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BOSTON – The Red Sox set a club record by winning 108 regular season games. They put an end to any serious discussion on a divisional flag race in early August and demonstrated a consistent approach from their new director, Alex Cora, who had not been seen in Boston for several years.
So why did their entire season seem to be in the balance in the last four rounds of the first game of their series against the Yankees on Friday night?
Although the Red Sox have created an air of invincibility in 2018, a weakness persists: their enclosure. Most teams, even the most successful, have a flaw that seems to withstand a quick fix.
When this flaw occurs in a field as vital as the corrector – especially in contemporary baseball, where relief players are used virtually every game of the season – this can be discouraging, to the point that it seems difficult to see the Red Sox win all this in October without much more anxious moments like the one on Friday.
"They found themselves in tough situations tonight," Boston player Andrew Benintendi said of his team's substitutes after the Red Sox were nervous. a 5-4 victory over the Yankees. "But I think the positive thing you will remember is that they managed to get by, for the most part."
As he noted, "It could have been a lot worse."
The Boston market has been a source of concern for Red Sox fans for a good part of the season. On Friday, he nearly cost the team a lot of money after taking a five-run lead and initially protected him behind a strong performance from starting pitcher Chris Sale. .
Dirty left a goal in the sixth inning, while Boston was still on the rise, 5-0, and two Yankees at the base. By the time Boston finished the match final, he used a reliever after the other and even summoned another starting pitcher, Rick Porcello, to get two outs in the eighth.
Cora may not have had to call Porcello if Steven Wright, a relief pitcher and knuckleballer, had been available on Friday night. Wright had some success in the pen at the end of the regular season, but he was chronically injured in the knee and he broke out before the first match, making him unavailable.
So Cora abandoned Plans A and B for the first game and moved on to what he called Plan C and a half, informing Porcello, who was scheduled to start the third game on Monday in the Bronx, for immediately available in the poster.
So it was in the courtyard that Porcello spent the night on Friday. When the phone rang so that it began to heat up in the seventh inning, his reaction was exhilarating.
"Really," he said with a nod. "That's what I said."
Nevertheless, Porcello recorded the first two outs at the top of eighth place before passing the relay to Craig Kimbrel, the closest reliable Boston, for a stop of four outings. But even Kimbrel added to Boston's anxiety when he gave a go-around to Aaron Judge in ninth place, making it a one-game match.
Meanwhile, Boston used a succession series on Friday night that barely did the job. Ryan Brasier allowed two legged runners to score. Brandon Workman, who spent time in AAA class during the season, replaced Brasier and quickly drove Gary Sanchez to four bases to charge the bases.
"Honestly, none of them was even close," Workman said. But he pitched the main pitch of the evening, a dipping 3-2 curving ball that hit Gleyber Torres with the bases loaded after the Yankees reduced their lead to 5-2.
Three of Boston's top five relief throwers in the first game – Brasier, Workman and Matt Barnes – recorded five outs with three hits and three walks and two crazy shots. All the Yankees have understood the message: enter the Red Sox's register as soon as possible for every remaining match of this best-of-five series.
"You want to affect this plan as best we can," said the judge. "It's a five-game series, and if we can exhaust them and force them to use that marker earlier, that's a good thing."
Boston's problem is that Sale has had a shoulder injury for a good part of the last two months of the season and the Red Sox have to watch his account. Friday, he was released after 93 shots.
Dave Dombrowski had assembled the 2012 Tigers Bureau and was criticized for his alleged failure to resolve the larger role, which, in the opinion of many, cost the Tigers the World Series that year. Now, Dombrowski is the president of the Red Sox's baseball operations and, although many people see similar shortcomings in the Boston registry, this is not a statistical disaster this year.
Kimbrel recorded 42 saves on 47 opportunities for a savings rate of 89.4%, which is good but not exceptional. Central Boston had 16 losses, the least in baseball, but the Red Sox also lost the least in baseball.
The bulls allowed 32% of legacy runners to score, which is a tick above the league average of 31%. Similarly, their 20 saves were two better than the league average.
But will the average be enough to win in October against the best baseball formations? Again, maybe the Boston rescuers were rusty Friday after four days of layoff.
"I think we're the guys for the job," said Workman.
Sandy Leon, the catcher for the 89 Boston bullets on Friday, said the team was confident in the book, citing perhaps the most important statistic of all.
"We were the best baseball team in the regular season," he said, "with our paddock".
Billy Witz contributed to the reports.
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