The Red Sox have apparently forgotten how to lose
Boston blanked the Mets 4–0 for its eighth straight victory, powered by an emergency starter, two unlikely home-run heroes and the continued collapse of everything we thought we knew about this team.
Apparently somebody replaced the Boston Red Sox with a competent professional baseball organization while we were sleeping.
The Red Sox beat the Mets 4–0 Saturday, extended their winning streak to eight games, improved to 45–48, and climbed within half a game of the final American League Wild Card position. They have also won 13 of their last 15 games, which is the type of sentence that would have gotten you placed under psychiatric observation approximately three weeks ago.
Eight straight victories.
The same Red Sox who spent large portions of this season playing defense like a softball team assembled in the parking lot 11 minutes before first pitch are now rampaging through the league like the 1927 Yankees—except without Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig or any readily identifiable explanation.
Baseball is stupid. Beautiful, wonderful, deeply stupid baseball.
Eduardo Rivera and the mystery-pitcher convention
Boston entered Saturday without a conventional starter and handed the baseball to rookie Eduardo Rivera, who was making only his second major-league appearance.
That sentence usually precedes something like, “The Red Sox trailed 7–0 before many fans had located their seats.”
Instead, Rivera pitched 3⅔ scoreless innings, and the bullpen completed a five-pitcher shutout while holding the Mets to only three hits. Jovani Morán followed Rivera with 1⅔ scoreless innings and earned the victory, improving to 2–2. Greg Weissert, Luis Guerrero and Danny Coulombe helped drag the operation safely across the finish line without anyone stepping on a rake, dropping a live grenade or trying to field a routine grounder with a lobster trap.
The Mets had opportunities. Boy, did they have opportunities.
New York put runners on base throughout the afternoon, loaded the bases in both the seventh and eighth innings, went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine men. This was less “timely Red Sox pitching” and more “the Mets repeatedly discovering a gas leak every time somebody reached second base.”
The Mets’ offense approached each major opportunity like a man being asked to defuse a bomb after watching half a YouTube tutorial.
Bases loaded?
Ground ball.
Potential rally?
Inning over.
Thirty-eight thousand people sitting there wondering whether the team had accidentally installed parental controls on the scoreboard.
Andruw Monasterio, destroyer of worlds
The game remained scoreless until the fourth inning, when Caleb Durbin drew a walk and Andruw Monasterio launched a two-run homer off Freddy Peralta.
Yes, Andruw Monasterio.
Not Roman Anthony. Not Trevor Story. Not a $30 million middle-of-the-order superstar arriving on horseback while fireworks exploded behind him.
Andruw Monasterio, who is suddenly walking around Citi Field like prime Manny Ramirez after hitting his fifth home run of the season.
The homer traveled 378 feet, gave Boston a 2–0 lead and provided all the offense the pitching staff ultimately needed. Monasterio later added a triple in the sixth inning, leaving him a double and single shy of the cycle and apparently one secret government experiment away from turning into Mookie Betts.
This roster has reached the stage where every night some random person emerges from behind a curtain and becomes the hero.
Tomorrow it could be Monasterio again. It could be Tsung-Che Cheng. It could be the bullpen catcher. It could be a guy who wandered into the clubhouse looking for the Shake Shack and left with three RBIs.
Nobody knows.
That may be the most dangerous thing about them right now.
Yoshida finally provides the exhale
Boston carried the 2–0 lead into the eighth, which naturally meant every Red Sox fan began preparing for the traditional late-inning cardiac event.
Caleb Durbin singled, and Masataka Yoshida belted a two-run homer off Tobias Myers to double the lead. Yoshida’s shot traveled 360 feet and was his third homer of the season.
Four to nothing.
A real cushion.
Not one of those fraudulent one-run leads where every fly ball produces the facial expression of a man hearing a tree crash through his roof.
Yoshida’s homer gave Boston actual breathing room, and Coulombe recorded the final out on a fly ball from Tyrone Taylor. The entire game took 2 hours, 57 minutes in front of 38,371 fans, many of whom presumably paid New York prices to watch their offense perform an interpretive dance titled Men stranded everywhere.
This winning streak is becoming impossible to dismiss
A week ago, the Red Sox were still hovering around the edge of relevance, the place where mediocre teams gather to convince themselves that being “only four games back” means something.
Now they are 45–48, own a plus-26 run differential, have won eight straight and sit just half a game outside the final Wild Card spot. Their road record improved to 28–21, while their home record remains an ugly 17–27—because apparently Fenway Park is now their kryptonite and Queens is a relaxing weekend spa.
Boston remains 11 games behind Tampa Bay in the American League East, so we can probably stop planning the divisional championship parade. The Rays are 56–37 and have spent the season behaving like the most irritatingly functional laboratory experiment in baseball.
But the Wild Card race is now absolutely real.
That creates an uncomfortable question for Craig Breslow and ownership: Has this team done enough to deserve reinforcements?
Three weeks ago, trading veterans and resetting for 2027 would have been completely defensible. Now, selling pieces while the team is surging toward a playoff spot would feel like turning off the grill just as the steaks begin smelling good because somebody found a coupon for frozen fish sticks.
The Red Sox should not mortgage the future for one delirious winning streak. Eight games do not erase three months of roster flaws, inconsistent offense and stretches of baseball that looked like surveillance footage from an insurance investigation.
But they also cannot pretend this run means nothing.
The pitching staff has stabilized. The run differential suggests Boston has played better than its losing record. Several role players are contributing. The Wild Card field is weak enough that one or two sensible additions could matter enormously.
This is not a demand for Breslow to trade five prospects for a 37-year-old reliever with forearm discomfort and “veteran presence.” We have seen enough baseball executives purchase veteran presence like it is a timeshare in Orlando.
It is a demand that the organization honestly evaluate what is developing in front of it.
The take: Maybe this team needed chaos more than star power
The most fascinating part of the streak is not simply that Boston is winning.
It is how Boston is winning.
Saturday’s heroes were an inexperienced pitcher, a collection of relievers, Andruw Monasterio and Masataka Yoshida. The lineup did not produce 14 runs. The starter did not throw seven dominant innings. Boston cobbled together a shutout using five pitchers, two swings and the kind of nervous improvisation normally seen when someone realizes Thanksgiving dinner is still frozen at noon.
And it worked.
Maybe this team’s identity was never going to be built around one superstar carrying everyone else. Maybe its best version is this chaotic, irritating little swarm—different heroes, aggressive pitching and enough positional flexibility to make the opposing manager develop an eye twitch.
That style is difficult to trust because it has no obvious center. It is also difficult to prepare for.
The Red Sox are still below .500. They have not earned unquestioned faith. Nobody should be purchasing World Series tattoos after an eight-game streak unless the tattoo artist accepts refunds.
But Boston has finally earned something it did not deserve a month ago:
Our attention.
The Red Sox entered Sunday with a chance to sweep the Mets, complete a perfect road trip and reach the All-Star break riding nine consecutive victories.
Follow Red Sox Digest for daily game recaps, savage analysis, breaking news and the kind of emotional stability only Boston baseball can provide—which is to say, absolutely none. Subscribe, share the article with another Red Sox fan and join the conversation: Should Breslow become an aggressive buyer, make only modest additions, or still consider selling despite the streak?