The Red Sox are in first-place by 4 1/2 games. Before losing to the A's Saturday night, 7-6, in 12 innings they had won eight straight. Alex Cora's team is one of three which has won as many as 52 games.
Things aren't all that bad.
But ...
Before we start talking about running away with the American League East, there are little reminders that some holes in the boat need to be plugged before setting sail for the postseason. That's exactly what this loss to Oakland offered.
Let's start with the obvious, the last few spots in what has been a very reliable bullpen. This was what did in the Red Sox this time, with Yacksel Rios and Darwinzon Hernandez first serving as the weak links, allowing the A's to tie things up with two runs in the eighth inning.
And then there was Matt Andriese, the pitcher who was teaming with Garrett Whitlock in April to serve as a valuable one-two, long-relief punch. Lately, there the punches haven't been kind, with the righty allowing a 7.99 ERA, .385 opponents' batting average and 1.098 opponents' OPS since May 1.
This time around, the extra-inning scenario he had once shown great acumen for in April proved disastrous, with Oakland scoring three runs to snap the Red Sox' win streak.
"Yeah, we’ve been on a roll," Andriese said. "I know where I am at on the depth chart in terms of throwing multiple innings, everything like that. It’s my job at that point to stay sharp. That’s what I’ve been doing the last few years so I’ve kind of gotten used to it. It’s definitely a transition when you have seven or eight days off."
"We need him, we need this guy, he’s very important to what we’re trying to accomplish," Cora said of Andriese. "This is a guy who can give us multiple innings in certain situations. We felt his fastball is still actually playing it’s just the offspeed stuff, i dont know if its usage or teams preparing for us when he comes in, but we just have to figure out. We’re not going to give up on him, this guy is very important to us."
The point is that while the foundation of this bullpen is clearly solid, and the last guys on the list have had their moments, this team could really use a bit more in this department.
Perhaps that's Ryan Brasier, who is still coming back from that 104 mph liner to the head. Or maybe, just maybe, Chaim Bloom goes the route Dave Dombrowski did when scooping up the likes of Brad Zieger, Addison Reed and Nathan Eovaldi.
Listening to Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom on the Greg Hill Show Thursday, it sure seems like he would prefer to go a similar route as the postseason push supplied by his predecessor.
“It wouldn’t be my preference (to be inactive) because you always want to make deals because it means you found something to improve your organization,” said Bloom. “Trades are one way to do that."
He added, "Obviously it takes two to tango, and it has to make sense. That’s certainly a possibility we don’t end up doing anything, but if that happens, it will be because we had just as much conversation as if we were to make 10 different deals, we just didn’t find anything that we thought fit."
Then there is the Danny Santana spot on the roster.
While Marwin Gonzalez has countered his offensive inadequacies with the occasional big hit, really good defense at multiple positions and impressive baseball instincts, Santana ... well ... he simply hasn't done much of anything.
Starting in centerfield Saturday night, Santana continued to make head-scratching movements on the baseball field. At one point he ran all the way into left field to almost Kelly Leak J.D. Martinez, who was easily camped under a fly ball. And then came the attempted steal of third, ending the 10th inning for the Red Sox.
"With Danny, we give him keys and talk about situations," Cora said. "We talk about it afterward, he asked me, I’m like well in a regular game in a regular spot, it’s OK if you steal and everybody is high-fiving you but obviously with the rules knowing they’re going to have man on second and no outs, it’s a chance we don’t want to take."
He is hitting .179 with a .559 OPS while not exactly solving the left-handed-hitting-complement-to-Bobby Dalbec-at-first base problem.
Without a whole lot of logical solutions for this spot via a trade, perhaps we are looking at the logical pathway for a Franchy Cordero reunion, or, dare we say, Jarren Duran's integration into the major leagues.
It was just one game, but one that reminded us there are still a few problems.
"It was a crazy game," Cora noted. "If you guys want we can go through every play, it’s just a crazy game, that’s it and they ended up winning."