Red Sox Coming Alive to Stay Within Striking Distance of AL East Bunch

Six games out of first place with half a season still to play, the Pittsburgh Pirates are beginning to look like a real challenger to the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central.

Six games out of first place with half a season still to play, the Boston Red Sox are starting to look like...what, exactly?

For most of the past two months, they've been a bad $185 million joke. Their enemies are laughing. Their fans are screaming, or looking for something else to do with the rest of the New England summer.

When writers make lists of potential July sellers, the Red Sox show up. As they should.

The Red Sox still have plenty of issues, but they also just finished 5-2 on a week-long trip to Tampa Bay and Toronto. They went from nine games out to six games out.

What if over the next week they go from six games out to three games out? Or what if they just do that over the next two months?

The point is, as bad as the Red Sox have been, and as bad as they've looked, they're not really out of it. Not yet.

Their rotation has gotten considerably better since Carl Willis took over as pitching coach. Clay Buchholz has pitched like the ace the Sox never had, with a 2.33 ERA in 10 starts under Willis.

Elise Amendola/Associated Press

As for the offense, the Red Sox scored seven runs before they made an out Thursday, going on to beat the Toronto Blue Jays 12-6. With Dustin Pedroia on the disabled list, manager John Farrell has taken to batting Mookie Betts, Brock Holt and Xander Bogaerts in the top three spots in the Boston order, and the kids have finally started to look the way they were supposed to.

David Ortiz hit another home run Thursday, his third in five games.

And in Thursday's Boston Herald, Jason Mastrodonato reported that owner John Henry said he would consider adding even more money to the payroll, if that's what the Red Sox need.

"It's not crazy [to say that]," Henry said. "But a few weeks ago I think you were asking me the opposite."

A few weeks ago, Henry himself was telling Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe that the Red Sox were "terrible television" and that they had "played like bleep."

They had, but the AL East can be a forgiving division these days. The Blue Jays were forgiven for losing 11 of 14 during one stretch in May. The New York Yankees were forgiven for losing 10 of 11 for the first time in two decades. The Baltimore Orioles were forgiven for starting slowly when Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy were on the disabled list.

You'd still give the Orioles a better chance than the Red Sox to win it. You'd still give the Yankees a better chance, and the Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays too.

The point isn't that the Red Sox have made themselves into a favorite, only that they've worked themselves out of the joke category.

STEVE NESIUS/Associated Press

They still have issues. Twice in the last week, young outfielders (once Betts, once Jackie Bradley Jr.) lost track of how many outs there were. Hanley Ramirez stayed off the disabled list, but he still hasn't figured out how to be an average defender in left field. Pablo Sandoval still looks like a bust, Rick Porcello still can't get anyone out, Pedroia is still hurt and Ortiz still has a shocking .285 OPS against left-handed pitchers.

But they're six games out in the division, and six games out in the wild card. Yes, they have a lot of teams to pass, but with half a season to go that's barely relevant.

FanGraphs.com, believe it or not, gives the Red Sox a 20.2 percent chance of making the playoffs.

That seems a little high, but let's say it's 15 percent, or even 10 percent.

With half a season to go, you'd still call that a chance.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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