The Boston Red Sox have put themselves in a spot that almost never comes around in Major League Baseball history.
A 27-3 run is the kind of stretch that looks made up, and ESPN’s look back at the six other teams to do it over the last 100 years gives Boston a very strange place in the record book. The Red Sox are the only club in that group that was more than four games under .500 at its lowest point, which makes their case stand out from the rest.
Boston sat at 37-48 before the surge and had been 14 games under .500 at one point. That’s a far different starting point than the other teams on ESPN’s list, all of which were already above .500 by multiple games before their hot streaks.
Here’s the full group ESPN posted:
“1936 Giants 49-44 Lost World Series 1941 Yankees 33-24 Won World Series 1947 Yankees 27-23 Won World Series 1953 Yankees 17-9 Won World Series 1977 Royals 64-51 Lost ALCS 2017 Indians 69-56 Lost ALDS,” ESPN posted.
Three of those six teams went on to win the World Series, which is why the Red Sox can look at the history and see something that at least points in the right direction. By that math, a 50% chance is as good as any team in baseball has ever had.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Boston is headed for a title. This season has already been strange enough without pretending history guarantees anything. Still, the numbers give Red Sox fans something real to hold onto: if you were told in the middle of the year that your team had a 50% shot at a World Series, you’d take it.
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