They still sit five games underwater, barely ahead of the moribund Baltimore Orioles and far closer to the bottom of their own division than the top.
Their current winning streak, now a season-high three games, is indeed a modest one, and there is still much ground to be made up.
But for the first time this season, the Red Sox have, in the last week or so, showed signs of life, and hinted at having the potential to become relevant.
Those may seem like scant achievements for a team with playoff expectations and a payroll north of $230 million.
But it's a start. A late start, to be sure, given that their season will officially be a quarter complete by Saturday night. But a start nonetheless.
"I would say so,'' said Michael Wacha, who allowed two runs in 4.2 innings in a 7-3 win over the Seattle Mariners. "I feel like the team is kind of clicking in that sense, where we're pitching well and we're hitting well and that's how you win a lot of ballgames. It's a new day tomorrow, but we're going to keep on bringing that same energy that we bring every single day and go out there and play a hard nine innings and hopefully come out with a 'W'.''
For much of the first five and a half weeks of the season, the Red Sox could do very little right. When they hit, they didn't pitch, and vice versa. The losses piled up and the frustration was palpable.
A series of losses -- some in extra innings, some in the late innings and all of them filled with disappointment -- saw them almost inventing new ways to drop games. The offense, which even now has to fully engage, seemed stuck in neutral for one series after another. If the Sox didn't get enough production from their top three hitters -- Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts -- than most often, they didn't win either.
They wasted one good start after another, and before Memorial Day, the focus began to shift to trade deadline sell-offs and a full reboot for the second half.
But starting with a two-stop road trip last week, there came signs of life. The lineup began to come through more often, and though the trip featured one more walk-off defeat in the bottom of the ninth, there was the sense that some switch had flipped. After a split in Atlanta, they won a series at Texas, their first such series win since the second series of the year.
On the homestand, the momentum continued. The Sox not only won their second straight series, but did so against a quality opponent -- the Houston Astros, who had won 12 of their previous 13. Since then, there have been two victories over Seattle, and two more chances this weekend to win one game, and thus, another series.
Onward and upward, finally.
"We're just playing better and more consistent baseball,'' said Trevor Story, who contributed a third-inning grand slam, his fourth homer in the last two games. "All the way around, pitching and offensively, we're hitting our groove a little bit. (This is) definitely the way I saw it, coming in as a free agent. I understand how hard this game is and I know it's not automatic. You play the games for a reason, and not on paper.
"But what we've shown lately is a better representation of who we are,''
Over the last 10 games, the Red Sox have scored 65 runs. They're beginning to get contributions from players other than their Big Three, led by Story, who now leads them in RBI and is hitting .324 over his last 10 games.
The rotation continues to keep them in games, and there's even been a turnaround in the bullpen, which had suffered one blown save after another in the first five or so weeks. Overall the pitching has been good enough to win with even a modicum of offensive support -- in games in which the Sox score four runs or more, they're 15-6.
"It's good to see us clicking,'' said Wacha, "and getting on a little run here. We've got to keep showing up like we have been, every day, and keep bringing it for nine innings.''
This week, they've reminded themselves of what an advantage playing at Fenway can be. They've won four of the first five on the current homestand, and with the offensive awakening, the energy has been restored. Rather than the groans (and occasional booing) that greeted rally-killing outs earlier in the season, there's the expectation that a big hit is coming from the next hitter, or the one after that.
"Nobody thought we'd come out of the gates the way we did,'' acknowledged Alex Cora. "But we struggled. We just kept working and it feels good right now.''
