It would be unfair to call the Boston Red Sox’s season thus far a failure, but it certainly hasn’t gone as many expected.
After winning a total of 119 games in 2018, which ended with the Sox claiming the World Series, they returned much of the same team and were expected to be a wagon once more. But they’ve periodically stumbled, and though they sit six games above .500, they still trail the New York Yankees by eight games in the standings.
Such struggles understandably would lead one to wonder if the Red Sox are fighting off the dreaded “World Series hangover.” There’s not a ton of shame in it, as Boston wouldn’t be the first or last team to go through such a thing. But after the Red Sox’s walk-off win over the Chicago White Sox on Monday, infielder Eduardo Nunez expressed disagreement with the notion that the Red Sox are dealing with the hangover.
“We’re still hustling, still hungry. I think we’re not hungover like people say. It’s just that things aren’t working,” Nunez told reporters, via The Boston Globe. “We keep working hard. We have three more months to show up and put the game where we need to be.”
Of late, it’s looked like the Red Sox have begun to right the ship, although losing this past weekend’s series to the Toronto Blue Jays set them back a little bit. Still, ugly as it might have been, Monday’s win, in which they erased three separate deficits, is a sign that this group does still care.