The Red Sox may or may not make the playoffs, but their resilience makes them likable, and other thoughts
For a manager leading his team through a 162-game season, the reaction made perfect, logical sense. Baseball requires patience incomparable to other pro leagues, the sporting embodiment of the cliché about the season being a marathon, not a sprint. Looking too far ahead only invites trouble.
But with the trade deadline looming on Thursday, at the end of their fourth post-break series against the Twins, there was no denying the gauntlet facing the Sox in that moment, a litmus test for their viability as a playoff contender.
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The verdict is still out, but after watching the Red Sox lose the opening two games against the Cubs and then rally to win four of the next seven, including thrillers Saturday and Sunday against the Dodgers, one word to describe this team keeps coming to mind: resilient.
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It's a brand of resilience that makes them eminently likable, evident in their locker-room vibe, in their cohesiveness as a unit, in their ability to rally from a few bad games, or a few bat at-bats, to stay in the hunt for a playoff spot. All the more reason it falls to the front office to deliver on its promise of
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The team's likability factor was evident from that first stop at Wrigley, when they couldn't even wait until the Friday night series opener to get the band back together. With clubhouse favorite Alex Bregman on the way back from his quadriceps injury and looking to get some practice in, his Thursday night plan quickly blossomed into a voluntary team workout amid Wrigley's ivy-covered walls.
'I think we miss each other,' veteran shortstop Trevor Story said by way of explanation for the high attendance. 'Believe it or not, we're with each other every single day, but when you go three or four days without it, it's like, 'Man, where the boys at?' You know? I think it's just a sign that the boys love being together. We love the vibe that we have, and obviously shows the focus that we want to start the second half.'
So far, they're hanging in, despite the Rafael Devers trade, the Kristian Campbell demotion, the early Story struggles or similar scuffling from Walker Buehler, the fielding miscues, including two costly catcher interference calls against the Phillies. They're hanging in with Garrett Crochet brilliance, Roman Anthony emergence,
⋅ Women's golf has another new star shooting up the ranks in 21-year-old English star Lottie Woad. With a
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⋅ Congrats to
⋅
⋅ Loved Terry Francona's response to President Trump's latest silly tangent that the Cleveland Guardians (
To USA Today, Francona said: 'I guess my retort would be, 'There's probably a lot of people in this country who don't want it like it used to be.' And if you're white, [you're] probably just fine. That's not how it's supposed to work. Like, I didn't even care what they made the name in Cleveland. I really didn't. I just know how I was in on those conversations, and we were trying to be respectful. And for that, I gave those guys a lot of credit.'
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Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
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