The Red Sox have gone from buried to breathing again, and that shift is changing the conversation in Boston.
Two weeks ago, this team was 14 games under .500 and looking every bit like a club headed for a summer sell-off. Now, after a 9-2 run that included Tuesday’s 8-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, the Sox have cut that deficit in half. They’re 41-48, out of last place in the American League East and sitting a half-game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles.
That surge also puts the trade deadline picture in a different light. Boston entered Wednesday four games back in the wild card race, with three teams standing between them and the Texas Rangers, who held the final spot.
So the question is no longer just whether the Red Sox will sell. It’s whether this run has made that outcome less certain.
Inside the clubhouse, though, the message is simple: keep winning and let the front office sort out the rest. First baseman Willson Contreras, who has an outside shot at being traded, said Tuesday that he’d rather see Boston add than subtract.
"I'm hoping that we keep playing the way we've been playing to add some," Contreras said, per Rob Bradford of WEEI/Audacy.
Ceddanne Rafaela, whose early two-run homer helped give Boston breathing room on Tuesday, echoed that same day-to-day approach.
"Every win is huge for us," Rafaela said, per Bradford. "And to get this momentum to start the series, it's huge ...
We have a lot more ballgames to play. I still think it's early.
I think everybody in here is thinking the same thing, that we have a lot of ballgames and we're going battle to win this division."
There’s also a bigger reason Boston is still in the mix: the American League has been rough enough to keep a team like this alive. The Red Sox own the sixth-best run differential in the league, and the recent schedule has been soft enough to help them stack wins. The second half doesn’t look impossible, either.
So while the idea of the Red Sox as deadline sellers is still on the table, it’s no longer a lock. Right now, they’re playing like a team that has forced everyone to at least pause before deciding what comes next.
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