North Arctic Run Down

 

Matt Rutherford is now north of Svalbard, all the way up at latitude 80° 58' N. He's going to try and reach 82°, but he needs to advance some 80 miles further east before the polar ice cap allows him that far north. 

After rounding Svalbard, he will head back south across the Barents Sea toward Russia. It's unclear whether he intends to cross over the northern tip of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago (or if that's even possible with the ice), or sail closer to the Russian mainland south of the islands.

Tamara Klink has been harbored in Nome for the past week. She hasn't said if she's just enjoying the Alaskan hospitality, or repairing something on her ship, or waiting for the ice to clean on whichever arctic route she intends to take home to Brazil - an eastward passage over Canada through the Northwest passage or a westward passage over Russia through the Northeast Passage.

Ella Hibbert is still counting the days in Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea before she's cleared to sail in Russian water through the Northeast Passage.        

Red Sox 4, A's 2

 

Trailing by one run, Conner Wong doubled to open up the sixth inning. Yoshida and Seigler both grounded out, advancing Wong to third but, well, two outs. A's starting pitcher Jack Perkins walked Contreras and was replaced by reliever José Suarez, who walked Abreu. Bases loaded, two outs.

Ceddanne Rafaela comes to the plate. He doesn't swing at a changeup or a fastball, 0-2, and then Suarez throws an 82-mph slider right across the plate.

Grand-slam home run, Rafaela's first, 402 feet into deep left center. The game-winning hit and Boston's only score of the game, but the Sox take the lead and win the game, 4-2.

But wait a minute. Did I say Seigler back there? What was he even doing in the game? New-guy Curtis Mead started at second, but in his second at-bat, A's starter Jack Perkins hit Mead in the hand with a pitch. Mead left the game in obvious pain and the extent of his injury is not yet known. Fuck Perkins, fuck the A's, and fuck Sacramento, California. 

Red Sox starting pitcher Payton Tolle went 5⅓ innings, striking out seven but giving up two runs on two solo homers. The bullpen was perfect - no runs, no hits, no walks - until Chapman gave up a bullshit little single to start the ninth, but he struck out the next three batters to end the inning and win the game.

Everyone in the AL East won their game today, so the Red Sox (55-50) are still seven games back from Tampa Bay in the division and 4½ back from the Yankees in both the AL East and the Wild Card standings. Three of the six teams currently eligible for the playoffs in the American League are from the AL East, just saying.

Big Jake Bennett (6-3, 2.58) starts for the Sox tonight. The rookie hasn't pitched in Sacramento yet and hasn't faced the A's before, so he should be padding his stats with a win tonight (9:40). The A's will counter a rookie named Gage Jump (if an action movie starred a character named "Gage Jump," it would get changed to something more believable), who's 3-6 and has a 4.42 ERA.  

The Red Sox, 8-2 in the last 10 games and still officially the hottest team in MLB, are on a two-game win streak, with three more games to go against the A's. With the Dodgers on the horizon, I don't see another 15-run streak in the immediate future, but it Mead's injury isn't severe, anything's still possible.

Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 1

 

The Red Sox (8-2 in their last ten starts and still the hottest team in baseball right now) end their historic home stand with a W and win the series against the Toronto Blue Jays, two games to one.

Yesterday, the Sox won, 6-1, without any home runs or grandstanding heroics but with a relentless series of RBI base hits and a solid bullpen. Suarez, coming off the IL, had a deliberately short outing, throwing only 64 pitches over four innings but still racking up six strikeouts and not allowing any runs. 

The third-place Red Sox are 7½ games back from first-place Tampa Bay. The Yankees got blown out, 11-4, by Philly yesterday, so Boston now trails New York by 4½ in both the AL East and the Wild Card standings, where the Sox still hold the second berth.   

The Red Sox begin a West Coast road trip with four games in Sacramento (sure, why not?) against the A's (44-61). Tolle (5-6, 3.31) pitches the first game tonight (9:40). He faced the A's twice last season, starting one and relieving in the other, both without a decision. However, he lasted only two innings in his last start in, um, Sacramento, giving up two homers, but the Boston batters bailed him out and Chapman wound up taking the loss. Hey, it was Tolle's third MLB appearance, gimme a break. The A's will start Jack Perkins (2-5, 6.75). This won't end well for Jack. 

A sweep of the A's would be nice, because next the Sox play three in L.A. against Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and the Dodgers (67-39). A sweep of the A's and winning at least one against the Dodgers would result in a 5-2 road  trip, and I'd be happy with that outcome.

Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 0

 

Toronto's Dylan Cease went all nine innings, gave up only one hit and no runs, and struck out a dozen. The Red Sox didn't stand a chance. The Jays won, 6-0.

Boston (53-50) is still in third place in the AL East and still holds the second Wild Card spot, and can still win the home series against Toronto with a victory today. 

But not with young Connelly Early. Yesterday, the Sox traded the injured lefty (and SDW favorite) to Washington for third baseman Curtis Mead (.254). The Sox had plenty of lefties on their roster but needed more hitting, as yesterday's game showed, so the deal makes sense. Third baseman Caleb Durbin is batting .233, but several of his 10 home runs have been in clutch situations, and I hope Boston's long-term plans are to keep both third basement aboard.  

Ranger Saurez (4-3, 3.15) is finally being reactivated from the IL to start today. He's been out since July 9 with a groin pull. Ranger's a lifetime 2-0 against the Jays, and last year, in his last start against Toronto, went seven complete shutout innings, striking out six.  

The Jays will start Kevin Gausman (4-9, 4.51), who's a career 8-11 against Boston.  He last started against Boston back last September, when the Sox tagged him for four earned runs.  

Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 4

 

Last night, Anthony Seigler went 4-of-5 at bat, including a leadoff home run in the first inning and an RBI double in the eighth. He hit a single in the third and then Rafaela brought him home with a homer to deep left center. A Monasterio sac fly brought Yoshida home from third in the sixth to make the score 4-0 before Toronto even scored their first run. 

Back on February 9, the Red Sox got Seigler, Monasterio, Durbin, and a draft pick from the Milwaukee Brewers for Kyle Harrison, David Hamilton, and Shane Drohan. I think it's now safe to say Boston came out ahead in that deal. Boston is 24-14 since Seigler's June 4 MLB debut in a Red Sox uniform, which along with Durbin and Monasterio's contributions, may account for the Sox' midseason turnaround as much as anything. Also, Seigler is the second Navajo to ever play in MLB, as if there weren't already reasons to cheer for him.

The 15-game streak now in the record books, the Sox are back to winning again. Last night, the Jays challenged Boston's 4-0, sixth-inning lead, scoring three in the seventh and another in the eighth. But rather than give up and collapse like the first-half Red Sox might have, the new, improved team came back in the bottom of the eighth. Gonzalez doubled to left field, scoring Durran, and then Seigler hit his RBI  double to bring Gonzalez home. The Sox won, 6-4.

In only his third start since 2024, Patrick Sandoval went 4⅔ shutout innings, striking out three and giving up five base hits. Weissert and Whitlock gave up the Blue Jay runs in the seventh and eighth, but Guerrero was perfect in the sixth and Chapman gave up a walk in the ninth because of course he did, but also ended the game with a Toronto K.

Boston (53-49) is now 6½ games back from first place Tampa Bay and 4½ back from New York. With last night's win, they move up in the Wild Card standings and now control the second berth, a half game ahead of Cleveland.    

Tonight, both teams will throw their pitching aces onto the mound. The Red Sox will start their 20-win contender, Sonny Gray (12-1, 2.48), and the Jays will start Dylan Cease (6-5, 2.67). In his last start against Toronto, Gray went seven innings and gave up three runs in a 4-3 defeat, although Chapman took the loss, while Cease last went five innings in a 6-1 Jays win, so the Sox have their work cut out for them.

Meanwhile, Down in Philly

 

Life just got a whole lot harder in the NBA's Atlantic Division. 

The Knicks won the NBA Finals in five, and marched undefeated through the playoffs before that single-loss series. They're now officially a power to be reckoned with in the division, the conference, and the whole NBA.

To further the agony, the Sixers, who last season came back from a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Celtics from the first round of the playoffs in seven, still have Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe to support their championship hopes. Then to add insult to injury, they acquired Jaylen Brown from Boston, breaking the heart of many a Celtics fan. And today, it was announced that they won the bidding war and will sign LeBron James to a two-year contract.  

Sure, James is now 41 and his best playing days are behind him. But he's still the league’s all-time leading scorer, a four-time NBA champion, and four-time MVP. His basketball knowledge, combined with Embiid's shooting, Brown's athleticism, and Maxey and Edgecombe's skills, are going to be a challenge for the Celtics, the Knicks, and any other NBA team playing them. 

But at least we picked up Paul George, lol.

Meanwhile, Up In the Arctic

 

With the Red Sox off last night, our attention naturally turns once again to the Arctic Ocean. 

Elle Hibbert is still on St. Paul Island (57° N) in the Bering Sea. She took her ship, the Yeva, on its first test run and everything checked out fine. Now it's just a waiting game for the weather and the Russian authorities to align so she can make her trip through the Northeast Passage over Asia and Europe and complete her clockwise Arctic Ocean circumnavigation.

Mike Rutherford is currently at sea working on his counter-clockwise, single-season Arctic circumnavigation. He's currently west of the Svalbard Islands at latitude 78.7°, and is hoping to reach the 80th parallel, the northernmost point of his voyage. There's currently a storm brewing northeast of Svalbard, so he has to decide whether to try to pass north over the islands or to cross the 80th and turn back south and pass below the islands. It's all up to the weather.

Tamara Kling is in Nome, Alaska (64.5° N), where she's been in harbor for the past couple of days. Still no word on whether she's planning to bring her ship, the Sardinha 2, home to Brazil by way of the Northeast or the Northwest Passage - either route would be epic and record setting.

Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources announced that three research icebreakers, the Xuelong, Xuelong 2, and Jidi, set sail from the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian to conduct an Arctic  mission. Another research vessel, the Tansuo 3, is expected to join the expedition later. 

As the research ships pass through the Bering Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard is carefully monitoring their activities. Per international law, countries enjoy sovereign rights over natural resources and economic activities within their exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf, which extends up to 200 nautical miles from shore, but they do not possess full authority over the space. The Coast Guard said that while the foreign vessels were permitted to operate within the zone and shelf, they remain vigilant to ensure thar activities comply with international law.

As climate change has opened new shipping routes, exposed untapped resources, and raised the Arctic's strategic value, China’s interest in the region has grown, as has the U.S.'s and others'. China lacks an Arctic coastline, but described itself as a “near-Arctic state” in a 2018 policy paper. It's northernmost point is at latitude 53.5° N, roughly the same latitude as Unalaska Island in the Aleutians, but also as Dublin and Hamburg, although it's recognized that with its subarctic climate, Mohe, the northernmost city in China, has more in common with Siberia than Liverpool. 

Orioles 5, Red Sox 1

 

The streak is over at 15 games. Northing lasts forever and impermanence is swift. Even Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr couldn't win sixteen in a row.   

Last night, in the second half of a double header, the Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox, who hadn't tasted defeat since July 1. Like the first game of the DH, there was little question of the outcome, but in the opposite direction - this time, it was the Orioles who scored four runs in the first inning. Rookie starter Eduardo Rivera, making only his fourth MLB appearance, didn't even last a full inning. 

Brayan Bello came on with two outs and the score, 4-0, and quickly forced a ground out to end the painful opening inning. Bello pitched pretty well thereafter, with five K's over 5⅓ innings and no runs on four hits. But the problem was the old, familiar lack of offense - the Sox didn't get a base hit until a Monasterio single in the third inning, and their lone run came in the fourth when a Yoshida single brought Contreras home from second. 

I can't speak for Red Sox Nation as a whole, but at least this fan kept thinking a miracle, some supernatural event, was going to descend upon Fenway Park any inning now. Just as the Sox had been able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in previous games during this streak, it felt like something was going to happen to get win number sixteen. But it wasn't to be and Boston is now the proud owner of a shiny, spanking-new 15-game win streak.

Before the streak started, the Red Sox were 37-48, last place in the AL East, and 14½ back from first. Now, they're 52-49, in third place, and seven games back from first. Even more importantly, they now hold the third and final Wild Card berth, two games up on the nearest contender. Boston's path to the World Series - and we're still going to the World Series, baby! - doesn't run through an AL East championship but runs through the Wild Card. 

The Red Sox have played 101 games this season and have 61 left to play. Already, this back half of the season has a distinctly different flavor than the horrendous first half. Instead of trying to claw up from behind in the standings, their mission for the next two months is simply to defend their Wild Card spot, continue to improve on offense, and keep the pitching healthy (young Connelly Early, Garrett Crochet, Johan Oviedo, Kutter Crawford, and Tanner Houck are all on the IL, and Ranger Suarez is still a question mark). 

Boston's off today. Take a breath and relax, the pressure's off. Friday, they start a three-game homestand against the Blue Jays (46-56), and then start another West Coast road trip where they'll face the A's (43-59) for four and the Dodgers (65-38) for three. Sweep the pesky Jays and the woeful A's, and try to salvage at least one win in L.A., and if they can go 8-2 or even 7-3 over the next ten, it should be clear sailing for the rest of the season.

Go, Red Sox! Love you guys!

Red Sox 6, Orioles 3

They did it! Those magnificent bastards actually did it! Today, in the first half of a double-header (last night's game got rained out) those amazing, never-say-die Boston Red Sox have won their 15th consecutive game, tying a franchise record that goes all the way back to 1946, when Harry S. Truman was President. The 2026 Red Sox tied a team record that was set by the legendary players Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr.  

Just one month ago, Boston was one of the worst teams in major-league baseball. Now they're the hottest team in either league. The last five wins were in Fenway Park, but prior to this streak, they were a dismal 17-27 at home. How things have changed! 

I'm going to keep posting these trophy pictures as long as they keep winning. It's not superstitious if it works. 

Since July 3, the Sox have swept the Angels, the White Sox, the Mets, and the Rays, and now they're one very significant win away from sweeping the Orioles, too. 

There was never any doubt about this win. The Sox jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning on a two-RBI Caleb Durbin single and a two-RBI triple by Jarren Duran. Duran added another RBI with a sac fly in the third, and Ceddanne Rafaela hit a solo home run in the fourth. Big Jake Bennet went 5⅔ innings with four K's and three earned runs, and the bullpen of Slaten, Whitlock and Chapman shut out the O's for 3⅓ innings.

To add an almost cinematic drama to the final innings, storm clouds were creeping up on Fenway in the last two innings, threatening to cut off the game after last night's rainout. The storm held off just long enough to finish, but the rain started before the post-game interviews were over. The front is forecast to pass over before the start of tonight's second game of the DH. 

And if you needed any more proof of the existence of God, the Yankees lost the first game of their double header today. Both teams play again tonight, but right now the Red Sox trail the Yankees by only 3½ games. Yankees suck.

Tonight, Boston plays for destiny. The Sox were thinking about starting Ranger Suarez, fresh off the IL, in this DH but announced that instead rookie Eduardo Rivera (0-0, 2.89) will start tonight. Rivera has only played in three MLB games, but two of those games were during this current 15-game streak. 

Baltimore will start Kyle Bradish (6-9, 3.61). In Brandish's last start against Boston, Contreras hit a two-run homer and the Sox combined for three runs on four hits before knocking him out of the game after five innings in a 5-3 Boston win and Chad Tracy's debut as interim manager.  

Fifteen consecutive wins. Fifteen (15!). Tonight, the Sox have their eyes on history, and will try to go from a Taylor Swiftian Fifteen to Sweet Sixteen. Whatever the outcome, tonight will be historic. 

Red Sox 6, Orioles 5

 

Those amazing Boston Red Sox, just one month ago one of the worst teams in major-league baseball, have now won an astonishing 14 consecutive games, one short of their all-time franchise record. Coming into the second half of the season, the Sox were a disappointing 17-27 at home, but the 14-game streak now includes five consecutive wins in Fenway. The last time the Sox won this many in a row, Ted Williams was their star slugger and your grandparents were a pair of young hotties sitting in the stands. 

I'm going to keep posting these trophies as long as they keep winning. It's not superstitious if it works. 

Since July 3, the Sox have swept the Angels, the White Sox, the Mets, and the Rays, and last night, the Orioles came into Fenway with a seven-game win streak of their own. Spoiler alert: their streak ended last night, but not without drama.

Those tough, gutsy, never-say-die Red Sox had to come back from behind three times to win the game, and finally needed a two-out, runners-on-second-and-third, end-of-season highlight-reel catch of a line drive by shortstop Tsung-Che Cheng to seal the win. 

The O's scored first with an RBI double in the top of the first, but Jarren Duran tied up the game with an RBI sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning (comeback number one). Abreu and Contreras made it 3-1, Boston, in the third with a pair of base hits, but Baltimore earned a 4-3 lead in the sixth. Contreras brought Abreu home from second in the bottom of that inning for comeback number two, but those pesky Orioles jumped back out to a 5-4 lead in the seventh. In the bottom of that inning, Rafaela brough Cheng home with a single to tie the game back up (comeback number three) and then Caleb Durbin lined a homer 403 feet into left center for the game-winning run. But even then, we needed Cheng's spectacular catch in the ninth to preserve the lead. 

No one ever said winning fourteen consecutive games was easy. 

Tolle struck out nine and walked only one over six innings, but also gave up four earned runs. Guererro and Whitlock did what they had to do in relief, striking out four more but giving up one more run on two hits. Chapman once again made the ninth more interesting than necessary with a walk and a hit, putting runners on second and third. That ninth-inning line drive off Chapman that Cheng ultimately caught could have cost Boston the game if it had got past him, and the streak survived only by the millimeters and split-second timing involved in that leaping catch. 

The Rays beat the Jays last night, so the Sox are still six back from first-place Tampa. Meanwhile, Boston is putting some distance between themselves and the other teams in the Wild Card standings, and are now 1½ ahead of Texas and three up on Minnesota and Baltimore. 

Ranger Suarez (4-3, 3.15) will start for the Sox tonight (7:10 pm). Suarez last started back on July 5, the third win of this streak, when he was forced out of the game in the third inning with lower body pain. Testing revealed a minor adductor strain, and he wound up on the 15-day IL. But his recovery went fine, and that's great news for the Sox as the good times just keep right on rolling. Ranger's had his struggles with Baltimore over his career and in four starts is 0-2 against the O's, but by the logic of this suddenly kind season, he's due for a win over them.

Baltimore will start Kyle Bradish (6-9, 3.61). In Boston's last start against Brandish, Contreras hit a two-run homer and the Sox combined for three runs on four hits before knocking him out of the game after five innings in a 5-3 Red Sox win and Chad Tracy's debut as interim manager.  

Fourteen consecutive wins. Fourteen. A fortnight of winning. Since 1916, only thirteen teams, including the 1946 Red Sox, have had win streaks of 15 or more games. One more win ties our franchise record.

Arctic News

 

Tamara Klink is currently sailing straight north, about to cross the western edge of Norton Sound. She's currently west of the Yukon delta in the Bering Sea and heading in the direction of Nome. She hasn't said anything about Russian visas or Siberian sea-ice charts, so it seems most likely that she'll be sailing eastward through the Northwest Passage, reversing the course she sailed last summer. 

To date, the Northwest Passage has only been traversed by women in solo sailboats three times. Last summer, Klink and Ella Hibbert separately completed the passage, and in 2017 German sailor Susanne Huber-Curphey navigated the route, becoming the first solo woman to complete the trip. If Klink completes the trip again this year, she'll be only the fourth to ever have made the passage and the first woman to have done it twice.

Last weekend, Hibbert finally broke weeks of radio silence to announce that she's been given August 10 as her entry date to the Northeast Passage north of Russia. She's still at St. Paul Island, 450 miles south of Klink's current position, and will give her boat, the Yeva, a final test run this week before heading north herself to enter Russian waters and complete her Arctic Ocean circumnavigation. 

And lastly, we have a new entrant! American Matt Rutherford is attempting what could be the first non-stop Arctic circumnavigation. He'll be sailing counter-clockwise, the opposite of Hibbert's route, and left Aasiaat, on Greenland's western coast, on June 25. He's already sailed around the southern tip of Greenland and over the northern side of Iceland, and is currently heading north through the Norwegian Sea toward Svalbard for what will be the northernmost point of his trip (latitude: ~80° N, he's currently at 74°). Rutherford, no stranger to long-distance sailing, has previously (2011) completed the first solo, nonstop circumnavigation of North and South America.

It's not impossible that Matt and Ella will meet as they cross the Northeast Passage in opposite directions. After all, Ella ran into Tamara last summer up in the Northwest Passage. However, unless Tamara puts down anchor and decides to spend some significant time harbored somewhere up in the Canadian archipelago, it's unlikely she'll encounter Matt (should he make it that far).  

   

Red Sox 6, Rays 1

 

Holy. Fucking. Shit. Un-freaking-believable. The Boston Red Sox, a month ago one of the worst teams in major-league baseball seemingly all but incapable of winning at home, have completed a four-game sweep of the first-place Tampa Bay Rays in Fenway, after sweeping the second-place Yankees in four at home late last month. They've won 13 straight games, a feat Boston hasn't achieved since 1948, back in the days of Ted Williams. 

I'm going to keep posting these trophies as long as they keep winning. It's not superstitious if it works. 

At the start of the All-Star break, back when this streak was at nine consecutive wins, I was worried about Boston collapsing in the second half of the season. My best hope was that the Sox could get a 2-2 split in this series with Tampa Bay - a sweep seemed like too much to even wish for. But despite my Calvinistic clouds of self-doubt, the Red Sox kept winning, taking the first game of the series. And winning, taking the second game of the opening double header. And winning, coming from behind yesterday. And then winning again today, completing the sweep.            

And none of those were easy wins. Once again, the Rays scored first, this time on a solo home run in the second inning off of starter Sonny Gray. As it turned out, that would be the only Tampa Bay score of the game. Gray went six innings with five K's, five hits, and only that one run. 

The Sox answered in the bottom of the second, tying the game on an Andruw Monasterio RBI double. New guy Jahmai Jones walked to start the third, and then advanced to second when yesterday's hero, Wilyer Abreu, got hit by a pitch. Tampa Bay starter Shane McClanahan (wasn't Shane McClanahan the singer for The Pogues?) walked Willson Contreras, loading the bases, and then Jones came home from third on a Rays' fielding error. Abreu came home when Caleb Durbin hit into a fielder's choice, and Contreras came home on a Romy Gonzalez ground out. 4-1, Boston, after three. 

To put an exclamation point on the game, Contreras hit a two-run homer in the fifth for the final score of 6-1. 

The Red Sox are now six back from the Rays. The Yankees lost the first game of a doubleheader against the Dodgers - a second loss today would put them a mere three games ahead of Boston.  In the Wild Card standings, they're two games ahead of Minnesota, who lost today. As I write, Seattle, currently 1½ back from Boston in the Wild Card race, are tied with San Francisco, 2-2, after four innings. 

Thirteen back-to-back consecutive wins. It's still hard to fathom. Is this the real life? 

The fourth-place Baltimore Orioles (48-51) come to Fenway next to challenge the streak. Payton Tolle (5-6, 3.11) will start the first of the three-game home series. Tolle faced the Birds on June 3, back when we still sucked, and struck out five over six shutout innings. The O's will start Shane Boz (4-9, 4.19), who struck out six over seven innings on June 2 (back when we still sucked), but gave up two runs. 

For those of you wondering and so that you don't have to ask, the all-time Red Sox record is 15 straight wins back in 1946 (the Fightin' Forties!). Not to jinx the team or anything, but a sweep of Baltimore in this series would set a new franchise record.