out well when he dealt veteran catcher Christian Vazquez to the Houston Astros for minor league bats Enmanuel Valdez and Wilyer Abreu. Valdez didn't work out and got flipped to the Pittsburgh Pirates last offseason, though Abreu is an impact player in Boston with streaky offensive production and won a Gold Glove in right field last season. 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Boston earned the right to add last year, which for Breslow apparently equated to dishing off prospects who would've been unprotected in the Rule 5 Draft for the following players who regressed upon arrival with the Red Sox: catcher Danny Jansen, starting pitcher James Paxton (injured in third start), pitcher Quinn Priester in a prospect swap and rounded out with relievers Lucas Sims and Luis Garcia. Once again, not enough to show for and another playoff absence. That brings us to this time around. Boston entered the trade deadline in control of the second wild-card spot in the American League. Breslow's to-do list included bullpen help, a frontline starter and a first baseman with Triston Casas still out for the season. Steven Matz adds another solid arm to the leverage group for the Red Sox with All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman, Garrett Whitlock, Greg Weissert and Justin Wilson. 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