It might just be a one-game Wild Card game against the Yankees, not even a full best-of-five postseason series. No matter. It is the playoffs and it look a lot for the Red Sox to get there.
That much was clear when soaking in Alex Cora's club's reaction to claiming a regular-season, 7-5 win over the Nationals Sunday.
For the first time since they were celebrating a World Series win in the visitors clubhouse at Dodger Stadium in 2018, the Red Sox busted out their champagne.
What did the Red Sox choose to pair with their champagne-filled celebration? The increasingly familiar helping of disrespect.
As has been the case for much of the Red Sox' 92-win season (which was 12 more than the preseason over-under), the theme coming from many of the players had to do with how few believed in them outside their own clubhouse.
"I think at the beginning of the year everybody counted us out," said Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo. "Even at the half, everyone was kind of saying, ‘It’s a fluke. They played well. Whatever. Blah, blah, blah.’ But we like the guys in our clubhouse. We know what kind of offense we have. We know what kind of team we have. We know that we can put up a big spot. We can go really deep in this. We just have to play our baseball, not get ahead of ourselves and just take it one day at a time. I think everybody inside of our clubhouse, we’re all very confident with each other."
Verdugo added, "We just never gave up. We kept fighting. We kept fighting. We blocked out all the haters. Blocked out all the outside noise. Whatever people were saying. Because at the end of the day we could be the best team expected to win or the worst team expected to lose, you still have to go out there and play for 27 outs and give it your all. Everybody knows with baseball, anything can happen. Like I said, I ride with these guys. I know we’re going to go out there and put the pressure on teams."
"Nobody believed in us at the beginning of the season," said Sunday's hero, third baseman Rafael Devers, whose two-run homer in the ninth inning sealed the postseason-clinching win. "Nobody believed in us halfway through the season. Just anything possible to help the team, obviously our next goal is the wild card and then get through – get through the second round. Anything I’ve got to do to help the team and help us have success.”
The Red Sox will take on the Yankees in Wild Card tilt Tuesday night at Fenway Park, with first pitch slated for 8:08 p.m. The game can be heard on the Shaw's and Star Market Red Sox Radio Network.