The Red Sox have won 5 straight games. That is their longest streak in almost 2 months. But when you quickly scan the headlines, the stories that have recently been written about this team have not simply been speaking of the sheer fact that the Sox have achieved this feat. No, for the past week or so Red Sox fans have spent more time out of their seats than they have in it.
Why? Because in the last 4 of these mega wins, Boston hitting has combined for 54 runs.
In 5 games they have ripped apart the Tigers, and Yankees respectively breaking down records, setting milestones and making our throats burn from celebrating. They have upped their chance of making the playoffs to 99.9% and seem to have the division on lock-down. With a 9 and a half game lead on the Rays in the pennant race, one would think that the Sox have been playing like this all year long but in truth all this success started only a mere 4 days ago in Fenway.
In what could easily be dubbed the game of the year, the Red Sox took it to the Detroit Tigers in the rubber match of their 3 game set that could possibly turn out to be an ALCS preview. They notched 19 hits, ripping 20 runs, 8 long balls all with the 2000th hit of David Ortiz mixed in there. The 20 run output was their largest of the season.
"It was one of those days," said Daniel Nava, who was one of the Red Sox players to hit a home run. "I think we know we're a good team and they're a good team, too. But everything fell. Balls that may have stayed in the park didn't stay in the park."
Of those 8 homers, David Ortiz was responsible for 2 of them. Both of them went straight out to center and right field.
"The Green Monster's one thing," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "But right field, you normally don't see them going out like that. But they were going out like ping-pong balls."
As for Ortiz's 2000th hit, it didn't miss a homer by much as it violently carried off the center field wall without hitting the ground.
"Great to see the reception and the ovation that he received, and rightly so," John Farrell said.
It was spectacular to see what the Sox did on Wednesday night but what is even more impressive is the fact that one night later they put up a similarly impressive 9 runs against a surging Yankees pitching staff. Will Middlebrooks rammed his second homer in as many days as Shane Victorino crushed a powerful dingier of his own to raise Boston's 2 game long ball total to 10. Boston scored 3 runs in the 3rd 4th and 5th innings before erasing a 6 run 7th inning by the Yankees on their way to winning 9-8 in 10 innings.
"It is," said Drew. "We had to come back. It's one of those things. They battled back, put some good ABs together. Timely hitting just like we did at the start of the game. It was a battle. It was a big game for us to win. It definitely would have hurt us. We're up 7-2 I think, 7-3, somewhere in there. It's a good feeling to get this win."
But even there, the onslaught was not complete as in game two of this Yankees sires, the Sox returned to double digit scoring with a 12-8 win. Middlebrooks homered in his 3rd straight game while Victorino and Mike Napoli crushed homers of their own to vanquish the Yanks and hand starter Andy Pettite the loss. In addition, that victory put Koji Uehara's perfect streak at 24 straight batters retired. But when you look at this win, the best part about it was Mike Napoli's game tying grand slam in the 7th inning.
With his team down 4 as the game began to dwindle, Mike Napoli came to the plate looking for his 3rd slam of the year. Fighting deep into the count, Napoli found a pitch he liked and drove a spike in the Yankees homes tying the game and setting the stage for Victorino to tie the contest 1 inning later.
"We were down five runs in the seventh inning," Napoli said. "To come back on this stage, and they're fighting [for a postseason berth], it's a big series. Every game for us is big for us. To come back to tie the game, it was a big moment in the game."
By this point the Sox had compiled 50 hits in 3 games as well as hitting 13 homers in that span. The Sox were on fire and while the Yankees knew that a metaphorical bucket of water would be helpful, they didn't get it before the Sox took it to them again on Saturday afternoon. As they looked for the win in the series, Boston clubbed 3 more homers 13 additional runs and 14 more hits as the Sox mopped up their rivals for the 3rd straight day.
---- Read about Boston's 13-9 victory here ----
Just think about it for a second. 54 runs, 64 hits, 16 home runs and 5 consecutive victories. In this span Boston has averaged 13.5 runs, 16 hits and 4 home runs per game. That is good enough to be officially dubbed the most explosive 4 game offensive stretch in Red Sox history.
Boston leads the majors in run scored with 754 and has recently distanced themselves from 2nd place team Detroit who now has just 726. Also, as if to further credit this spectacular stretch, the lowly Houston Astros have scored just 31 runs (23 fewer than the Sox) in their last TEN games.
It is spectacular what Boston has done, hitting more RBI's in this span than any-other MLB team this season or any-other Red Sox team in their 105 year history. It is crazy but in truth when you look at the names on this team as well as the collection of numbers that they have put forth now is the time that it finally begins to dawn on you. Wins like these are the kind that turns teams from being run of the mill "contenders" to being a full-fledged World Series favorite...and the Boston Red Sox are no different.
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