Either You Admit That The Red Sox Are The Best Team In The American League, Or You're Wrong
You have two options. You can either admit that the Red Sox are the best team in the American League, or you can say that another team is better and be flat out wrong.
I think the crowd that was saying the Red Sox are only beating bad teams has finally given up, because they’re not just beating bad teams — they’re beating everybody. After running into the buzzsaw that is the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, the Rockies are now three games under .500. However, they came into this series as the fourth best hitting team in the majors, and have been held to three runs in each of the first two games. I’m sure that’ll change tonight with Clay Buchholz on the mound, but hey! Two out of three ain’t bad.
When the Red Sox went on their monumental run of averaging over 10 runs per game over a seven-game stretch, lost in all the offense was the fact that Red Sox pitchers had a 4.57 ERA. Not ideal. But as the Red Sox continue to beat their opponents’ brains in once again, Red Sox pitchers have had a 2.32 ERA over their last seven games. The Red Sox are 5-2 over that span. In addition to that, the Red Sox are also 13-2 in their last 15 games at Fenway Park, where they’ve won five series in a row, and have more wins at home than any other team in baseball.
I got asked yesterday who I thought was the bigger surprise — Jackie Bradley Jr. becoming Ted Williams at the plate, Hanley Ramirez having zero errors at first base, or Steven Wright becoming 1995 Tim Wakefield on the mound. There’s really no wrong answer here. I don’t think anybody saw any of these scenarios playing out to the extent that they have. Wright was on the mound on Wednesday night, and kept his ERA locked at 2.52, which is sixth best in the American League. Despite giving up seven hits to the Rockies, Wright’s .208 opponents’ batting average is the seventh lowest by any American League starter.
Bradley’s hitting streak lives on after a 2-for-4 night at the plate. Over the 29-game hitting streak, which tied Johnny Damon for the fourth longest in Red Sox history, Bradley is hitting .415 with a 1.271 OPS. It’s the longest hitting streak in the MLB since Denard Span hit in 29 straight in 2013. The two-hit night for Bradley flip-flopped him (again) with Xander Bogaerts (.349) for the league lead in batting average (.350).
A few quick mentions — Travis Shaw had been 3 for his last 23, and then he sat out on Tuesday with a hand injury. He went 2-for-4 with a double and 3 RBI in his return to the Red Sox lineup, and he is now one of four Red Sox players with at least 30 RBIs. He’s also hitting .333 with a 1.006 OPS at Fenway Park this year.
Bogaerts extended his own hitting streak, that nobody even realizes is happening, to 18 games by hitting his fifth home run of the season clear over the Monster. If he gets a hit tonight, it’ll be the second longest hitting streak in the majors this year.
David Ortiz drove in a pair of runs in Boston’s victory, and it was his third consecutive game with multiple RBIs. That’s the fourteenth time in his career that he’s had three consecutive games with multiple RBIs, but he’s never done it in four consecutive games. The two runs driven in put him in a tie with Robinson Cano for the most RBIs in the MLB (43). He’s also hitting .600 with an 1.818 OPS over his last four games, which I guess isn’t bad.
With the win, the Red Sox move to 12 games over .500. Pretty cool stat from Alex Speier of the Boston Globe — The Red Sox are off to a 29-17 start through 46 games, and the last two times they started a season with that record, they won the World Series in 2004 and 2007. Also, with the 10 runs that Boston scored on Wednesday night, that marks the 19th time that the Red Sox have scored 7 runs or more in a game. That means that they’ve scored at least 7 runs in 37% of their games so far this year.
Final score: Red Sox 10, Rockies 3