McAdam: In sweeping the Royals, Red Sox manage to win the ones they should

In finishing off the Kansas City Royals with a 7-5 victory Thursday afternoon, completing a sweep of the three-game series, the Red Sox deserve no medals.

The Royals, just four years removed from their second consecutive American League pennant, are one bad baseball team, currently 24 games under .500 and 13.5 games in back of the next-closest team with a winning record in their division, which isn't very good to begin with.

There's a strong chance the Royals will lose well in excess of 100 games and they're probably at least two-to-three years away from being competitive again.

So in taking three straight in Kansas City, the Red Sox merely did what they were supposed to do.



But there's value to that, too. Good teams -- or, at the very least, teams aspiring to be good -- need to take care of business. The American League schedule offers plenty of layups for the better teams in the league, and it's imperative for those with designs on the playoffs to take what's given to them.

The Sox did that remarkably well last year. In fact, when the postseason began, some wondered how the Red Sox would fare against the better competition since a good number of their franchise-record 108 wins came at the expense of the A.L's also-rans.

In their own division alone, the Red Sox went a combined 21-7 against the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays. That translates into a .750 winning percentage, which is part of the season the Sox were able to post a .667 winning percentage for the regular season.

In fact, if you take all the games the Red Sox played against losing teams with losing records last year -- both American and National League -- the Sox played .761 ball (67-22). And if you narrow that further to teams which finished in last place, the Sox were, perhaps predictably, even more dominant: a combined 31-5 mark, which translates into a .861 percentage.

Until recently, the Red Sox haven't had that same kind of success this year, unable to kick around teams that they should. They've already lost as many games to Baltimore in two series than they did all of last year. They split a four-game set with a poor Detroit team and we probably don't have to remind you of how poorly the year began when they were embarrassed three times in the first four games by a Seattle team which has since taken up residence in the A.L. West basement.

Perhaps a winning percentage approaching .800 against bad teams wasn't sustainable. But the Sox need to be better against the bad teams.

The three-game sweep in Kansas City was a start.

On Tuesday, they won the opener handily. On Wednesday, Chris Sale pitilessly toyed with the Royals, the way a cat does with a mouse before finishing him off.

Thursday was more of a grind after Ryan Weber, filling in as spot starter, stepped in it on the mound, navigating just four outs. That required a tag-team effort from a half-dozen relievers to get the Sox to the finish line.

A better team would have taken advantage of all the opportunities the Royals had.  Kansas City actually out-hit the  Sox, and by a considerable margin. But they could not get runs on the board enough, going 1-for-11 with RISP against the steady parade of Boston relief pitchers.

And, as if often the case, the Royals eventually did themselves in with mistakes. They wild-pitched one run home. There was a moment of indecision between two of their outfielders, paving the way for a huge two-run triple by Christian Vazquez. And when the Red Sox didn't have enough hits of their own, the young Kansas City pitching staff contributed six walks, providing the visitors with additional baserunners.

Two of those walks led directly to runs, as did a hit batsman.

Starting Friday, the schedule takes a tougher turn on the Red Sox, who host Tampa Bay for four, followed by four more with surprise wild-card entrants, Texas. After a brief respite in Baltimore, the Red Sox will then travel to Minnesota for three against the team with the best record in the league.

Because the Sox have fallen behind not one but two teams in their own division, they can't necessarily take the same approach they did a year ago when they kicked the stuffing out of lousy teams and merely had to hold their own against the better ones. At some point, the Sox will have to punch up, above their current weight class, to make up the ground they've ceded.

But the three-game sweep of Kansas City was a box they needed to check.

They'll get no prizes, no pats on the back. But three wins -- regardless of opponent -- are always welcome.