CHICAGO - Before the Red Sox walloped the feel-good White Sox, 8-1, Tuesday night at Rate Field, Willson Contreras - who was still beaming from finding out he would be an American League All-Star - summed up his team's existence.
"I'm hoping that we keep playing the way we've been playing to add some," Contreras said regarding the Red Sox's race against time to prove it's a group worth keeping together leading into the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
It wasn't all that long ago that "adding some" players to help a postseason push was a pipe dream. Before taking on the Yankees, the Red Sox hadn't, after all, won more than three games in a row all season and were seemingly walking on eggshells when addressing the prospect of not carving up the roster before the end of July.
But one look around the visitors' clubhouse after what would be the Red Sox's ninth win in their last 11 games offered a dramatically different vibe from the norm for most of the 2026 season.
For the first time since May 23, the Red Sox find themselves as few as seven games under .500.
They have scored four or more runs in 11 of their last 13 games.
And this time around, they rediscovered the Payton Tolle who rebounded from a one-game downturn six days earlier, tossing six shutout innings. The lefty now carries a 2.45 ERA and .185 batting average against over his last five road starts.
"It's good. It's been a lot of fun," Tolle said. "I think we're, like I said, playing free, and it's been a whole lot of fun to watch, because most of the time we're just sitting there watching. It's been good, I think. Just keep having confidence here in ourselves that we know the abilities we have, and just go there and do it."
"Tolle has big talent. He's a future ace, for sure," Contreras noted. "That's what I see for him. What I like the most is how he controls himself on the mound and controls his pace. For me, the sky's the limit with that guy."
It was just another example of this team legitimately feeling good about themselves.
The wins. The runs. The feels. It has all evolved. For example: The Red Sox have now hit multiple home runs in three straight games for the first time, with Andruw Monasterio and Ceddanne Rafaela both going deep in the second inning. It took a long time to get there, but now they have such a stretch under their belt.
And then there was perhaps the Red Sox's greatest accomplishment: They siphoned all the positive vibes away from a first-place White Sox team that might lead the majors in feeling good about themselves. By the time Ryan Watson recorded the final out, Rate Field - a place Chicago has won its last 10 series at - resembled the half-empty, morbid ballpark the White Sox had managed to reinvent this season.
"Playing good, man," Contreras said after his 23rd multi-hit game of the season. "I think we are carrying really good energy right now. We know we have to play the 27 outs. I'm glad we, as a group of hitters, are doing a great job. And the bullpen and the starting pitching, they're doing great. We have to keep the same pace."
"Every win is huge for us," Rafaela explained. "And to get this momentum to start the series, it's huge ... We have a lot more ballgames to play. I still think it's early. I think everybody in here is thinking the same thing, that we have a lot of ballgames and we're going battle to win this division."
