Red Sox Climb Up ESPN’s MLB Power Rankings Amid Winning Streak

As the Boston Red Sox’s April losses continued to mount, manager Alex Cora repeatedly stressed that his ball club “will be fine.”

It turns out this wasn’t just a coaching cliche from Boston’s second-year skipper. He was right.

The Red Sox, who on April 17 found themselves at 6-13 and 8 1/2 games back of first place in the American League East, currently sit at 22-19 and three games back of the top spot in the division. Following a weekend sweep of the Seattle Mariners, Boston now owns a five-game win streak and has dropped just two games in May.

The club’s recent surge was reflected in ESPN’s latest Major League Baseball power rankings, which pegged the Red Sox at 15 three weeks ago. The reigning World Series champions now reside at No. 8.

“You don’t need next-level stats to appreciate how dramatic the turnaround has been for the Red Sox,” Steve Richards writes. “After their first 19 games, the Sox were an AL-worst 6-13 with 77 runs scored and 119 runs allowed for a minus-42 run differential. In the 22 games since then, they are 16-6 with 143 runs scored, 74 allowed and a plus-69 differential.”

Boston’s winning ways are poised to continue, as six of its next nine games are against teams that currently own a record under .500. The outlier in that stretch is a three-game weekend series against the Houston Astros, who will serve as a good barometer to evaluate if the Red Sox actually are “back” or if they’ve just taken care of business against teams they’re supposed to beat.

The Sox managed to weather the early-season storm, and now it might be full steam ahead as the summer months near.