The Boston Red Sox are here. With their latest win, a 16-3 throttling of the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field, Boston extends their winning streak to six in a row and is ever so close to the .500 mark.
The teams offensive identity seems to be rounding into form, which isn't much of a surprise to those in the Red Sox clubhouse.
"Obviously going into the season we knew we were going to hit," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage. "Now if you look at the numbers today, we're probably, like, a top three offense in the league. Right?"
Well, not quite. The Red Sox don't rank in the top three of any major hitting category, but they do rank favorably over their six game winning streak. Boston has scored nine runs per game and batted .272 as a team. That's good enough to make up for the lack of early production, even in Cora's mind.
"We were horrible (offensively) for three weeks," Cora said. "We're turning things around a little bit."
The Red Sox's offensive turnaround has come about in large part to their big three, J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers, and Xander Bogaerts. The former, Martinez, is about as locked in as ever.
"He's very special," Alex Cora said. "He doesn't take anything for granted. Even with the score like that, he's putting good at bats (together) ... he's been really good for a long time, and this season he's been consistent the whole time."
Nick Pivetta, Boston's starter Tuesday, is 3-0 with a 1.61 earned run average over his last four starts, and seems to have found the formula to consistency in the month of May.
"(He had) a very good curveball today," Red Sox catcher Christian Vázquez said on NESN's postgame coverage. "He's working hard and you can see the success."
Pivetta agreed with Vázquez.
"I feel like my fastball command was pretty off," Pivetta said. " ... but I was able to rely on my slider and curveball a lot, which helps me get deep in the baseball game."
Here are some more notes from Tuesday's Red Sox-White Sox game:
-- Every member of the Red Sox's starting lineup recorded a hit Tuesday, with each of them reaching base at least once before an out was recorded in the fourth inning.
-- With a 4-for-5 performance, J.D. Martinez improved his batting total to .366, the second best amon qualified batters in the major leagues.
-- The Red Sox had 22 hard hit balls on Thursday, the most by any one team in a game this season.
-- Seven of Boston's nine batters recorded at least two hits Thursday.
-- The Red Sox have three players batting over .320, they are the only team in baseball to be able to claim that feat.
The Red Sox and White Sox continue their three game series Wednesday at Guaranteed Rate Field. First pitch is scheduled for 8:10 p.m. ET following an hour of pregame coverage, and you can watch it all on NESN.
