This just happened last night, when the Red Sox beat the White Sox, 8-1.
And it’s been awhile.
So you know what this means, right? Haven’t you ever seen a baseball movie about a hapless but loveable team that goes from worst to first? Think “The Natural.” Think “Major League.”
This is the point in the plot — somewhere near the middle of the season, or a bit past that — when the team makes the turnaround, but the pennant still seems beyond its grasp.
You might run some numbers and say with the number of games left, it’s highly, highly unlikely. But remember, we’re now in the era of playoffs, and it’s possible for a Wild Card team to win it all.
Oh, I should add: This formula also applies to basketball. Think “Hoosiers.”
They won again last night.
So now, above is the way things stand. Of course, they’re still 12 games back, because the blasted Tampa team keeps winning. (Not that I’m complaining about them beating the Yankees last night.) But they’ll be playing Boston in Fenway next week, so we’ll see what becomes of that.
Meanwhile, dig this headline from the Globe this morning:
Yes, optimism is building in Boston, and some sportswriters and editors are getting the courage to say it out loud. They’ll probably have to win the pennant before Dan Shaughnessy says something like that. Right now, he’s too busy writing about basketball (hey, Dan — I’m pretty sure that season is over).
Things are certainly looking up from my perspective. Of course, there are a lot of factors to contend with. The Sox still need to get Garrett Crochet, Roman Anthony, Trevor Story and Connelly Early off the injured list. And two more guys got hurt last night (including Contreras, who also still has to do his seven-game suspension).
So you never know. But I’m feeling good at the moment.
Mind you, when I say “the blasted Tampa team,” that’s not a slap at Tampa, or the Bay Area in general.
I went to Robinson High for two years, so for me, Tampa is one of my homes. And I surely enjoyed attending all those Reds games there (in the heyday of Pete Rose and Johnny Bench), and the Cardinals games in St. Pete (featuring my late cousin-in-law Tim McCarver), each spring.
I just have a deep-down prejudice against expansion teams. Expansion teams shouldn’t be winning. They shouldn’t even be playing, at least not in the bigs. I want to see the real teams win, except the Yankees (and I’m even feeling a little sorry for them, with Aaron Judge out)…
By the way, I see that Wikipedia claims that a state of rivalry exists between Boston and the Rays.
How can that be? How can the Red Sox, founded in 1901, possibly be “rivals” with a team founded in the very last expansion?
Where were the Rays when the Curse started? Answer: Nowhere. Not even dreamt of, for generations.
Admittedly, I was simply unable to watch baseball during all the years the Tampa team has existed, until a year and a half ago. So I missed stuff. But I only missed an eyeblink of baseball history, right?
Saying, as Wikipedia does, that the Rays and the Yankees are Boston’s chief rivals is like saying Argentina and France are Britain’s chief rivals, just based on the Falklands War. And if you missed that fracas entirely, it seems particularly absurd…
OK, I’m gonna go do some work now…
OK, just one more time today. There was a day game (which I missed watching), and guess what? The Red Sox won again. And now they’re tied with Toronto for third place in the AL East.
They now have an MLB-leading streak of six wins. And allow me to add to that my conviction that it would have been 13 wins in a row, if not for Cade Cavalli’s unbelievable insulting mouth. Did you see that game last Tuesday? Here’s a replay:
Willson Contreras — who’s been very emotional about things happening in Venezuela, and was in fact thrown out of the game the night before — strikes out. He’s pretty cool about it, and heading off peacefully when Nationals pitcher Cavalli loudly shouts at him, “Sit down, boy!” Contreras, still fairly under control for a second, turns toward the mound and points to his chest in an “Are you talking to me?” kind of way, and then… well, just watch the video.
Somebody’s gonna be thrown out, right? And though he didn’t start it, I can accept Contreras being one of the evictees. And he was. And he is joined by the Red Sox’s Nate Eaton (who wasn’t even playing, but rushed out with the rest to support his teammate) AND their interim manager, Chad Tracy. Miles Mikolas, a Nationals pitcher who like Eaton wasn’t in the game, was sent out as well.
But you know who wasn’t tossed? Cavalli. The guy who started it, and showed throughout the incident that he wasn’t a bit sorry.
Some justice came into the game when MLB suspended both Contreras and Cavalli a day or two later. They both appealed. Today, both were reduced from seven-day suspensions to five. I’d feel a LOT better if Cavalli had to serve his whole sentence.
The thing is, going back to June 30, this unnecessary mess started by Cavalli threw the Sox off their game, and the next game as well. And everyone marveled at the brilliant pitching of Cavalli, the one guy who didn’t get evicted.
When the barney happened, the Sox had just swept the Yankees in a four-game series, and then beat the Nationals in the first game of the series, and were leading in this game, when two things happened. Connelly Early was about to go out with an injury, and then, while the announcers were still wondering why the Sox were about to put another pitcher in (nothing had been said about Early’s arm when he went out at the end of the previous half-inning), Cavalli started the bench-clearing.
The world then turned upside-down, and the Nationals won 8-1. The next night, they beat Boston even worse. You can say it’s because Early had to go out, and sure, that’s a contributing factor. But I say it’s more because Cavalli was pitching a great game, and he was allowed to stay in. And I don’t think the Sox had gotten over it the next night.
After that, the Sox completely swept the Angels, and today they finished sweeping the White Sox. Big deal, you say. But the White Sox hadn’t lost a series at home since April, much less being swept at home.
Ever since June 25, the Red Sox have been on an incredible roll, and those two games they lost stand out as a remarkable aberration. Hey, you have to get used to losing a lot in baseball. But I very strongly suspect that if the umps had been fair on June 30 and thrown out Cavalli, Boston wouldn’t have had those two losses.
Not that I’m unhappy about a six-day streak. I love it. But the decisions on the suspensions came down today, and I hadn’t said anything about what happened last week, so I thought I would…
Oh… in case you’re wondering why Tracy, a pretty even-tempered guy, was thrown out…
It was because of the unfairness of the decision to evict Contreras and NOT Cavalli. He argued with the umps for awhile, saying something along the lines of “but what about HIM?”
And in their extremely limited wisdom, the umpires threw out Tracy instead of the instigator.
At least, that’s Tracy’s account of the exchange. I believe him.