Welcome to the wonderful world of late July in Major League Baseball, where every day is an opportunity for some sort of trade deadline storyline.
Monday - eight days before the deadline for MLB teams to alter their roster via trades - the Red Sox their reminders both before a 3-1 win over the Guardians and after.
Prior to the Sox snapping what had been a painful five-game losing streak, it was manager Alex Cora who had to offer his team's perspective when it came to the deadline.
The discomfort of teetering on the edge of living life as sellers thanks the losing skid and rash of injuries left many wondering what kind of cloud might be settling over the clubhouse.
"You just play. You’ve just got to keep playing," Cora said. "I think we had this same conversation in ’19, like, and we kept playing. Then we got beat seven times in a row at a bad time in the schedule. You’ve just got to keep grinding, keep going, keep pushing. We’re very talented. We can talk about trades, talk about guys getting traded and all that, but at the end of the day, we have to play better. Today, Monday, we have to play better."
And they did.
The defense was better, as was the pitching. In fact, the guys throwing the baseball offered a blueprint of how this thing can actually turn around. Starter Nick Pivetta gives up just one run over 5 1/3 innings, and then John Schreiber and Garrett Whitlock turn in dominant relief performances.
Garrett Whitlock reflects on the win
Still, even with the win, the questions didn't stop coming when it came to the trade deadline uncertainty.
Just like Cleveland, the Sox sit three games out of a Wild Card spot, with both the Orioles and White Sox 1/2-game behind. And it isn't lost on anyone that the Red Sox will still have to head into this final week of July with somewhat of a patchwork lineup against the likes the Guardians, Brewers and Astros.
One day at a time. That was the message before, and certainly after. Why not? It just helped push aside the awkwardness of the previous five games for the time being.
"Yeah, we went 1-0 today and tomorrow it’s back to the clean slate, let’s try to go 1-0 tomorrow," Whitlock said. "The past is behind us and the future is too much to worry about. So let’s just worry about today and what we’ve got."
"I don’t think anybody is thinking about the trade deadline," Pivetta said. "I think we’re focused on what we need to do tonight to win a baseball game. That’s what we’re focused on, going out, putting up runs, doing things right defensively, throwing strikes, playing the game of baseball. When you get lost in the white noise, it doesn’t work. Anybody doing that isn’t focused on what we need to do, which is win, right now, in this moment."
“I just think the biggest thing is you control what you can control," added Alex Verdugo. "What we control is how we prepare for the games when we go out there and how we compete. On that side of it, that’s business. You let Chaim, you let the higher-ups kind of worry about that. Whatever happens, happens. We just want to win ballgames. We do understand that you could be a seller, you could be a buyer, it all depends. For us, we know we’ve got a good team, we’ve got a good group of guys and we can go somewhere. We’re hoping that we just stick with what we’ve got, maybe get a couple of additions and we make a postseason push."