McAdam: Bullpen has become underappreciated factor for Red Sox in recent weeks

The Red Sox' bullpen is an obvious and inviting target. It's easy to poke fun at the fact that the team has eschewed the notion of a formal closer, and the 14 blown saves welcome further ridicule.

But over the last two weeks, the bullpen has become a sort of secret weapon for the club as it attempts to climb back into the American League East race. Four times in the last 11 games, the Sox have gone into extra innings, winning three of those games -- including Friday's 7-5 comeback walk-off win over the Toronto Blue Jays -- and on each occasion, the Sox have gotten big contributions from its group of relievers:

• At the end of the team's last homestand, the Sox won in walk-off fashion in the bottom of the ninth, getting 2.1 innings from two relievers.


• The next night, after David Price was knocked out in the second, the Sox cobbled together 7.1 scoreless innings from seven different pitchers to edge Texas.


• Last Sunday in Baltimore, after spot starter Brian Johnson ran out of gas without getting an out in the fourth, the bullpen again stepped up and provided six innings of relief until the Sox could tie in the ninth. And while Josh Smith was racked for three runs -- just one earned -- in the bottom of the 10th, that came only after the Sox blew the game open with five in the top of the inning.


• On Tuesday night in Minneapolis, seven relievers went 12 innings, and while the Sox ultimately lost in the bottom of the 17th, one run over the first 11 innings of work bought the offense plenty of time to win the game. The team's woeful 1-for-13 performance with runners in scoring position was the reason for the marathon loss, not the bullpen.


• Finally, in Friday's homestand opener, the bullpen again came through. Chris Sale lasted only five, leaving plenty of outs for the bullpen to collect. It did so dutifully, yielding just one run in six innings of work, again keeping the game within reach until the Sox pulled to within one in the seventh, tied in the eighth and won it in the 10th on Christian Vazquez's two-run belt into the Red Sox bullpen.