And then there were two. After a 6-5 walk-off win in Game 4 of the American League Division Series over the defending-AL champion Tampa Bay Rays, the Boston Red Sox advanced to the American League Championship Series. They will now face the Houston Astros, who steamrolled the Chicago White Sox in four games.
Following their historic 2018 World Series championship season, the Red Sox slogged through a middling 2019 campaign in which they scored more runs than they had in any individual season since 2005, but suffered decimating injuries to their starting pitching, including ace Chris Sale’s elbow, which would require Tommy John surgery in the offseason.
Overburdened by baseball’s largest payroll of over $220 million, the team faced a difficult future heading into 2020. 2018 AL Most Valuable Player Mookie Betts, widely considered to be the franchise’s best homegrown superstar since Ted Williams, rejected multiple offers to sign a long-term extension and had but one year left on his rookie contract.
New Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom made the enormously controversial and unpopular decision to trade Betts along with starting pitcher David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers for outfielder Alex Verdugo, minor league infielder Jeter Downs, and minor league catcher Connor Wong.
Fresh off losing their best player (and manager Alex Cora for his involvement in the 2017 Astros sign-stealing scandal), the 2020 Red Sox were expected to be bad, and they were. Despite a pandemic-induced labor dispute between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association, a shortened, 60-game 2020 season was played. They finished 24-36.
Going into 2021, the Red Sox were expected to have a mediocre season at best. However, with Cora back at the helm, they considerably outperformed expectations. Despite losing the first three games of the season at home to the eventual 110 game-losing Baltimore Orioles, they followed up that skid with a nine game winning-streak, and slugged their way to the top of the AL East, driven particularly by 2018 holdovers Xander Bogerts, Rafael Devers, and J.D. Martinez.
Although the Red Sox fell out of contention to win the division in early August, and suffered several losing streaks in the final three months, they rebounded in the regular season’s final weekend to sweep the lowly Washington Nationals and clinch home-field advantage against their longtime rivals, the New York Yankees, in the AL Wild Card Game.
After losing three games just over a week prior to the Bronx Bombers, many questioned whether starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi could match $324 million Yankees ace Gerrit Cole. Eovaldi silenced the doubters, striking out eight and allowing just four hits and one run over 5⅓ innings. Cole, meanwhile, allowed home runs to Bogaerts and Kyle Schwarber and was chased after just 2+ innings.
However, it was not easy, as the Yankees threatened in the sixth inning. Former Red Sox prospect and longtime Chicago Cubs first-baseman Anthony Rizzo homered around the Pesky Pole in right field, and right-fielder Aaron Judge reached on an infield single.
And although Giancarlo Stanton hit a missile to left-center field off of Sox reliever Ryan Brasier, it caromed directly off the Green Monster to center-fielder Kike Hernandez who, per a Bogaerts relay throw, nabbed Judge at home plate to end the threat. Yankees third-base coach Phil Nevin was raked over the coals by Yankees fans for his decision to send Judge.
The Red Sox won 6-2, cementing 21st-century playoff dominance against the Yankees that started with their historic comeback from down 0-3 to win the 2004 ALCS.
They would go on to face the Tampa Bay Rays, who claimed the AL’s best record with 100 wins. Although they lost the first game 5-0 and were down 5-2 in the first inning of the second, the Sox stormed back, hitting a franchise-record five home runs in one playoff game, winning 14-6. Rookie phenom Tanner Houck heroically stopped the bleeding after Sale’s meltdown, allowing just one run in five relief innings.
And once back at Fenway Park, the bats did not cool down. The Red Sox walked off back to back wins in games three and four, and although they were aided by a bizarre play and questionable wording of the rules late in game three, they rode dominant pitching by Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, Eduardo Rodriguez, and rule-5 draft selection Garrett Whitlock to eliminate Tampa Bay and advance to the ALCS, where we now stand.