BOSTON — The MLB All-Star Break is just 10 days away while the Boston Red Sox officially passed the halfway point of their season Thursday night at Fenway Park. With baseball’s second half underway for the hometown team, it’s time to accept the reality of this season: the Red Sox are good. Very good.
They currently have the most wins in baseball, are the best team in the American League, have a three-and-a-half-game lead in the division and trail only the equally surprising San Francisco Giants for the best winning percentage in all of Major League Baseball. They’re also on pace for 100 wins.
Oh, and let’s not forget they are a perfect 6-0 this season against the New York Yankees, the preseason favorites in the division before a lackluster first half.
It probably doesn’t need to be said that this wasn’t supposed to happen. The Red Sox were coming off their worst season winning-percentage wise since 1965, were a year removed from trading one of their best-ever homegrown talents in Mookie Betts, and had massive questions regarding their starting rotation and their outfield.
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And despite being swept by the Baltimore Orioles in their first series of the season, the Red Sox have quieted the doubters in their first three months of the season. We can’t say “oh, it’s just April/May/June” anymore, they are what they have been this season, which is very good.
Their starting pitching has been a big reason why the team has shined in the season’s first half.
Nathan Eovaldi has settled in to the top starter role, putting together a 3.41 earned-run average that would stand as the second-lowest of his career and lowest since 2013 if the season ended today. He’s tied for the league lead in starts made at 17 and yet he’s given up just four home runs this year; the Red Sox as a whole have surrendered 83 longballs this season, the fifth-fewest in the entire league.
Nick Pivetta, acquired last season when the Red Sox dealt Heath Hembree and the now-returned Brandon Workman to Philadelphia, has been nothing short of stellar in 2021. His 99 strikeouts lead the team and he’s thrown more innings than any other starter not named Eovaldi. In late June, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before being lifted by Alex Cora after throwing 100 pitches.
Eduardo Rodriguez began the year facing a multitude of questions after missing last season with COVID-19-related myocarditis. His first-half leaves more to be desired. He was reeling at the end of May after suffering four straight losses following his 5-0 start to the year. His ERA, once 3.82 on May 7, ballooned to 6.21 by June 15.
But his last two starts have shown promise, helping the Red Sox to wins against the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays.
In 2019, his best season by many standards – most starts, wins, innings and strikeouts of his career along with his career-low ERA (3.81) – Rodriguez also started slow. That year he had an ERA north of 5 at the end of May before going 14-3 the rest of the way as the Sox’ ace that season. If he can produce something even remotely similar in the second half of 2021, the Boston rotation will be in great shape.
And let’s not forget that Chris Sale is due back with the club in the second half of this season after he finishes recovering from Tommy John surgery. Red Sox fans got a glimpse of the ace throwing off a Fenway mound on the last day of June – a performance that platoon man Christina Arroyo called “VERY GOOD” in a tweet after being the batter to face Sale.
The Boston bullpen started off shaky but has settled down into a reliable force for the Red Sox. Matt Barnes has more than earned the closer role, converting 18 saves while blowing only three. His 2.57 ERA is more than a full run lower than his career-low in 2018, and he’s on pace for the most strikeouts in any season of his major league career.
Along with Barnes have been two Yankee castaways in Adam Ottavino and Garrett Whitlock.
Ottavino, the former Northeastern product acquired in a trade with New York this offseason, has settled nicely into the set-up role for Boston, setting the stage for Barnes with some of his signature intensity and a knack for dramatically wiggling out of jams. Whitlock has been a diamond in the rough plucked from the Evil Empire in the Rule 5 draft. His 1.42 ERA is the lowest of any regular Boston bullpen arm while his 40 strikeouts are more than any reliever save for Barnes.
In the outfield, the Red Sox too faced a lot of questions after the departure of the ‘Killer B’s’ of Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Andrew Benintendi – their world champion outfield from 2018. And despite a lot of moving parts in the early weeks of the season – looking at you Franchy Cordero – the new-look Boston outfield has been great.
Hunter Renfroe has dazzled defensively, racking up 11 outfield assists, and has put together a solid year at the plate with a .272 batting average and 12 home runs – just one fewer than Xander Bogaerts. Kike Hernandez has been shaky at the dish but has seen a recent display of power with three homers in his last five games. His speed on defense has given Boston a good replacement for Bradley Jr. in centerfield too.
And Alex Verdugo has locked down a leftfield position for the Red Sox that seemed so in flux at the start of the year that they had to start Cordero in front of the Green Monster.
Just before Opening Day, the Boston 25 Sports staff, along with me, published our season preview for the Red Sox along with our predictions for who would qualify for the postseason.
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Near the end of that preview, I summarized the Red Sox chances this year as so:
“The team [...] will aim to nip at the heels of the rising Toronto Blue Jays and the falling Rays in the AL East – the likely first-place Yankees won’t be close enough to catch by season’s end. If things break right – very, very right – the team will be in the mix for one of the two Wild Card spots available.”
I am very happy to report that I was wrong. The Red Sox right now are in the driver’s seat for the AL East. And while there are still three full months to be played, the team is good and should be in the playoffs unless things go horribly wrong in the second half.
It’ll be up to Chaim Bloom to decide how much to invest in this team at the trade deadline and what chance they have as currently constituted to make a run at yet another World Series. With the return of Chris Sale looming hopefully soon, the need to beef up the rotation remains to be fully seen.
But two things are for sure. These Red Sox are officially the real deal, and they should provide the entire region with a must-watch product for the remainder of the summer – and hopefully the fall.