The season is not yet two full months old, so it is clearly too early to bestow any superlatives on the 2021 Red Sox just yet. Memorial Day weekend represents the baseball calendar's first true signpost and that remains a good 10 days away.
There is still the long summer, the trade deadline and then the sprint to the finish. All these markers will test the Red Sox in ways they -- or we -- can't yet imagine. They could still fall apart on some lengthy road trip or fall prey to a string of injuries and very quickly, what they've done in the first seven weeks of the season could be made insignificant.
They could still turn out to be one more team which got out of the blocks well, only to demonstrate they didn't have what was necessary for the long run.
But with every chunk that comes off the schedule, with every series that gets played, these Red Sox demonstrate some toughness. They prove -- for however small the sample size to date -- that they can get back up again after being knocked down. And whether that point is being ,made in May or September, it's a nice trait for a club to have.
On Wednesday night, in a makeshift ballpark northwest of Tampa, playing the nomadic Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox made another one of those statements. They had been beaten up 8-0 in the series opener Tuesday, blanked for the first time in 42 games, all the way back to Opening Day. But on Wednesday, there would be no hangover, no licking of the wounds.
That much was made obvious in the first inning when the first five Red Sox reached base and eventually scored. Scarred from the night before? Humbled by the hard-charging Jays, who began the night a mere half-game behind them in the claustrophobic AL East standings? Think again.
These Red Sox don't scare easy.
"This team,'' said starter Garrett Richards, "just shows up every day, ready to win. Yesterday's over and done with. Tomorrow, we'll (deal with) tomorrow. But worry about today, today. That's kind of our mindset.''
They raced to that 5-0 lead, tacked on another run in the sixth and, though they didn't score again until the eighth, managed to keep their foot on the gas.
They have had two three-game losing streaks this season. They dropped the opening series at home, subjected themselves to local ridicule and promptly won the next nine to quell the panic and dismiss the skeptics.
They lost three straight earlier this month, too, dropping the last game of a road trip to Texas and the first two on the homestand in Oakland. Then, they ripped off three wins in a row to balance things out.
Another loss Wednesday night would have meant another three-game losing streak. Even more ominously, another setback to the Jays would have dislodged the Sox from first place, a pole position they've occupied, uninterrupted, since April 11, smack in the middle of that nine-game run in mid-April.
Given how closely matched the top four teams in the division are, it's likely there will be lead changes between now and the end of the season. But on Wednesday, though manager Alex Cora chuckled at the question, it seemed like it meant something to them to hold onto first -- to prove a point, though, likely not to themselves.
For a team that hasn't been awarded anything, for a team that finished with third-worst record in the game last season, a brash confidence has already emerged.
"We've got a very good team,'' declared Richards. "A lot of us have been saying that since the beginning, even in spring training when everybody has us written off (and said) we're not going to be that good. This is a great team. We jell really well together. I've been in the big leagues a little while, but it's rare when a team comes together this tight, this early in the season.
"The guys are just really locked in -- individually and as a whole. It's really fun to be a part of, honestly. We could get blown out last night and everybody shows up today thinking we're going to win by 10. It's an attitude. I think we're in a good place right now.''
Reminded that this group hasn't been together very long, Richards countered that there are plenty of players who have already won championships. There's the core of the 2018 team that remains -- Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Christian Vazquez, J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, Matt Barnes -- and a handful of imports who have won elsewhere, including Kike Hernandez and Marwin Gonzalez.
That exposure to a winning environment "goes a long way,'' Richards said. "There's never any panic mode. That's the difference between guys who expect to win and know how to win and guys who hope to win and have the ability to win.''
There will be additional tests to his theory. But for now, by steering clear of long losing streaks and holding off challengers to their spot atop the division, the Red Sox are making their own point.