Considering how bunched the division is, and that Boston's deficit during its early struggles never reached more than five games, it is not a shock. Essentially, it means very little at this stage of the year with just four games separating first and fifth in the high-powered division.
It is, however, a symbolic development for the Sox, who finished Tax Day (the usual one, not the adjusted April 18 date this year) at 2-10 and having to answer questions, legitimate or not, as to whether they had dug themselves into too deep of a whole.
One of the more telling quotes that afternoon came from Bobby Jenks, whose rocky outing against Toronto had sealed the team's 10th defeat.
"I think we're there now," Jenks said when asked if the team was nearing the point where it would bottom out. "We're in a tough division. To come back right now it's going to be all year long. We need to get on it now. We need to turn this thing around."
Jenks hasn't been a big part of the club this year — he has been on the DL since soon after that loss to the Blue Jays. However, his words seemed to act, in part, as a trigger to a run that has served notice to the rest of the division, and to baseball as a whole.
The reason being? The 27-12 surge ever since has featured so many moments of sheer dominance, superlatives, accolades, milestones and historic achievements that it stands out from any others of a similar scope. It is, in a nutshell, a firm indication that the Red Sox many expected to see in 2011 are now here. The win-loss record is one thing. The way it has been put together is another.
Josh Beckett, the man of 100-win predictions in March, is on one of the finest rolls of his career, sporting a 0.60 ERA in May. He was central in a stretch that came on the heels of Jenks' comments and saw Boston starters allow two runs or fewer for eight straight games, the longest for the team since 1946.
He and his rotational mates currently are working on another such streak, which grew to seven games after Tim Wakefield's effort Friday night. That's two of the best runs by a Red Sox rotation since World War II, both occurring during a worst-to-first push in one month spans in their respective seasons.
And while all of that is going on, the offense, once dormant and struggling to find spots for certain guys, has built the best team average in the AL (.270) with a span of dominance of its own. Boston leads all of baseball in average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS (obviously), runs, hits, doubles, extra-base hits, RBIs and total bases in May. It is second to the Yankees in home runs, 32 to 31.
So while the rotation has amassed another string of standard-setting starts, the offense has exploded — it has averaged nearly seven runs a game during the current 12-2 push. Oh, and only one team in the AL has committed fewer errors this year than the Red Sox.
"Everything that was going wrong in the beginning of the year is now going right," manager Terry Francona said after Friday's 6-3 victory.
There was a sense in New York during the Sox' sweep there earlier this month that the Yankees, and perhaps the Rays, had missed out on an opportunity to "bury" Boston. Not that either team was going to run away with the division at the time, but they knew a Red Sox surge was coming and having some more separation early on could've allowed them to weather the Boston storm. Now that it's here, and because it has come in such an awesome fashion with dominance in all phases of the game, it has to have a few teams wondering if that early opportunity has gone by the wayside.
Based purely on the standings, it has not. Five teams are clustered like kids around an anthill. But if the manner in which the Red Sox are winning is a sign of things to come, those opportunities could soon be gone for good.
