The Red Sox appeared to be headed for a sweep at the hands of the Cubs Sunday before their bats finally came alive and exploded for six runs in the seventh and eighth innings, allowing Boston to at least take one of three in their first series after the All-Star break.
Given that Chicago currently has the second-best record in baseball, there wouldn’t seem to be a whole lot of shame in dropping two out of three, especially since the Red Sox had won 10 in a row before the break. But the first two games were pretty ugly, with the Cubs outscoring the Sox 10-1, and The Greg Hill Show’s Jermaine Wiggins still came out of the weekend feeling pretty disappointed overall.
“This first series out the gate, epic fail,” Wiggy said. “Because you cannot lose the momentum that you gained prior to the All-Star game, where you are sucking fans back in and the expectations are now like, ‘All right, we think that you're a good baseball team. We think that you can really make a push and be a legitimate World Series contender.’ And then you come out the gate and you give us what you give us. So, I will give you a pass on Chicago, because the pitching, other than Giolito’s first inning, was relatively good. Your bats just were nowhere to be found. And maybe that's just, it's going to take one series to kind of knock some of the rust off.”
Greg Hill later asked if the Red Sox should get a bit of a pass since it was just one series.
“I don't know that you need to give them a pass,” Chris Scheim answered. “I think in game one, it was just they had one bad inning. It was the very first inning of the game. And then game two, they straight up lost. And then game three, they won. Like, I don't think it was a bad series. It's not like you got your ass swept and handed to you left and right.”
“But you almost did,” Wiggy said. “You almost did. When you look at this series and the way that you're playing, I think the expectations, and this is why I say it's a failure, is because Cora’s track record, or the Red Sox’ track record of the second half of the season, is awful. So, if you start this way, a lot of people are going to go, ‘Oh, here we go again.’”
“But if you come back out, you take two of three from Philly, it's like all right, everything's back on track,” Scheim said.
“But that's why it's so important now that you have to take two of three,” Wiggy concluded.
Game 1 against the Phillies is Monday night, with first pitch set for 6:45 p.m. You can hear all the action on WEEI 93.7 FM, WEEI.com, the Audacy app, or your local Red Sox Radio Network station.