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.

Red Sox 7, Rays 6

 

Twelve in a row! The Red Sox haven't won a dozen straight since June 2006. Twenty years ago, back when Alex Cora (RIP) was a player and not a manager, and they had Big Papi, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, Kevin Youkilis, and Dustin Pedroia, with Tim Wakefield and Curt Schilling on the mound. 

We're in historic territory right now. Turnaround of the Century! We're going to the World Series, baaaaaaby! I never doubted it (don't read any of my posts from last June, however). 

Yesterday was another come-from-behind win. Down 6-3 in the seventh,  Yoshida hit an RBI sac fly, followed by a Rafaela RBI base hit, and then Abreu hit his second homer of the game - 15th of the season - bringing Rafaela home with him and giving the Sox the 7-6 lead that won the game. It was the second straight day that Abreu had two home runs, something the Red Sox haven't done since Mookie Betts in 2018.

Bonus points: Jahmai Jones, recently acquired from the Tigers, hit a first-inning, two-run homer in only his second plate appearance in a Red Sox uniform.

Boston improves to 49-48 (over .500!) and now trail the first-place Rays by seven games and the Yankees by five. They also now hold the last Wild Card berth, one game ahead of contenders Minnesota and Seattle.

I've seen a lot of wild shit in my years watching sports, but this turnaround, from a dismal 29-43 back on June 18 to winning 12 straight and improving to 49-48, is virtually unprecedented. What a great time to be alive and to be a Red Sox fan!

Will the Sox sweep the Rays? Today, Sonny Gray (11-1, 2.54) starts for Boston against Tampa Bay's Shane McClanahan (8-5, 2.83). The game's already started, so I'm not breaking it down here any further than that.

Go. Boston! Sweep the Rays and make it a lucky 13!

Red Sox 5, Rays 3

Another day, another trophy, but on this day there are even more rewards than usual. After the Boston Red Sox swept their Friday doubleheader against the Tampa Ray Rays last night, their first doubleheader of the season, they improved to 48-48, the first time they've been at .500 this season. Hooray! We're mediocre now! Which is a whole lot better than being below .500 and officially "bad."

The win was the 11th straight victory, a feat Boston hasn't accomplished since 2016, back when they had Big Papi, Mookie, Xander, and Pedroia, and pitchers Price, Porcello, Kimbrell, and Fighting Joe Kelly.    

But wait, there's more! The third-place Red Sox are now eight games back from first-place Tampa Bay and 5½ back from the Yankees, who lost last night. In the Wild Card standings, they're now tied with Minnesota for the third and final slot, but because of their head-to-head record (5-1 for the Twins), the berth goes to Minnesota. For now. 

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

After soundly thumping the Twins, 10-0, in the first game of yesterday's doubleheader, the Sox fell behind, 2-0, in the first inning of the second game. Game over, right? End of the streak and all that. But no, those gutsy Boston players struck right back in the bottom of the first with back-to-back homers by Abreu and Contreras (back from his suspension) to take a 3-2 lead. 

The Rays tied it up with a homer of their own in the third, but Abreu reclaimed the lead with his second homer of the night. 4-3, Boston. 

The Red Sox starting pitcher, Eduardo Rivera, only lasted 2⅓ innings (3 runs, 3 hits, 3 strikeouts), but the bullpen carried the game and not only shut out the Rays the rest of the game, but gave up only two hits over the last six innings. Siegler added an insurance run with a double in the 4th, and that was all the Red Sox needed to win their 11th straight.

With the win, the Sox secured at least a tie in the weekend series against the Rays, and a tie was all that I had asked for. Anything more (12 straight?) is pure gravy. 

This afternoon (4:10 pm), Patrick Sandoval (0-0, 2.08) will make his second start of the season. On July 9, in his first start since coming off a years-long stretch on the IL, he struck out five and gave up only one run in 4⅓ innings against the White Sox for the sixth win of this current hot streak.

The Rays will put Ian Seymour (6-2, 4.59) on the mound.  In his last start against Boston back on June 9, he had the exact same record as Sandoval's against Chicago - 5 K's and one run - in a 3-1 Red Sox loss. That loss sunk Boston to a dismal 27-38, eleven games below .500, and they would sink even lower after a loss in Tampa Bay the next day. Our darkest hour. 

But here we are, just a little over a month later, at .500 and holding a 2-0 lead in a four-game weekend series against the first-place Rays. Isn't life grand?  

Red Sox 10, Rays 0

 

Are you fucking kidding me? Ten in a row! And with today's win coming at home, where the Sox were a dismal 17-27, and after four days off for the All-Start break, and against the Rays, the first-place team in the AL East, at that. And not just a "win." but a dominating 10-0 shutout of Tampa Bay. 

Holy smokes! We really are going to the World Series, baby!

Yoshida homered in the fourth and Narvaez homered in the seventh. Narvaez also hit RBI singles in the first and sixth, and Duran in the first and sixth. And in the sixth, in addition to Narvaez and Duran, Cheng, Rafaela, and Durbin also had RBIs. Eight out of the nine batters had at least one base hit today.

Big Jake Bennett allowed only one hit in six innings and struck out three. Gamboa kept the shoutout going for the next three innings, and Boston started the second half of the season - and today's doubleheader - with a  win. Tenth straight, the longest streak of this season and tying their longest streak of last year. With their tenth win, the Sox earned the coveted X-Wins Award. 

Rookie Eduardo Rivera (0-0) will start tonight's game against the Rays. Rivera's only pitched seven innings this year in two games, both against New York teams (Yankees and Mets) and has yet to give up his first run, so his ERA is a perfect 0.00. He'll be opposite Tampa's Mason Englert (0-2, 3.82), who pitched 3⅓ innings of relief in the Rays' 2-0 loss to Boston back on May 8.   

A win tonight would put the Sox (47-48) at .500 for the first time this season. They were 14 games underwater as recently as June 18 of this year, not even a full month ago. Will they make it 11 straight tonight? Will they clinch at least a series tie with the Rays? It's a high-stakes game with two unlikely starting pitchers, so anything could happen.      

Klink in the Bering

 

It looks like she's actually going to do it. After spending several days in King Cove on the Aleutian Peninsula, sailor Tamara Klink has passed through False Pass and is now heading north across the Bering Sea. 

Her stated mission is to retrieve her sailboat, the Sardinha 2, from its winter storage in Homer, Alaska and take it back to her native Brazil. The problem is that Alaska is north of the Pacific Ocean, and Brazil fronts on the Atlantic. To get to Brazil, she could sail south to the tip of South America, cross the Southern Ocean around Tierra del Fuego, and then head north in the Atlantic and home to Brazil. 

It appears she's not doing that. She's heading north.

She could sail back the way she came - around Alaska, through the Northwest Passage, around Labrador and Newfoundland, the thence south through the Atlantic to Brazil. Or she could sail over Russia and Scandinavia through the so-called Northwest Passage, Elle Hibbert's planned route for this summer, and then down and across the Atlantic from there. There's been no indication yet which way she intends to go.

Speaking of Hibbert, she's gone strangely radio-silent, not posting any updates in over two weeks. Presumably, she's got her sailboat, the Yeva, up and running and is waiting for the ice to clear in the Siberian Sea, which typically is about this time of year.  I hope in these politically fraught times she's not having visa or other entry issues, or somehow lost her enthusiasm for completing her Arctic circumnavigation.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

 

Baseball's on hold for the All-Star break and it's still 53 days until the start of the Georgia Bulldogs football season. Let's talk e-sports.

For most of the year, at least since February 7, I've been playing Assassin's Creed: Shadows. I kind of burned out on it, but kept going back for reasons I don't fully understand. But on June 27, I finally switched things up and started playing Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a remake of the classic video game Metal Gear Solid 3.

I never played 3. I wasn't much of a gamer when it first came out in 2004, and I've never owned a PlayStation. However, I have played MGS 5 (2015) on PC but to be honest, I had no idea what the story was all about or who the characters were. I still had fun stealthing my way through Afghanistan and Angola in the game, but I haven't touched it since September 2019. While I was burning out on AC: Shadows, I thought about revisiting the game, and when I saw Delta on a Steam sale, I thought that would be a good way to reenter the MGS universe.

I'm not reviewing or critiquing the game here: this is a sports blog, not a review site. Suffice it to say that after my first playthrough, I immediately started a New Game + and finished my second playthrough last night.

My motives for restarting weren't purely enthusiasm, though. It took me a while to get the hang of the game the first time through, and I realize that I missed a lot of things at first. That first playthrough took me 26 hours and 48 minutes as I kept getting killed by bosses over and over again before I figured out how to beat them (each one requires a different technique).

I played a second time to see what I missed on my first playthrough and to test some of the late-game lessons learned on early-game adversaries. I completed the second playthrough in 16:07, and it would have been even quicker if I hadn't spent so much time searching around for "collectible" frogs and ducks.

Hidden throughout the game are 64 toy frogs (called Kerotans) and an equal number of rubber ducks (GA-KOs). They're not easy to find, and I can easily imagine playing the whole game through and not even noticing they're there. If you found all 128 without referring to one of the many online guides, I'm pretty impressed. I only bagged 49 of each after two complete playthroughs, even with access to online guides. 

Also, I wonder what the hell some of you were doing in those obscure nooks and crannies where they had hid the toys, or why, when you're racing down a runway on a motorcycle with the game's penultimate boss chasing you in a nuclear-powered death machine, while motorcycles guards are shooting at you and trying to run you off the road, you were scanning signs along the road in front of you through the scope of your sniper rifle for three-inch-tall toy frogs and rubber duckies. Who does that? On my second pass, even knowing exactly where they were based on the game guides and YouTube videos, I still couldn't hit them all as you have mere seconds to find them in your scope, aim, and fire as you're speeding past on a bumpy ride.

I ended up "killing" 156 NPCs on my first playthrough, but that's bad - it's a stealth game, and you're supposed to kill as few as possible. That number was reduced to 65 on my second pass, but that's still far from bragging levels.   

The game is a faithful remake of the Hideo Kojima original, and like any Kojima game (Metal Gear, Death Stranding) there's plenty of eccentricities and weirdness, like the toy frogs and rubber duckies, and long, long cut scenes. My total playing time based on the in-game statistics (42:55) doesn't match the total number of hours on my Steam statistics (65.9 hours) and I don't know why. Does the game not count the minutes in cut scenes as "play time" and if not, that implies a total of 23 minutes in cut scenes, which actually would be on the lower side of my guess.  

Whatever the exact number, I'm satisfied with my hours and don't feel a burning desire for a third playthrough. But rather that starting MGS 5 now like intended, I see that a PC remake of MGS 4 will be released on August 27, and it seems logical to wait for that and then to play 5 after completing 4. I probably still won't fully understand the story (I'm not sure I'll ever follow all the twists and turns of any Kojima game) but that seems like as good a plan as any.

Red Sox 3, Mets 2

Another day, another trophy. I'm gonna keep awarding these trophies for as long as the Red Sox keep winning. 

Today, Boston won their ninth straight game, a first for this season and a feat they haven't achieved since July 12, 2025. More significantly, they swept three series in a row, winning every game of this road trip. The last time the Sox swept three in a row was September 2019, and the last time they swept three in a row all on the road was way back in 1977. They're 14-2 since June 25 of this year and the start of a home stand against the Yankees. 

But, my God, the way that they won this game today. The Sox had starter Tolle on a strict pitch count today for some reason and pulled him after 66 pitches and 3⅔ innings. They brought in Brayan Bello, freshly returned from a minor-league reassignment, for long relief. A bold move, but Bello got the job done, striking out five and giving up one run on only two hits over 4⅓ innings. 

But the Sox hitting was off today and they hadn't scored a run for the first eight innings of the game. In fact, they only had two hits to show for themselves all game, and went into the ninth trailing, 2-0. I was already rationalizing the loss, thinking "all things eventually end" and "still a helluva run," but then Rafaella singled, Gonzalez advanced him to second, and Durbin loaded the bases with a walk. The Mets walked in Boston's first run of the day, and then a Duran single tied the game, 2-2.

Chapman closed out the ninth inning with only one hit and no runs, and in the top of the tenth, a Seigler fly ball brought Yoshida home from third. Whitlock made three quick outs in the bottom of the inning, and the Red Sox left the field with their ninth straight road win. Bet you didn't have that on your bingo card, did you? 

We're going to the World Series, baby! 

Boston enters the All Star break at 46-48 and in third place in the AL East. Tampa Bay lost today, so the Sox are now ten games back from first. But their path to the World Series doesn't run through a Division championship but a Wild Card berth. Seattle and Minnesota both won their games today, so Boston remains a tantalizing half game back from qualifying for a Wild Card spot. 

The Sox are off until Friday for the MLB All-Star break. They'll return to action at Fenway, where they're still only 17-27, for a four-game series against first-place Tampa Bay (56-38), starting with a Friday double-header. But after that, their odds will improve as they host Baltimore (45-51) and Toronto (45-50).

Not to throw a hex on our mojo, but as a long-suffering Red Sox fan (I was in the stands at Fenway for many of the games in that historic 1977 season) I can't help but think of disappointments in both the distant and recent past. Last season, we went into the All-Star break on a 10-game winning streak, only to go a disappointing 4-6 in the first ten games of the second half. 

However, this year, if we can at least split the series with the Rays and then sweep the birds (both Orioles and Blue Jays), then we're 8-2 to start the second half and all will be right with the world.

Red Sox 4, Mets 0

Another day, another trophy. Today, the Boston Red Sox won their eighth straight game, a first for this season and a feat they haven't achieved since July 11, 2025. They're 13-2 since June 25 of this year and the start of a home stand against the Yankees, while New York's gone 5-11 in that time.

Monasterio hit a homer 390 feet into deep left center in the fourth inning, scoring Durbin, and Yoshida hit a homer 371 feet into deep right in the eighth, also scoring Durbin. Rivera lasted only 3⅔ innings in his first MLB start, but didn't allow any runs and only one hit. Coulombe gave up three walks in the last two innings, but no hits and no runs.

The Mets stink - there's no kinder way to express it - and while the Red Sox are on a tear right now, they still have a ways to go before . . . oh, who am I kidding?  We're going to the World Series, baby! 

The Rays won again today, so Boston (45-48) still trails by 11 games, but we're now only a half-game back from qualifying for a Wild Card spot. Right now, Seattle, who lost their fifth straight game today, has the last Wild Card berth, while Minnesota, who won today, now has an identical 47-49 record. It's not impossible that we enter the All Star break holding that last Wild Card spot.

But first, we have one more game against those Mets. Payton Tolle (5-6, 3.14) will start the last game of the first half of the season. In his last start, Tolle, who's never faced the Mets, struck out six and gave up only two hits in six shut-out innings against the White Sox.

The Mets haven't yet announced their pitcher for tomorrow. You doing anything?

Meanwhile, in Alaska

 

I can honestly say I don't know what the hell Tamara Klink is doing.

She arrived back in Homer, Alaska last June and spent a month getting her ship, the Sardinha 2, out of dry dock, repainted, re-primed, and ready to make the long return trip back to Brazil. She took it for a few test trips around Kachemak Bay, and then on July 1, began her return odyssey.

Or did she? Any logical route from Homer, on the southern coast of Alaska, to Atlantic-facing Brazil, either goes south around Tierra del Fuego and then north up the eastern side of South America, or south and through the Panama Canal. Since Klink is an experienced Antarctic sailor, if even an Antarctic enthusiast, it seems unlikely she would go the Canal route. In fact, she most likely will take the Sardinha to Tierra del Fuego and establish a base in either a Chilean or Argentinian harbor for future Antarctic adventures.  

But either way, the logical course is south, hugging the west coast of North America, and then, after Baja California, further out to sea and straight for Cape Horn.

But that isn't what she's doing. She's actually sailed west along the Aleutian Peninsula and is presently harbored in King Cove, tantalizingly close to False Pass, the gateway to the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, through which she passed last year on her way to Homer. I don't see any advantage in starting her voyage south to Tierra del Fuego from further west in the Aleutians. She posted that the fickle winds made her change course several times a day, but it seems unlikely that she's just letting the wind take her willy-nilly some 550 miles off course. 

Could she be planning the audacious and sailing the Northeast Passage over Russian and Scandinavia, like fellow Arctic adventurer Ella Hibbert, and into the Atlantic, and then south to Brazil for the most insane route from Point A (Homer) to Point B (Brazil) imaginable? 

Or is she just poking around the Alaska coast during the summer season before heading south to the tropics, and then on to South America during the antipodal summer?          

So far, she hasn't said.

Red Sox 6, Mets 2

 

Another day, another trophy. The Boston Red Sox have won their seventh straight game, a first for this season and a feat they haven't achieved since August 5, 2025. They're 12-2 since the start of the home stand against the Yankees, while New York's gone 4-11 since that series. 

The Sox arrived in New York late for this weekend's series against the Mets (plane problems) and without Willson Contreras (suspension due to the June 30th altercation with the Nat's race-baiting bigot, Cade Cavalli). They were expecting the Mets to open the series with starter Clay Holmes, but the sneaky Mets put Nolan McLean on the mound instead. No problem. They scored two runs off McLean in the first inning on a Yoshida single and never looked back from there. 

Major-league disappointment Juan Soto eked out an RBI off Boston starter Sonny Gray in the third innings with a sac fly, but that was the only run Gray allowed over six innings. Seigler hit a two-run homer in the seventh, and Abreu hit another two-run homer in the top of the ninth. Weissert gave up the  memorial Aroldis Chapman ninth-inning homer, but the Sox still finished with a 6-2 road win, and Gray earned his 11th win of the season.   

Every other team in the AL East also won their game last night, so Boston remains 11 back from Tampa Bay in the standings. However, they're now a mere 1½ games back in the Wild Card standings, tied with Toronto and Houston and a half-game back from Minnesota. The Red Sox' road to the World Series doesn't go through an AL East title, but by qualifying for the Wild Card and advancing through the playoffs to the World Series championship.   

With most of the Red Sox rotation out on the IL, Boston will start rookie Eduardo Rivera today (4:10 pm). Rivera's only other major-league appearance was a three-run stint in relief in a 4-1 loss to the Yankees on April 22, back when this team still sucked.  However, he got three K's in those three innings and gave up only one hit, a José Caballero single to center. Whether he's got the right stuff for a starter or not we'll know after today's game.

The Mets, if you can believe them, say they will start former Brewer Freddy Peralta (5-7, 4.68). Peralta is 0-1 against Boston in two starts, most recently a May 28, 2025 game when he gave up a home run to Rafaela and the Sox burned him out through 108 pitches in five innings, even as they eventually lost the game in extra innings. 

Will the Sox make it eight straight? Nine? Will they complete a third consecutive sweep? Either way, as we approach the All-Star break, it's been a helluva run down the final stretch of the first half of the season.