CHICAGO -- This is what the Red Sox get for suffering through all those hitless nights in April and May, all those rollovers to second base, all those strikeouts.
This, now, with just over four weeks to go in the season, is their reward - the Jackie Bradley Jr. they'd been waiting for.
This is the upside now, the highs to this notoriously mercurial hitter that help off-set all those early-season lows.
You can look at the gradual upswing in batting average, in doubles, and slugging percentage, and chart his progress, his return from the hitting dead. We'll get to those.
But first, take the last three nights: each game, a come-from-behind triumph, each a study in resilience, each as if the Red Sox had decided to let a young, struggling team streak out to early leads, allow them a head start only to have the Red Sox' offense snap to life in the late innings and cruelly snatch a win away.
It happened Tuesday and Wednesday at Fenway against the Miami Marlins and it happened here against the White Sox and every time, Bradley was right in the middle of the comeback.
- On Tuesday, when the Sox erupted for three in the eighth to forge a tie, it was Bradley's two-run single up the middle that scored the first two runs in the inning.
- On Wednesday, the marathon 11-run seventh inning got kicked into high gear when, with one run on and two on, Bradley slapped a double to left, scoring one baserunner and sending another to third. Then, given a second at-bat later in the Inning That Wouldn't End, Bradley came through again with another single -- again, stroked to the opposite field -- which produced the 11th and final run of the frame.
- Finally, on Thursday, he produced a sacrifice fly in the seventh, bringing the Sox back to within two runs. Then, with the game tied at 4-4 in the ninth, and runners on first and second with one down, he stroked an RBI-single to right, while pushing Blake Swihart to third. Both he and Swihart would eventually come around as part of the five-run capper for the Sox.