The Boston Red Sox began July in the basement of the AL East. They ended it six games back of the division lead, three games back of the final wild-card spot and seven games over .500. Now 58-51, Boston went a head-turning 21-4 in July, logging the franchise’s best-ever win percentage in a full calendar month (.840) and transforming from potential trade deadline sellers into a team with reason to add to a playoff-contending roster.
The Red Sox, led by interim manager Chad Tracy — who’s in his fourth month at the helm after Boston fired Alex Cora and a collection of other coaches in April — wrapped their season-changing month on Friday night with a 9-4 road victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
A two-run Shohei Ohtani homer in the fifth lifted the Dodgers to a mid-game lead; however, the Red Sox put up a five-spot in the seventh inning to reclaim an advantage they wouldn’t relinquish. Ceddanne Rafaela got the ball rolling with a two-run shot of his own that inning. That big fly was a clutch delivery from the All-Star center fielder, who started rounding the bases with his chilly celebration, rubbing his arms to show off the ice in his veins.
Boston’s 21 wins are its most in a month since August 2004, according to MLB.com. That season, of course, the Red Sox broke the 86-year-old “Curse of the Bambino,” sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals to win their first World Series since 1918.
The franchise has added three more World Series titles in the aftermath of that monumental triumph, bringing home the Commissioner’s Trophy in 2007, 2013 and 2018.
But the Red Sox have made the playoffs only twice since they last reached the mountain top. It looked like they were going to be watching October baseball from their couches this time around. A July that featured a franchise-record-tying 15-game win streak, though, revived Boston’s 2026 campaign.
Even so, not everything has gone right for Boston amid this mostly remarkable stretch. Perhaps most notably, infielder Curtis Mead, whom the Red Sox acquired in a trade with the Washington Nationals on July 25, suffered a fractured wrist in his first game with his new team and is reportedly expected to miss most, if not all, of the remaining regular-season games.
During Saturday’s series-opening win over the Dodgers, four-time All-Star Willson Contreras left the game early. The first baseman was hit in the helmet by a 95-mph fastball from L.A. righty Will Klein in the third inning. Although the Red Sox removed Contreras for precautionary reasons, he’s in concussion protocol nonetheless.
Boston still found a way to dispatch the Dodgers and improve to 4-1 on their seven-game California road trip, which started with the Red Sox taking three of four from the Athletics.
“Obviously the month of July was incredible and necessary with where we were at,” Tracy said, per MLB.com. “We probably didn’t have to do that well, but it was necessary that we played better and got on a run and we got on a heck of a run.
“We have to continue that now because we’re playing very good baseball.”
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