Why the Red Sox making a World Series run is a real possibility | Jones & Keefe

Why the Red Sox making a World Series run is a real possibility | Jones & Keefe

Are you ready for the All-Star break, Keith? No. No, I’m not. I’m not either. I want them to keep playing games. This is the only thing that’s going to slow down the Red Sox is this freaking All-Star break. They need more games. Play two today. Play two tomorrow. They’re never going to lose again. Hottest team on the planet. Oh, it’s not even close. Winners of 10 in a row. 10 straight wins. 12 out of 13. They reside in the second wildard spot. One game behind the Yankees. first wild card place and what are they just three games out in the division I believe three games behind Toronto they were like a dozen games behind the Yankees at one point this year and you’re like oh the Yankees are like they’ll win the division can they win the wild card then the Yankees fall apart Red Sox take off it coincides with the Red Sox sweeping the Yankees right the Yankees have kind of fallen apart since the Red Sox had that one little blip where they they started to fall apart for a little bit and then they have completely turned it around duck boats and it’s not Guess 10 and0. Lou, I agree. I would have to agree with the Duckboats. It’s not just the 10-0. It’s kind of how they’re doing it and the entertainment value that is there. Like, this team is fun as hell cuz you can you can win games and you could sort of talk around it and be like, “All right, like, you know, they scrap together another win.” But you got walk-off hits, you got complete game performances, you got a bunch of young players. It is a blast to watch. Well, so I just I want to know where everybody’s at with this team cuz as of late last week, it was well, they only beat last place teams, bad National League teams, Rockies, not us and the Nationals. No, no, no, not us. I mean, in this win streak, uh they just took four straight from Tampa, right? Who was ahead of them in the standings going into this? Good note, were ahead. Were past tense. They took two out of three from Cincinnati as well. Not that Cincinnati’s a great team. They’re over 500 big in the National League. So, they’ve played some winning teams in this stretch. I understand the second half everybody wants to skip ahead. Oh, talk to me when they play the Dodgers. Talk to me when they play the Phillies. Talk to me when they play the Cubs. Yeah, but what we will when we get there, right? But right now, one thing at a time. Right now, you can’t evaluate what’s going on. And you can I’m with you. The the four games I would start with that walk-off home run on Friday night. I, Keith, haven’t seen the ballpark like that since at least 2021. Yes. And that was for a playoff stretch where the ballpark absolutely came alive. Oh, that was electric. Against New York and even into the Astros series. I mean, the ballpark was alive in 2021. It’s playoff baseball. Well, exactly. It’s like regular season baseball before the All-Star break, but after the 4th of July, before the Allstar break against the Rays, for God’s sake, against Tampa Bay. I I don’t know the last time I saw the ballpark jumping like that in the middle of July for a random Friday night game. that place what if go it would have to be like a Yankee game and to be or like yeah something else. Go watch the clip and I’m not even talking about like the Nessen uh video of it. Go watch like the the field level clip. Oh, sick of the Raphaela walk-off. It’s bananas. And his reaction, too. His reaction’s great. The team’s reaction’s great. The ballpark is going ham. The uniforms, all of it. A+ all of it. And so that to me that’s the signature moment right now of the first half. Oh, good one. And they’re obviously trending up at the right time. Yeah, they really are. And once again, I think we should probably record something that Nick can just play so we don’t have to say it every day. We need to issue an apology to say it on Raphaela. Oh yeah, the Shaquille O’Neal meme. I was not familiar with your game. He is He’s electric. Now, how he didn’t replace Julio Rod in the uh All-Star game is beyond me. They went with Rosena after we got off the air on Friday. Yeah, Roseno’s got good power speed combo numbers which I like. Stay on Raphael as a step, but whatever. Keep him motivated, but he has been uh unbelievable in in the power that he’s showing as well. The the timely hits, the whole thing. The guy is the total package. They’re even moving him into second base, which was something we had suggested, but it wasn’t the way that they’re doing it. The way they’re doing it is just they got to keep him in the lineup. They got a lot of guys they got to keep in the lineup. So, he has flexibility. He’s a gold glove center fielder, but he can also play second base. But yeah, I mean, that was the guy you thought might be a uh like a utility guy and hit ninth. Now he’s hitting sort of at the top of your lineup, coming up with blockoff homers. Uh yeah, he’s been he’s been fantastic. So that that to me was the signature moment. You were there on Saturday when Crochet got his first career complete game. I mean, blink and you miss it. That game was like two hours. They hummed by. I hate to now know that I’m the jinx on Crochet when we’re in the ballpark. I was nervous cuz walking in I went to the game. Uh beautiful day. Went with my parents, my wife, and both kids. It was an absolute family day at the ballpark. Chalk full of Keefs. Yeah, it was it was Yeah. One and0 with all the Keefs in the house. No, so it was it was a blast. Generations of Keith. It was it was three generations of Keefs from the house. But that was like a little bit of my concern was like I saw Crochet earlier this year, also a day game, and it was his worst start of the year. So if he has another bad start, I can just never go to a Crochet game. But it was his best start. He was just mowing guys down. Not the best game if you’re big into offense. Say you you went there wanting offense. Didn’t have a lot of it. The innings were so quick. Absolute pitchers duel. Some good defense by uh by both teams. Uh one big hit and next thing you know, complete game uh shut out for Crochet. So that was that was a blast and what a way to go into the All-Star break for him. Yeah. And I’ll give Cora credit. I I didn’t really like sticking with Crochet there to be honest and I was wrong. But Chapman’s just been so dominant. I was And it wasn’t about managing Crochet and his workload or anything. I was just like, I’d go to Chapman here to just mow him down in the ninth. I don’t even want to toy around with it. And Crochet came out and dominated. It was pretty good. They just gave Beao a chance to do it. Beo got a complete game in there. And now few days later, you’re like, “All right, now Crochet is going to go out there and do it.” And then you do save Chapman for the next day. So you have that. Plus, I think they knew all along, not only was Garrick Crochet going to skip the All-Star game, they also moved him back, right? He’s going to start the last game of the Cubs series coming out. So, he now gets a full week. What? And a day, right? He’s got like eight days off to recover and and like the pitch count was low and so they’re like, “All right, let’s let’s see.” He was like 9. Again, it wasn’t a workload concern. It was just yeah, you know, Chapman is out in the night and I just I I would have gone to him, but I was wrong. He was Cora was right. Credit to Kora for sticking with Garrett Crochet in that spot. Cora hitting some of the right uh buttons. Some of them. I mean, you hit enough wrong buttons, you’re bound to hit a couple of right on. Uh, all the phone numbers here, 617-77797937. I say all the phone numbers, all the ways you can watch phone and text line, I should say, same number. Uh, you can interact Twitter and Instagram at Jones and Keith. You can watch along and chat. Twitch.tv/bostoni. Always a healthy chat going on on Twitch and watch on YouTube. You can chat there as well. Just subscribe to WEI. And a reminder, you can stream WEI anytime on the Odyssey app as well as the iHeart Radio and TuneIn apps. One of the things we saw this weekend, Keith, beyond just the Raphaela walk-off where they win another one-run game that’s starting to turn around for the Red Sox. They lost every one-run game early in the year. They’re starting to win them. They won another one that you were at on Saturday. Um they’re starting to get these bang bang plays to go their way. Yeah. Which is how it works when you’re hot and you’re on a win streak. the game on Saturday where Toro goes home on the suicide squeeze or safety squeeze or whatever it was uh where he goes home and I think they get the runner at the plate. I watched that replay 8,000 times. I still don’t know, but the call on the field was he was out. Yeah. So, I think once they called him out on the field is one of those we talk about this in football all the time. It’s like yeah, maybe you can overturn it, but you’re like the call on the field stands. It It was tough cuz you saw the replay, you’re looking at it a bunch of times like all right, I think they got the right call. So I it was close and you know yesterday you have this play where I was watching this live. Raphaela I thought makes a diving catch in center field and then he gets up and throws. I’m like the hell’s going on? He rolled over the baseball. He gets the lead runner at third base. Simpson for Tampa was asleep going around the bases and held up coming around third cuz he thought Raphaela caught it. He doesn’t cross the bag. The guy’s out at third uh prior to that and you keep a run off the board which was massive in that game. So, even when they’re not making ridiculous diving catches in center field, plays are still going their way. And that is how it goes when you’re hot. I don’t know how sustainable that is. Yeah. Sure. But right now, they’re getting all the breaks and it’s fun to watch. Yep. Hot as heck. Now, I don’t go as far as Kora does when he’s sort of saying, well, like these one-run games all kind of like balance out. Like, you have to do something about them, right? Like there there’s decisions that you make or just physical plays on the field that you don’t make that lead you to losing a lot of one-run games. And I also think they’re just they’re playing better. And so I don’t know what what you would attribute that to if it’s all of a sudden just fundamentals or attention to detail or maybe they have the right guys in the right spots now or whatever it is. And yeah, I guess there’s a little bit of a momentum thing going or like you’re just sort of riding a little bit of a wave, but it does seem like they’ve kind of buttoned things up a little bit and they’re just playing better baseball, which I think you’re going to end up being on the better side of more of those one- run games than you were before. That’s how it feels. And so, uh, what do you attribute it to? 6177797937. You can discuss there. Red Sox have saved their season. I I think there’s an obvious place to go. Personally, I would go back to the Denver trade. I would say so. I mean, to me, I know not everybody feels that way. I got tweets all weekend. Oh, imagine how good they’d be if Devers were here. I don’t think it would be the same. Actually, I think the Red Sox have a better record now than the Giants do now. They do. They are a half just in the standings, not since the trade. Overall, they’re way better since the trade. They’re 16 and N since the trade. The Giants I think are 11 and 14 off the top of my head. No, the Red Sox are 53 and 45 overall. The Giants are 52 and 45 overall and one was not a playoff team. They are now. The other actually, what happened to the Giants? Did they fall out or they still double check? Giants I know lost yesterday to the Dodgers. I don’t know where they are. They’re not a playoff team. So, they acquired Dess. They were a playoff team. The Red Sox were not a playoff team when they dealt away. They flipped spots. Correct. They freaky Fridayed. They went Yeah, they did. Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, another one coming out this year, by the way. Bringing it back. I’m excited for that one. Yeah. Are you? Yeah. Yeah. Remember a few weeks ago for drones people people we were most afraid of. I was going to have Lindsay Lohan on my list. My wife was like don’t do that. She’s actually doing great. I see her. She’s in a commercial now. Dork minute on this. Yeah. Seriously something for the rest of us. Uh she’s in multiple Netflix movies now. She looks great. The films are poor but she looks great. So I I get these tweets all weekend. It’s like oh uh imagine how good they’ be with deers. I disagree. There’s no real way to prove it. Keith no other than the last three years. Oh, right. And the start to this year, like I I would say there’s no real way to prove how good they’d be if Dess were still here versus him not being here. It’s not like the Red Sox got anything in return for him. My guy Kell Harrison stinking it up. Jordan Hicks is a couple innings. Uh Jordan Hicks does have a save. It was a real roller coaster. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I I would say the way I would prove it is, oh, I don’t know the last three years and change when Devers was here. But there’s no real way to prove it. That to me would be the turning point in the season where they saved their season. You can give credit to whomever you want. Uh whether it’s Preslo, whether it’s Sean Henry. Vibes are high. Vibes are very high. Vibes are high right now. How how high is the ceiling for this team, Keith? Oh, it’s I mean, as high as it goes, honestly, like World Series. Yeah, why not? So, I’m a Cuz I’ve always been in baseball, if you make the playoffs, you can win the World Series. There’s so many examples of it. And maybe some of these teams that get close, right? like, you know, the the Diamondbacks a couple years ago, you win like 86 games and you make it to the World Series, so you’re right in it. So, I’ve always thought it’s different than I would say basketball and football, you can be a playoff team, but not a world, not a Super Bowl contender or an NBA champion contender. Hockey is closer to baseball, but baseball is the ultimate you get in, you have a chance. Because if look at the run that they’re on right now, if you get in and you’re playing like that and Crochet and Beo are pitching like this, so you get those guys twice a series and then you have the lineup and I know they have they didn’t score a million runs over this series, but they could score in a variety of ways. The defense is improving. So yeah, absolutely they could they could win the World Series, but that’s I thought that at the beginning of the year, right? And they weren’t playing like that for a while. And when they were whatever it was like five games under 500, yeah, you would have felt crazy because at that point you’re like, I don’t even know if they’re going to make the playoffs. But now that they have themselves firmly in a playoff spot as of today, of course, the World Series could happen for them. Why not? Okay. I like how you put it. Just we’re back to where we were in the preseason where Sure. Let your mind wander. The the ceiling is very high for this team. The American League is bad. So, I certainly think an American League pennet is well within their grasp. If you asked me to really sit there and pick them head-to-head against a team like the Dodgers in a World Series, I I don’t know if I’d go there. But look, you’re right. It’s the ultimate get in there and go on a run sport. And the Red Sox have put themselves in a position to get in there. So why can’t they go on a run? 61779 7937. I also like the way that Brelo has been talking about the quote unquote impact pitching. We talked about this late last week. There was more of this over the weekend on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast. You can check it out with Rob Bradford on the Odyssey app. He’ll join us on Thursday at 11:30. Uh so we’ll get his thoughts on the Red Sox at the break. Uh but this was Brezlo with Rob Bradford over the weekend. First of all, running out of pitching can be so destabilizing, right? Like there’s this residual effect on the rest of the the staff, on the bullpen. Um and then also like we we feel really good about the starting pitching that that we have. And uh you know obviously Garrett’s pitched like an ace all season long and you know over the last month or so Gio’s been been dominant and Beao actually if you go back to like last all-star break has been a really good pitcher and Buer’s last two out we know we’re starting to see what he’s capable of doing and whether it’s Fitz or Dobbins or you know Cal getting healthy or Harrison who’s working on some things in AAA like we’re not just looking for bodies that we can call starting pitchers right like if we’re going to bring somebody in they need to really move the needle for us. Um, and so that’s, you know, I think where we’ll have our sight set, but uh, it’s really hard to find impact starting pitching. Is it the hardest, you think? Yeah, Harrison Hicks, they both suck. Yeah, I I agree with him early on. You throw Gito in there. He has been good. I agree with this general point. They had plenty of depth, you know. Now, let’s I’m not going to go with all the particulars in there. I’m not sold on Beller after two so starts, if that. I even I’m not sold on Kyle Harrison. I liked him more than most when they got him. But like the idea that no, no, we have some depth. What we need is an impact guy, another high-end guy. Well, that I definitely agree with. Yeah, of course. I think to me there’s still only one guy I feel great about. No questions asked. I There are two guys that are certainly trending in the direction where you say they might be good this year. Beo more so than Gilito, but Beo I have confidence in, but it’s hard to say like you’re all set. You’re our you’re our number two starter in an ALCS or something like that. Yeah, I don’t feel great about that. Um, but like I’m not you wouldn’t need to upgrade if it was like for example like if he hypothetically was like your fourth starter. You wouldn’t be like they better go out and get somebody. But no, right now you’re moving him up to two. You move Gito to three and then after that I mean Dobbins is out now. They he’s on the IIL and you look at what else is there. I’m not going to look at the last two starts of Walker Beller and be like all right you’re good here. So if they can add somebody else cuz I always make the case every postseason that you could go to a threeman rotation and nobody really does. They almost always go forward. you’re always like, “Well, there’s an extra day.” They’re like, “No, no, no. They’re not really doing it.” They would rather go fourman than bring somebody back in like a relief appearance than they would start them on short rest. So, you need going into the playoffs, you need four starters. And right now, that fourth one, you’d be kind of dicey with what you have on the roster. Yeah. So, to me, it would be foolish to count on Beao and Golito to keep doing what they’re doing. And it doesn’t sound to me like Brelo’s doing that. It It sounds to me like they like their depth. They know they need to get somebody in front of Beao and Golito to slot them properly. If if you have Crochet a number two, whoever that is, my guy Edward Cabrera got hurt over the weekend. So, I don’t know how how feasible that is with trade. Joe Ryan is a name that’s been kicked around a ton. We’ve talked about the arms in Seattle. We’ve talked about the arms in San Diego. There’s been a lot of them that we’ve discussed. Some we like, some we don’t. But slot in whoever that is for you. Number two behind Crochet. You feel so much better if Beao’s your three, Gilito’s your four. And continuing to count on those guys to keep doing what they’re doing to me would be a massive mistake because one, they could get hurt. Two, they could level off and go back to what they’ve been prior. You know, three, maybe you got to factor in some drop off from Crochet in the second half, though I didn’t see any of that on Saturday. So, that to me is the right way to be thinking about the deadline. And I’m even more where I was at the end of last week, Keith. I’m not subtracting Durant off this team if I can help it. I don’t want to trade a guy like Christian Campbell. I want to trade from the farm system. Yeah, prospects. Nameless, faceless prospects. I heard Greg show talking about this this morning and I think Wiggy was big on this. Well, how are you going to get a player without giving up a guy off the big league roster? Well, how’d you get Crochet? Oh, yeah. It happens all the time. How’d you get Chris Sale? How’d you get Beckett years a I mean, I think every ace they’ve ever got, every high-end pitcher they ever got was all prospects just about. So, it’s almost like in football, it’s usually a draft pick for a top player. It’s usually it’s very rarely player for player. You don’t have to give up you don’t have to give up Durant or Campbell to get a high-end pitcher. How do I know? The Red Sox just did it for Garrick Crochet. But also, we’ve for the last three or four years have always said, you know, we or at least for me personally, I’ve wanted the team to buy at the deadline and they always were kind of short of that. Either Heimlum wouldn’t do it or Craig Brezlo did it, but none of those players were impact. But part of it was the team needed to really put pressure on whoever the GM was to make those moves. And when you’re one or two games out of the wild card, as a fan, it’s easy to scream for a change, right? And even some of the players, there were years where like Kenley Jansen would get upset that they didn’t add anybody, but you’re one or two out and like were you really were you really making the case that you had to buy now? Like it’s inexcusable. Like you just won 10 straight games going into the All-Star break. You you you are now one game out of the top wild card spot. you are what I think two and a half now up in like as far as like in just in the falling out of the playoffs. Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I mean. So, I mean now it’s not even like up for debate. They’re not one of the teams like all I’m sure all the baseball writers, the national guys over this week in the next couple leading up to the trade deadline will be like buyers and sellers and then teams that are sort of like twe like there’s no debate on what the Red Sox are right now. So now it’s going to have to come down to Craig Brow. can say all the right things. He can talk about impact moves and everything else. You have to do it. You can’t bring in James Paxton or this year’s version of James Paxton and tell us that you bought on the team. You didn’t. And there’s no excuses for them. You have a good farm system. You have major league players that are that are very tradable. Not that you and I are suggesting they do that, but you just have a lot of options. And even if you go to your boss and be like, “Hey, because we traded Devers away, I can make this move, this move, and this move, and we’re still under the payroll of what the team was supposed to be, so I assume he’ll sign off on it.” So the Brezo has no excuses for the next couple of weeks. So how big should the Red Sox be thinking? Keith isn’t ruling out a World Series. So if you’re thinking that big, how hard should they go at the trade deadline? What are you willing to give up? Uh, Red Sox with a 10-ame win streak, I think, have firmly put themselves in the buyers category. I’d agree with Rich on that. And there’s a couple of things that I would advise them to get out there and deal early because of number one is the second half schedule, which which doesn’t scare me per se, but you got to get out there and fortify your team for these series coming up, or at least I would advise them to do that. The other is, and this is directly correlated to what they do and don’t do at the trade deadline the last few years, they tend to drop off in August under Alex Cor. Sure do every single year. So consistent. If you want to avoid that, I’d be swinging big at the trade deadline. You can weigh in 6177797937. That’s your phone number to get in touch with Jones and Keef on a Monday. We’ll get you a hashtagdork minute at 11:45. A spoiler-free Superman review. Correct. You got that right. I heard Wiggy and Shime doing some of this earlier today as well. Very detailed breakdown. Keith will give you his coming up at 11:45. At 11:00, we’re going to give you our Red Sox mid-season awards. Woo! Team awards. Some superlatives. Yes, team awards. We’re going to be voted on by us. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yearbook style is what we’re going to be doing at 11. So stay tuned. Popularity contest. Stay tuned for that.

The Red Sox:

– Own MLB’s longest active win streak — tied for the second-longest by any team this season (longest by a Sox team since 2018)

– 11-1 in July

– Hold a Wild Card spot, just 3 games back of the division lead

What’s their ceiling? Adam Jones and Rich Keefe discuss, explaining why the World Series is a legitimate possibility.

#baseball #mlb #redsox #baseballnews #mlblb #mlbb #mlbnews #sports #trending #news #fyp #worldseries

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