The Red Sox’s rally began with an anomaly in modern-day baseball: single, single, single. Then came a sacrifice bunt, followed by a base hit to shallow left field. Within minutes, the Red Sox put three runs up on the board, all without taking a walk or going deep.
It was so damn refreshing.
The streaking Red Sox are doing everything well right now. Their starters are solid, the bullpen is lights out, and the offense is piling up runs. They swept Wednesday’s straight doubleheader against the Twins, pushing their winning streak to nine. And the best part is, they’re doing it without relying on the three true outcomes. Once again, the Red Sox are an enjoyable watch.
Take Wednesday’s Game 1, for instance. The Red Sox scored all three of their runs in the second inning, with Marwin Gonzalez’s single to left igniting the rally. Then he advanced to second on a wild pitch, before coming home on Hunter Renfroe’s knock to left-center. Franchy Cordero was next, and he punched another ball to left, advancing Renfroe to second. Renfroe scored on Kevin Plawecki’s sac bunt (thanks to an errant throw from pitcher Kenta Maeda), before Cordero came home when Christian Arroyo blooped a single.
It was a sequence that could’ve been taken out of 1967. Three runs scored, and the words “launch angle” weren’t uttered once. What a beautiful sight.
There are many reasons to fall in love with the straight up good Red Sox, but their most attractive quality is their habit of putting the ball in play. Through 12 games, the Red Sox are 23rd in strikeouts and 27th in walks. That’s quite a shift from 2019 (I refuse to acknowledge the sad and abbreviated 2020 campaign as an actual season), when the Red Sox were fifth in walks, and consistently played some of the longest games in the league.
“It can’t be all slug and it can’t be just all singles in this league,” Red Sox hitting coach Tim Hyers said recently to WEEI’s Rob Bradford. "It’s a difficult balance but I know our team probably tends to lean toward the power and possibly the bigger swings to drive the baseball and make something happen with one swing, but as a group we still have to send that message and we still have to value getting on base and that two-strike approach, using the whole field, because of all the shifting and things in the game today, we have to take advantage of it at times.”
Indeed, the Red Sox feature plenty of power threats, but their best players are all complete hitters. J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts both have lifetime batting averages in the low .290s, while Rafael Devers is cutting down on his strikeouts. This season, Martinez and Bogaerts have struck out 20 times combined. For comparison’s sake, Twins slugger Miguel Sano has fanned 18 times by himself.
Entering the season, there was reason to fear the bottom of the Red Sox’s order would be strikeout and walk city, with Brian Dalbec and Cordero doing their best Joey Gallo impersonations on a daily basis. But thankfully, that hasn’t been the case. So far, Dalbec’s signature moment was his hustle last Saturday to beat out a throw from Baltimore’s second baseman, avoiding the double play, and allowing Cordero to score the game-tying run.
On Tuesday, Dalbec sliced the game-leading RBI double to deep right field — a quintessential example of going the other way.
“You can’t just try to bully the game and just try to slug the baseball all the time,” Hyers said.
Red Sox hitters are letting the game come to them. The end result is nine straight wins, and just as importantly, a fun style of play.
