The Boston Red Sox opened a three-game series with a thrilling 7-6 walk-off victory against the Toronto Blue Jays Monday night at Fenway Park. As a, well, let’s call it a special added attraction, the newly crowned NBA champion Boston Celtics also made an appearance, with Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum (or Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) last out of the dugout.
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More about that in a moment. First, let’s take you back to exactly one week earlier, when the Red Sox opened a three-game series against these same Blue Jays, only at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. The Red Sox came out of it with a 7-3 victory, with Nick Pivetta submitting seven strong innings, Tyler O’Neill socking a pair of home runs, and … and it’s possible you’re reading these details for the first time. For it was on that night at TD Garden that the Celtics finished off the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals for their 18th NBA championship, an event that turned Boston into a roundball Mardi Gras through the rest of the week.
Only now are local citizens awakening from that party. And for some, only now are they awakening to the reality that the Red Sox, written off during spring training as little more than a collection of hopeless has-beens and hopeful maybes, are suddenly playing just about the best baseball in baseball.
GO DEEPERA month ago, the Red Sox changed their hitters meetings. Their offense has taken offHow fitting, then, that a delegation of Celtics was at Fenway for a fresh round of celebrating and some torch passing. Now nobody’s so brazen as to use their Celtics-issued rose-colored glasses to pronounce the Red Sox as prospective World Series champions, but that’s not the point. What is the point is that with Monday night’s victory, the Red Sox have won eight of their last nine games, putting them at seven games over .500 for the first time this season.
And check this out: The Celtics were hanging around the clubhouse practically until game time. What’s that? Upset the team’s pregame ritual? Apparently not, Sox manager Alex Cora said.
“There’s only one chance to have the NBA champions in your clubhouse,” he explained.
NBA champions, the Boston Celtics, are at Fenway tonight 🏆
Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Joe Mazzulla, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White and Al Horford threw out the ceremonial first pitches ⚾️ pic.twitter.com/tLkHfe3aHt
— MLB (@MLB) June 24, 2024
These are not the Manny Ramirez-David Ortiz Red Sox, and there’s no Pedro Martinez on the premises to inspire discussions about just who is the greatest pitcher in team history. But they do have Jarren Duran, a one-man comedy of uncertainty a couple of years ago who now is emerging as one of the game’s most exciting players. He extended his hitting streak to 14 games Monday night, including the walk-off single that ended it. InSaturday’s 4-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park. Duran didn’t go a Big Papi-like 4-for-6 with two home runs. What he did do was score the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly to shallow left field, and then, in the bottom of the ninth, prevent the Reds from tying the score when he raced to the center-field fence to rob Scott Fairchild of a home run.
As “great” catches go, this one was, oh, a 7. Duran ran to the correct spot, settled in, and jumped into the air. But it’s a catch Duran likely wouldn’t have made a couple of years ago. On this day, he made the grab with the steady-as-she-goes approach of an established big-leaguer.
Jarren Duran had the winning RBI single in the ninth and extended his hitting streak to 14 games. (Paul Rutherford / USA Today)
If you’ve been following these Red Sox with serious scholarship, you don’t need me to sell you on Duran. But when you consider he’s getting buried in balloting for next month’s All-Star Game, it’s clear that not a lot of fans are following his exploits.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, either, that Tanner Houck has a 2.18 ERA in 16 starts, or that O’Neill, when he can stay healthy, is a big bat in the lineup, with 15 home runs in 54 games. Catcher Connor Wong, who has headed home for paternity leave, has a Jason Varitek-like .390 on-base percentage. (I’m putting it that way because I’ve long believed one of the most under-appreciated individual stats on the 2004 World Series champion Red Sox was Varitek’s, you guessed it, .390 on-base percentage.
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“People are liking this brand of baseball,” Cora said before Monday’s game. “It’s fun to watch. The athleticism is there.
“On the defensive part we still have to be better, but offensively we’re doing a lot of good things,” Cora said. “We’re running a lot, not only on the bases but running the bases well.
Referring to the Celtics’ visit to Fenway, the manager said, “We get to celebrate them, and then after them, it’s us, right?”
It is them.
Right?
Perfect night at Fenway Pahhhhk ☘️ pic.twitter.com/zXtwCliJ8r
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) June 25, 2024
OK, you should worry that Cora, whose contract is up after this season, might be out of here. You can question the long-term ideas rattling around inside the head of Craig Breslow, the first-year chief baseball officer. And you absolutely should be miffed that principal owner John W. Henry, who on Opening Day in 2002 stood outside Fenway Park to personally shake hands with fans, recently told the Financial Times, “Because fans expect championships almost annually, they easily become frustrated and are not going to buy into what the odds actually are: one in 20 or one in 30.”
Whatever the math, that remark came across as lordly and dismissive. Especially since this is the team that traded away future Hall of Famer Mookie Betts and has continued to cut payroll.
I learned a long time ago that it’s simplistic, and often wrong, to blame everything on the players when things go wrong. And these players, from what we’ve seen so far, are busting tail. Even if some of you — OK, some of us — haven’t been plugged in over the past couple of months.
Sox right-hander Josh Winckowski understands. He opened the season with the big club, was optioned to Triple-A Worcester in May, and was recalled on Monday. In other words, he spent the last month following both teams from afar.
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“It’s super exciting to see what the Celtics have done,” he said. “Obviously, they have a tremendous team over there. And being down in Triple A and watching our guys win series after series, they’re pretty exciting to watch as well. And I’m happy to be back. Now it’s summer and now it’s our time to go.”
Infielder Vaughn Grissom, currently on the injured list, told me about playing for the Atlanta Braves last year and being with the team in Philadelphia to play the Phillies at the same time the Celtics were in town to play the 76ers. “We were at the same hotel, and I shared an elevator with Jaylen Brown and a couple of other guys. I’m thinking about that right now because I feel like the town’s on a bit of a winning high right now because of that team winning a championship. And now, it’s a great opportunity for the fans to come out and see us.”
Agreed, but with a caveat: If the Sox continue to contend for a wild-card spot — first place in the American League East might turn out to be out of reach, though we’re not quite there yet — will Breslow make moves to improve the roster?
Or, will a computer, or a room filled with metrics-obsessed whiz kids, provide data that guides Breslow to standing down? If that happens — that is, the standing down — it’ll mean the investment you’ve made in this team up till now will have been a waste of time, money and emotions.
That’s all later on. As of right now, the 2024 Red Sox have earned your support.
(Top photo of Jarren Duran celebrating with Rob Refsnyder after his winning hit: Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)
Steve Buckley is a columnist for The Athletic. He was previously a sports columnist for the Boston Herald and The National Sports Daily. Earlier stops include covering baseball for the Hartford Courant, Tacoma News Tribune and Portland (Maine) Press Herald. Follow Steve on Twitter @BuckinBoston
