Boston’s August Run Has Become Must-Watch Baseball
This content was produced in partnership with covers.com.
A few weeks ago, a mid-August Red Sox road trip might have been easy to ignore. Now every game carries a little extra weight. Boston has turned the season into appointment viewing again, and with Toronto next up, there is plenty left to argue about over a beer.
Boston has spent the past six weeks turning a decent season into something much more interesting. The Red Sox have won 27 of their last 32 games, put together separate winning streaks of 15 and nine games, and climbed to 64-53. Two losses to Oakland have slowed things down, but a four-game series in Toronto now gives us a better idea of whether this run still has legs.
Boston Keeps Finding Different Ways to Win
The 12-11 win over the White Sox on Thursday was about as untidy as baseball gets. Boston fell behind five separate times and still found a way through after 13 innings. The game lasted 4 hours, 23 minutes, produced 29 hits and included nine runs after the ninth inning. Boston had already trailed 4-0, then 5-2, before the score kept moving again.
The comeback was rescued in the ninth when Wilyer Abreu came up with two outs and two strikes and drove in the tying run. From there, both sides kept answering until Boston finally ended it in the 13th.
A winning run can include easy nights, but this one has also required Boston to stay in games that could have disappeared several innings earlier.
Payton Tolle Adds Another Number to the Run
Payton Tolle gave Boston a very different kind of win against Oakland. He struck out a career-high 14 batters across six innings in a 13-1 victory, allowing two hits and one run as his record moved to 7-6.
That performance gave the Red Sox something they did not need in the 13-inning Chicago game: breathing room. Fourteen strikeouts also gave fans another number to attach to a stretch already full of them, and it showed that the recent results have come from more than late rallies and heavy scoring.
The Betting Numbers Have Their Own Schedule
Sportsbooks add another set of numbers to a busy August schedule. FanDuel’s current new-customer promotion runs across five consecutive days, with a minimum $5 wager each day earning a Bet Reset Token for a later wager of up to $200. Covers lays out the overview here, including the daily qualification rules, the maximum $1,000 in potential Bonus Bets and the seven-day expiry attached to issued Bonus Bets.
The two wagers have different jobs. The first is the daily qualifying wager that earns the token; the token can then be attached to another wager worth between $1 and $200. A losing token-backed wager returns the stake as a Bonus Bet, capped at $200 for that token. Across five qualifying days, that creates the $1,000 maximum.
There is one extra detail worth keeping straight: the Bonus Bet is only returned when the token-backed wager loses. Winning bets pay out normally, so the promotion is really about getting another chance after a losing wager rather than simply collecting $1,000 for completing five qualifying days.
The Standings Show What the Streak Has Changed
Boston enters Monday at 64-53, a .547 winning percentage, with 523 runs scored against 439 allowed. That leaves the Red Sox with a +84 run differential and seven games between them and Tampa Bay in the American League standings.
The road record is worth keeping handy with Boston leaving town again: 35-22 away compared with 29-31 at home. The Red Sox are also 30-25 against clubs playing .500 baseball or better. Those season-long numbers give the recent run some useful context: Boston has done enough damage during these six weeks to put itself firmly into the August race.
The timing of the Toronto series makes it a useful test. Boston has won 27 of 32, but the two Oakland defeats were its first consecutive losses since June 30 and July 1. Before that came the 15-game winning streak from July 3 through July 22, followed later by another nine straight wins.
Sonny Gray gets the opener with a 14-2 record and 2.78 ERA. Toronto arrives after going 4-3 on a seven-game road trip, with four of those games reaching extra innings.
Boston now starts its own seven-game trip with four in Toronto, so there is no long break after Oakland. The next answer comes quickly.
August Still Has Plenty Left to Say
Two losses do not wipe away 27 wins in 32 games, but they do give Boston something new to respond to. The Red Sox have spent most of the summer piling up wins in very different ways. Toronto now gets the next look at a team that has made August baseball in New England considerably more interesting.
If you or anyone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER.
