Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas is batting .348, with a .444 on-base percentage and .783 slugging percentage in July. His emergences is one of the reasons Boston should be thinking about adding pieces for 2024. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
The Boston Red Sox have two home games remaining this month. The Atlanta Braves, the team with the best record in the major leagues, roll into Fenway Park for two games beginning Tuesday night. Then it’s back to the West Coast to open up a six-game road trip that will take the Sox into August.
It was also take them past Major League Baseball’s trade deadline. For the second straight year the Sox find themselves hovering on the edge of the wild-card race, above .500 but below the expectations most fans have for a premier franchise.
It’s been a good run for the Red Sox. After taking two of three from the New York Mets over the weekend they are 20-12 in their last 32 games. That’s the best record in the American League since June 14.
That’s a month-and-a-half of winning baseball. Much of it has come against teams with losing records, but the stretch has also featured series wins over the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Rangers.
The Mets fall into the sub-.500 category. They entered the season with a high payroll and higher expectations, but have been disappointing fans since they lost seven of nine to start the month of May. Thousands of fans wearing blue shirts arrived at Fenway hoping the Mets were finally ready to live up to their potential, but left Boston with more disappointment.
It certainly seemed like they were two teams headed in opposite directions. Both have a week to decide how to best utilize the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
It’s unlikely Boston’s recent success will lead to President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom going all in on this year’s club. He won’t be trading away any top prospects to get a rental for the remaining two months.
It could mean he doesn’t go all in on blowing it up, either. This team has shown that it has the potential to grab a spot in the postseason. And they’re doing it with young players leading the way.
The weekend at Fenway had a lot of fans feeling good about the future. On Saturday, Triston Casas became the first rookie ever to hit multiple home runs off Max Scherzer. Just 23 years old, Casas has seen his OPS increase each of the last four months.
The Red Sox demoted Jarren Duran last August. This season he has become a dynamic force, which bodes well for the future in Boston. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
Jarren Duran, 26, led off with a homer of his own. Later he stole a base and kept running to third as the rushed thrown sailed into the outfield, and scored on a ground-ball out. All of this happened on the one-year anniversary of the inside-the-park grand slam from Raimel Tapia that sailed over the head of a seemingly disoriented and disinterested Duran. By the end of August he was back in the minors. Now he’s one of the most dynamic players in the big leagues.
On Sunday, Connor Wong, 27, had three hits to help lead the Sox to a series win. He entered this year with 25 big-league games behind the plate. Now he’s settled in as the team’s everyday catcher, and has caught the sixth-most innings of any AL catcher.
Bloom and company undoubtedly know that the future is finally taking shape, and it’s built on a foundation of young players. Trevor Story spent the weekend in Portland rehabbing and could be back with the big club soon. We got a glimpse of how his power plays at Fenway last season when he hit 12 homers and posted an .841 OPS in 45 home games. The future is no longer years away. It could be weeks.
Yet Bloom also knows there isn’t enough starting pitching to make this team a championship-caliber team. And the current roster won’t have enough next year either. He’ll need to go out and add pitching, now or in the offseason.
Anything he does at the deadline should be done with an eye toward improving the 2024 team. If he can add a pitcher under contract next season he should do it. But adding a rental player who is closing in on free agency will only cost him prospects that could be a part of what Theo Epstein used to call “the next great Red Sox team.”
The Red Sox dug themselves a massive hole with their inconsistent play in the first half of the season. They have played much better over the last two months. They are trending in the right direction … but the payoff of that trend might be a year away.
Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.
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