Boston Red Sox News and Notes: The Second Half Gets Underway

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The Boston Red Sox had a successful first half of the season and ended up doing much better than many analysts and fans expected. Going into the All-Star break, their record was 55-36, and they led the American League East division. Their first series back after the break was against the New York Yankees, which they had not yet lost to this season.

Boston started the series off by shutting out the Yankees 4-0 in the first game. The second game began with an hour-long rain delay despite there being no rain. However, the rain started falling in the early innings, and only got harder as the game went on. The rain – which turned into a downpour – caused the game to be called after the top of the seventh inning. Several questionable calls from the umpires that favored the Yankees contributed to the Red Sox losing 3-1. They also lost the third game in the series 9-1 the following night.

As fans have seen several other times this season, the Red Sox can bounce back from their losing streaks. At the very beginning of the season, they lost their first three games to the Baltimore Orioles and then won the next nine. This also happened later when the Red Sox lost three games to the Houston Astros, then won the next five games including three in a row against the Yankees. Further, into the season, they won eight games in a row after a walk-off 1-0 loss against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Similarly, following their two recent losses to the Yankees, the Red Sox scored eight runs in the first inning of their next game against the Toronto Blue Jays. During the first inning, Hunter Renfroe hit a grand slam and Jarren Duran, who was recently called up from the Worcester Woo Sox, hit his first major league home run. Throughout the rest of the game, Kiké Hernández hit two home runs, Danny Santana and Rafael Devers each had one home run, and J.D. Martinez had four hits.

Duran made his MLB debut against the Yankees in the second game of the series. In his first at-bat, he faced Gerrit Cole and got a hit off the first pitch of his major league career. He was able to score from second off a double by Christian Arroyo, reaching a speed of 29.3 feet per second as he ran home. Alex Cora knew his speed would be an asset to the team after he reportedly saw him get a hit in a minor league game and reach first base in four seconds.

If the rest of the season is anything like the first half for the Boston Red Sox, the team should only get stronger as they play more games. Although it is not fun for Red Sox fans to see their team lose, they can take comfort in knowing that the Red Sox are a resilient team.