The Boston Red Sox are suddenly making noise again, and Chad Tracy deserves a real share of the credit.
Boston has won nine of its last 11 games and is in the middle of a four-game winning streak entering Wednesday night’s matchup with the Chicago White Sox, with Jake Bennett set to face Davis Martin. The Red Sox opened the three-game series with a win on Tuesday behind Payton Tolle, and this is already their second stretch of at least four straight wins over the past two weeks.
That kind of run looked hard to imagine not long ago. After dropping two of three to the lowly Colorado Rockies, the Red Sox didn’t exactly look like a team about to find its footing. But the turnaround has been real, and while the starting rotation has drawn plenty of praise and players like Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin have also been getting attention, Tracy’s work has flown a bit under the radar.
When Tracy replaced Alex Cora, Boston was 10-17 with a -13 run differential. Since then, the Red Sox have gone 31-31 with a +25 run differential.
That still leaves room for a better record, obviously, but it also shows how much steadier this team has become under his watch. After that Rockies series, Boston sat at 32-46.
Since then, it has kept fighting instead of folding, and now it has pushed itself back into the American League playoff picture.
The bigger picture in the American League helps explain why the door is open. There are only six teams in the league above .500, and just two are more than four games over.
Even with Boston still seven games under .500, its +12 run differential stands out - one of only six positive marks in the league. That puts the Red Sox ahead of teams like the Cleveland Guardians (-11), Texas Rangers (-3), Houston Astros (-42), and Toronto Blue Jays (-45).
Tracy has had to steer the club through early-season firings and a pile of injuries, including Garrett Crochet, Trevor Story, Roman Anthony, and Marcelo Mayer, among others. Brayan Bello was also sent down to the minors. For Boston to keep showing up, keep competing, and keep climbing anyway says plenty about the job Tracy has done.
In Other News...
Red Sox Prospects Are Making The System Look Too Deep To Ignore
The latest weekly check-in across the Red Sox farm was the kind that makes a system feel deeper than a single headline name. From Worcester to Portland to Greenville, Boston had multiple prospects turning in productive stretches at the plate and on the mound, with Allan Castro, Mikey Romero, Franklin Arias and Antonio Anderson among the players giving the organization something to track at several levels at once.
What stands out is not just that the numbers were good, but that they were spread around. Castro brought power and run production, Romero drove in a pile of runs, Arias showed a mix of patience and pop, and Greenville kept getting steady offense from Anderson, while Blake Wehunt added a strong pitching line. For a player development staff, that kind of week does not answer every question, but it does make the next one harder to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
This Bizarre MLB Record Still Belongs To The 2005 Red Sox
The 2005 Red Sox have a strange little corner of MLB history all to themselves, and it has nothing to do with a pennant race or a dramatic October finish. Their season opened with an unusual run of games that never needed extra innings, a stretch that lasted long enough to become a league record and still stands as one of the quirkiest marks attached to that championship club.
It briefly looked like the Dodgers might put that number in danger this season, but their own streak finally ended in an 11-inning game against the Rockies. The common thread is part of what makes the record so odd: both clubs were defending World Series champions while piling up all those regulation games, a reminder that even on title teams, baseball can produce the kind of statistical oddity that lingers for years. [Read more 🡒]
Former Red Sox Infielder Hits An Early Setback In Milwaukee
David Hamiltons return to Milwaukee hit an early snag this week, a reminder that roster churn can turn quickly for a player still trying to settle in with a new club. The Brewers are already adjusting around him, with Greg Jones back on the major league roster and Brandon Lockridge moved to the 60-day injured list to clear space on the 40-man.
For the Red Sox, Hamiltons latest step matters because his path to Milwaukee began in the six-player trade that sent him out of Boston, and he also happens to be a player the Brewers know well from before his time with the Sox. His latest setback leaves another small thread of that deal in motion, even if the bigger picture around the trade is still unfolding. [Read more 🡒]