Sometime last month, Xander Bogaerts admitted what we all could figure out: The Red Sox' internal rallying cry was one that went something like this: "Nobody believes in us but us."
We've seen it before. The Patriots made a living out of it, circling the one prognosticator among 20 who picked against them.
In the Red Sox case, perhaps there was some truth to the narrative considering their over-under for wins heading into the year was right around 80. But, really, that conversation outside the clubhouse came and went a while ago.
Every once in a while we would still get that "you guys don't believe in us" vibe coming from Red Sox players even in the shadow of a sea of power rankings that would suggest otherwise. Whether they wanted to admit it or not, people were believing.
They had become the masters of making all of us change our minds when it came to criticism, to the point that even the Red Sox' recent downturn was handled with an optimistic tone.
This, however, seems different.
The Red Sox could still lose all four games to the Blue Jays and still be in the thick of things, carrying the luxury of the returns of Chris Sale and Kyle Schwarber. But that's not really the point.
This is the ultimate chance for the Red Sox to prove what they have been saying all along - they are a World Series contender.
We know it. Their manager knows it.
"We put ourselves in this situation," said Red Sox skipper Alex Cora after his team's loss to the Tigers Thursday afternoon. "People can doubt us or they can feel like this team can do it, but bottom line, we have to show up every day and play better. We’ve been working so hard to get to this point. I’m not saying this is acceptable because we’re going to go through stretches like this, but when you look slow and it’s not you’re into it, but you have to better at the end."
As much as the rubber can meet the road on Aug. 6, that is the case here.
The Red Sox were built a certain way, one which actually seemed to fit just fine for the majority of this season. Lean on the foundational players -- Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi, Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts -- while basking in the emergence of untapped talents such as Garrett Richards, Martin Perez, Nick Pivetta, Alex Verdugo, Kiké Hernandez and Hunter Renfroe. And along the way get spark-plug contributions from high-end talents such as Bobby Dalbec and Franchy Cordero.
Pick through that blueprint now and you will find the root of some of the Red Sox' current problems.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays equation is what we thought it would be heading into this four-gamer at Rogers Centre ... scary. They invested. They developed. And now they have added. They are 2 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot and just three in back of the Red Sox in the loss column, while possessing the American League's deepest starting rotation.
The Red Sox and their fans can view what awaits this team as a "woe is me" kind of scenario. Or they can look at it as the best opportunity of the season.
This is the Red Sox' chance to prove they were right all along.
