The Longest Way to Get to New York
The Red Sox played their 162nd game Sunday against the Cubs in Tampa.
Read that sentence again: Boston. Chicago. Tampa.
A nor’easter chased the season finale out of Fenway and into Tropicana Field, which feels like an appropriate last bit of nonsense from a season that has refused to follow a normal route anywhere. The result didn’t change Boston’s next destination. I won't even mention what happened. Irrelevant.
The Red Sox have the American League’s fifth seed, and on Tuesday they’ll open a best-of-three series at Yankee Stadium.
So while they finish the schedule under somebody else’s roof, I keep coming back to a question that ought to be easy.
How did we get here?
I know the dates. I’ve watched the games. I could put the wins and losses in a neat little row and pretend the row explains something. But I don’t think that’s how any of us experienced this season. There were stretches when checking the score felt like an obligation you’d forgotten to cancel. Then there were weeks when you arranged your evening around the first pitch and got annoyed if somebody called during the sixth inning.
Both versions were real. Somehow they belonged to the same team.
Boston opened 2-8. Alex Cora was gone before April ended, with Chad Tracy taking over a club that was 10-17. By the time the Sox had lost 46 of their first 78 games, I wasn’t studying the wild-card standings. I was wondering how long it would take before we started talking about next year’s roster. That wasn’t giving up too soon. At 32-46, the evidence was fairly persuasive.
And then came the Yankees.
I’d love to say I saw the four-game sweep at Fenway in late June as the beginning of something historic. I didn’t. I saw four enjoyable days against New York. That was plenty at the time. When you’ve spent months watching a team dig itself into a hole, you don’t assume every good weekend comes with a ladder.
July changed the calculation. The Sox won 15 straight, matching the franchise record. After that streak ended, they found another nine-game run. From June 25 through August 7, they went 32-5. I’m putting those numbers here because otherwise I might convince myself I imagined the whole thing.
The strange part was how quickly my expectations caught up. A month earlier, I wanted a game worth watching in the seventh inning. Suddenly a one-run loss felt like an offense against the entire summer. I had gone from hoping they might get back to .500 to being irritated when they failed to gain ground on a Tuesday.
Maybe that’s how you know a season has turned. You start caring enough to be unreasonable again.
The turnaround didn’t erase the early months, though. It gave them a place in the story. I can still picture those awful spring games when nothing seemed to carry from one night to the next. A good start was wasted. A rally came an inning too late. The team looked as if everyone had received different instructions. Watching them recover from that made the summer more satisfying than a smooth march to October would have been.
It also made them harder to trust. I think that’s fair to admit.
Even after the playoff spot was clinched, the offense went quiet again. The Sox scored three runs or fewer in five straight games before Friday’s 4-3 win over the Cubs. Roman Anthony had three hits in that game, including two doubles and a triple, and Connor Wong delivered the go-ahead hit. It was a welcome sight. It was one afternoon. Both things can be true.
I’m happy they made it. Absolutely. On September 20, Boston secured its postseason berth after losing to Tampa Bay, because Atlanta beat Houston later that day. Mike Yastrzemski, Carl’s grandson, hit the three-run homer that put the Braves ahead. If somebody had pitched that sequence as the ending to a Red Sox movie, I would’ve asked them to dial it back a little.
Still, it happened. The Sox earned a chance to keep playing, even if the final bit of arithmetic came from another ballpark. A team that looked finished in June gave us baseball to care about in October. I can appreciate that without checking the small print.
Can I be satisfied with it? Ask me after the Yankees series.
That probably sounds unfair. The players have already done something remarkable. Tracy helped steer them through a season that could have come apart entirely. The lineup found life, the pitching kept them in the race, and young players contributed when Boston needed them. They didn’t owe us this trip to New York back in June.
But wanting them to win two more games doesn’t take away from any of that. It’s what their comeback has made possible. Getting here matters. Beating the Yankees would matter too, and there’s no reason to pretend we’re equally content with either outcome.
Last October, Boston won the opener in the Bronx and then lost the three-game Wild Card Series. This year’s regular-season series gives us about as much certainty as a coin toss: New York won seven of the 13 meetings. The Sox swept four at Fenway in June; the Yankees took three of four in late August. Choose the set of games that supports your prediction, and somebody can find another set that ruins it.
That August series is hard to forget. I wish it weren’t. A few weeks after I’d started imagining what this team could do in a playoff race, New York reminded me just how ugly a bad game can get. Boston still reached October. Now it has to go back to the same ballpark and play well enough to leave with the series.
Can we gauge what comes next? A little, perhaps. Boston has starters capable of giving it a chance. Anthony’s return gives the offense another dangerous bat. New York has talent throughout its roster, regardless of whether Aaron Judge can play through his calf injury.
Beyond that, I’m wary of predictions made too confidently. We’ve just spent six months watching the Sox become a different team, then occasionally resemble the old one for a few innings. The first game in New York could turn on a starter locating one pitch, a runner taking an extra base, or a reliever getting out of a mess with two men on. Anybody who tells me they know exactly how it ends ought to be checked for a head injury.
What I’d like to see is fairly simple. Make the Yankees work for their outs. Give the starters room to pitch. Catch the ball. If the game gets tense, stay in it long enough to make New York feel some of that tension too.
Perhaps I’m setting the bar low. After this season, I’m comfortable starting there.
The Red Sox and Cubs played one last regular-season game in St. Petersburg and now Boston prepares for an, arguably, unnecessary flight north - two days before the playoffs.
Sidenote: The Yankees decided to cancel game 162 on their schedule due to the same nor'easter. Meaningful? Who knows?
Yes, I watched the game. After everything that happened this year I couldn’t quite skip the ending of the regular-season chapter. I wanted to see the final out and sit with the fact that this team made it.
Now I’ll start worrying about Tuesday.
I’m grateful for the comeback. I’m still a little astonished by it. And when the Red Sox take the field in the Bronx, I’m going to want more. The season has given me that much of my old appetite back.
Written by: Tim Hourihan
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