Stop Counting Streaks. Just Keep Winning Series.

(AP Photo//Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)

Apparently, one ridiculous winning streak wasn't enough.

Because, of course it wasn't.

The Red Sox followed up their 15-game winning streak in July by rattling off another nine straight wins, because this team has apparently decided that doing anything in a normal, reasonable manner would be boring.

Nine more.

And for a little while Friday night at Fenway, it looked like this whole crazy thing was just going to keep going. Boston hammered the Athletics 13-1. Payton Tolle struck out a career-high 14 hitters over six innings. The Red Sox had won nine straight games, the A’s had lost nine straight games, and suddenly another double-digit streak didn't seem ridiculous at all.

Then baseball happened.

The Athletics won 7-3 on Saturday, ending the streak. Then they came back and beat Boston 4-3 Sunday, scoring late against a bullpen that, for most of this remarkable run, has been pretty reliable. Just like that, the hottest team in baseball had lost two straight games to a team that came into the weekend buried in the standings. Boston also lost a series for the first time since the Nationals took two of three from them from June 29 through July 1.

So naturally, this being Boston, I assume we're all supposed to panic now.

Right?

No.

Not this time.

I've spent most of this season trying to figure out what the Red Sox are. Good team? Bad team? Pretender? Contender? Sell at the deadline? Buy at the deadline? Enjoy them? Don't trust them? Believe? Definitely don't believe?

I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Maybe the answer for the rest of this season is to stop trying to answer the big question.

Forget winning 15 straight.

Forget winning nine straight.

Forget trying to predict what happens in October before we even get there.

Win the next series.

Then do it again.

That's it.

Because somewhere along the way, that's exactly what this team started doing.

Before this weekend, Boston had won nine consecutive series. Nine. That's not some fluky three-day hot stretch where a few bloopers fall in and somebody hits a walk-off homer. That's sustained winning against different opponents, different pitching staffs, different ballparks and different situations.

The Athletics finally ended that run Sunday, and yes, losing two straight at Fenway to them isn't exactly the way you want to finish a homestand.

But I'm also not going to pretend the previous five or six weeks didn't happen because of two lousy afternoons. We've done enough of that this year.

Boston leaves the weekend at 64-53 with 45 games remaining.

Forty-five games.

That's where this gets interesting.

And unlike earlier in the season, when I was looking at the standings trying to calculate how many things needed to go right just for the Red Sox to become relevant, they're relevant now.

They did the hard part.

Remember where this team was?

At one point it felt like the entire season was about to disappear before summer really got started. Every good stretch was followed by something miserable. Every time they gave us a reason to lean forward, they'd immediately give us two reasons to lean back.

Then something changed.

They started winning.

And winning.

And winning some more.

By the time Saturday's loss arrived, the Red Sox had won 32 of their previous 37 games.

Thirty-two!

I mean, come on.

You're allowed to lose eventually.

You're even allowed to lose two in a row.

What they can't do is turn two into six.

That's the difference now.

Earlier this season, a loss felt like the beginning of something. One bad game became three bad games. A bad series became a bad week. We'd start wondering whether another collapse was coming.

Now we'll find out whether this team has actually grown beyond that.

They're headed to Toronto next. No time to sulk about losing a series to Oakland.

Go win two out of three.

That's the assignment.

Not sweep.

Not start another nine-game winning streak.

Not make some dramatic statement to the rest of the American League.

Just win the series.

Then move on.

I actually think that's how we should watch the rest of this season, too.

Three games at a time.

Baseball gets dangerous when you start staring too far ahead. You look at the schedule and start penciling in wins and losses. You start figuring out playoff matchups. You start wondering who should pitch Game 1 of a Wild Card series.

And then the Athletics come into Fenway and beat you twice.

That's baseball.

The Red Sox don't need to dominate the final 45 games the way they've dominated the last month-plus. In fact, expecting that would be ridiculous. Nobody keeps playing at that pace forever.

They just need to avoid the massive valleys that defined so much of the first half.

Win two out of three more often than you lose two out of three.

Split the four-game series when you're not playing well.

Beat the teams you're supposed to beat.

Steal a series against somebody better.

Don't let three losses become seven.

That's a playoff formula.

And then?

Get in.

That's where my expectations have changed the most.

A month ago, I wanted evidence that this season was worth saving.

Now I'm not particularly concerned with what kind of playoff team they would be.

I don't care if they're the best team in the American League.

I don't care if they're the fourth-best.

Or fifth-best.

Just get in.

Because we've all watched enough baseball to know what October does to logic.

The 162-game season tells you who the best teams are over six months.

The postseason asks a completely different question.

Who's hot right now?

Who gets a great start?

Who hits the three-run homer?

Whose bullpen survives?

Who gets the weird bounce off the wall?

Who suddenly has some 24-year-old nobody was talking about in May turn into the most important player on the field?

And if there's one thing this Red Sox team has proven, it's that they're capable of getting absurdly hot.

They've won 15 straight once.

They won nine straight after that.

I don't need a third version of it in August.

Save the next one for October.

For now, what I want is consistency. Which is funny, because consistency might be the last word any of us would've used to describe this team earlier in the season.

But here we are.

The two losses to Oakland are annoying. Sunday's might be particularly annoying because Boston carried a 3-2 lead before the A’s rallied late and won 4-3.

Fine.

Flush it.

Go to Toronto.

Win the series.

Come home.

Win another one.

Keep stacking them until somebody looks up in late September and realizes Boston has secured a playoff spot.

Then all bets are off.

Because after everything we've watched this season—the awful stretches, the questions, the frustration, the 15 straight wins, the second nine-game streak, the sudden transformation from a team we were ready to write off into one nobody particularly wants to play—I've reached a very different place.

I don't need to know how this story ends anymore.

I just want them to make sure it gets to October.

Get through the door.

Then see what happens.

With this team?

I'm done pretending I have any idea.

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