The scoreboard will tell you the Red Sox avoided disaster on Sunday by fighting back to salvage a four-game series split in the finale in Chicago.
But make no mistake, Boston lost its series with the White Sox — through and through.
Coming into the series, the 15-win Chicago White Sox presented a great opportunity for the 31-win Red Sox to once again build some momentum and once again creep a few games over .500 heading into a six-game homestand against two of the best teams in baseball.
On Thursday, everything went according to plan. Boston’s showed up and showed out in a big way as the Sox pounded out 24 hits en route to a 14-2 rout, with rookie Ceddanne Rafaela keying the offense with a four-hit, four-RBI day and Tanner Houck spinning seven innings of two-run ball with nine punchouts.
Take a wild guess what happened next…
Yep, you guessed it, the wheels started coming off again. Boston’s bats disappeared over the next two games in 7-2 and 6-1 losses, respectively. The Sox managed only 11 hits total across the two losses. Meanwhile, starters Cooper Criswell and Brayan Bello combined to allow nine runs (eight earned) on 14 hits across nine innings.
Then on Sunday, the Sox were headed for disaster as they fell behind Chicago 3-1 after four innings and 4-3 through seven before scrapping together a run in the ninth — a Reese McGuire sacrifice fly — and two more in the 10 —a Jamie Westbrook sac fly and a Rob Refsnyder RBI single — to scrape together a 6-4, extra-innings victory.
“We used everybody that was available today. It was fun to watch, man — that’s what it’s all about,” said Alex Cora, whose team used a whopping seven total pitchers on an opener day that began with Zack Kelly throwing a pair of scoreless frames with two strikeouts.
“We know we’ve got a young group, but you’ve got to give them credit, they keep playing hard,” Cora added. “Like I always said, sometimes it’s gonna look great, sometimes it’s not gonna look good, and sometimes it’s gonna look horrible, right? But they didn’t put their head down, they kept grinding, the pitching did an outstanding job.”
Well, I guess we’ll chalk this up as one of the “not good” or “horrible” ones then, Alex.
I mean, what are we doing here? Letting one of the worst teams in baseball not only hang around, but put themselves in position to take three out of four against you and needing a herculean effort front your closer just to save face?
If it weren’t for Kenley Jansen, who certainly put the team on his back with a two-inning, five strikeout scoreless appearance to get the Sox through the eighth and ninth (while throwing 34 pitches, matching the most thrown by any Sox pitcher in the game), we’d be looking at a truly disastrous weekend.
“I think, in that situation, I told AC that I got the next inning, I got the next inning. I don’t want to hear it, I got the next inning,” Jansen told reporters. “Tie game or we’re up, I’m going out. He gave me the ball and I went out there and tried to pick the team up.”
I haven’t been the world’s biggest supporter of Jansen the Red Sox (my stance has generally been you could take him or leave him, especially at this point of his career), but there’s no doubting his place as one of the most accomplished veterans in the game.
And as one of the game’s elder statesmen, who is neck in neck with old friend Craig Kimbrel as baseball’s active saves leader and a former World Series champion in his own right, it’s clear that Jansen gets it: this yearlong dance with .500 the Red Sox have been doing is not going to be sustainable.
“That’s a great win today, man. I mean, everybody played their butt off today, and we’ve just got to continue,” Jansen said. “We’ve got to start finding the way to be more consistent of winning games. We’re going to play good teams down the stretch, and at some point, we’ve gotta win more than we’re losing. But we’ve just got to keep grinding.”
Here come the Phils (and Yanks)
Two of those good teams await the Red Sox as they return home for a pair of three-game sets against the Philadelphia Phillies and (finally) the archrival New York Yankees
At 45-20, the Phils boast the majors’ best win percentage at .692. Right behind them are the 46-21 Yanks, who own a .687 winning percentage. First up, it’s Philadelphia visiting for three games starting Tuesday night.
Boston will have Kutter Crawford, Nick Pivetta and Houck on the mound for the Phillies series, which should give them a chance to be fairly competitive — that is, if the offense looks more like it did on Thursday than on Friday and Saturday.
The Phillies are coming in off a loss to split MLB’s London Series against the Mets, but the bad news is… these Phils rarely lose consecutive games. Aside from a three-game skid May 26-28, Philly hasn’t dropped back-to-back games since April 23-24.
Looking ahead to the Yankees series next weekend, the Sox are in line to start Criswell, Bello and Crawford. That could get ugly if that trio of Sox starters replicate the results from their most recent outings…
No doubt, things could get pretty ugly for the Red Sox over the next week. If they were to drop two of three in each series, that would leave them two games under .500. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility the go 1-5 during this stretch, either…
That’s why, once again, missed opportunities to beat the teams you’re absolutely supposed to beat are lethal to this team’s playoff chances. Now, instead of having a couple games on the plus side of .500 to play with, Boston has no room for error going into one of the most difficult weeks of the season…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.
