The Boston Red Sox had a tremendous 2018 Major League Baseball season, to say the least. Many certainly didn’t expect first-year manager Alex Cora to come away with 108 wins and a World Series title, but stranger things have happened in sports.
Of course, there’s been plenty of talk about Boston repeating as champions — especially with the club bringing back most of its same roster from last year. But what really is realistic for the 2019 Red Sox squad? ESPN put together a “realistic goal” for each club for this season, with every team getting a “way to find pleasure” and “way to avoid pain” categories.
Here’s what they had to say about the Red Sox:
“How to find pleasure:Â Beat the Yankees.
“The Red Sox will almost certainly be worse this year. They will probably not even win the World Series. … While there’s little else for the Red Sox to accomplish, there remains a lot for the Red Sox to deprive the Yankees of. … A successful season is one win more than the Yankees and at least one more game played than the Yankees.”
Any time Boston and the New York Yankees get together it’s always entertaining. The rivalry certainly escalated in 2018 after Joe Kelly plunked Tyler Austin, resulting in a benches-clearing brawl, so it will be interesting to see whether the bad blood boils over to this year, despite both players being on different teams.
And just how do the Red Sox avoid pain this year?
“Win the World Series.”
We won’t argue with that.
