Red Sox’s Chaim Bloom Determined Amid Last-Minute Playoff Run

The Boston Red Sox are in a tricky spot with 22 games left to go.

Still within reach, sitting five games back from the final playoff spot in the American League Wild Card, the Red Sox aren't out just yet. That's despite having lost seven of their last 10 and splitting their most recent six-game road trip in a fairly disappointing fashion. And with postseason hopes on the verge of slipping away, marking a second consecutive playoff miss, Boston knows its reality ahead, regardless of how 2023 finishes off.

"We knew coming in almost four years ago that we were gonna have to make some tough choices that we just were not in a position to keep our foot on the gas in a way that the organization had the few years prior," Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said on WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show" on Thursday. "That just wasn't realistic with where things were going and it would've put us even deeper in a hole and it would've put us in a situation where you are in one of those half-decade valleys where you don't even sniff contention. ... We still have a lot of work to do."

That work doesn't just include the upcoming offseason, but overcoming a quickly improbable hurdle that's looming ahead to avoid a daunting trend in recent years for the Red Sox.

Last season, the Red Sox finished dead last in the AL East, right where they were at the end of 2020. And with the New York Yankees just two games from moving ahead of Boston in the standings, the possibility of a third last place finish in the last four years is in the books.

That makes the final few weeks all that more interesting for the Red Sox, who could fall in one of two spots. That includes a possibility in which they muster up a shocking playoff ticket-punching run before the regular season buzzer sounds to silence a plethora of naysayers.

But that won't be easy.

The Red Sox remain five games back in the AL Wild Card race, a deficit that's tough to overcome this time of year. With the on-field play hinting at a team that's still hungry to extend the season, Bloom isn't worried.

"These guys are engaged, they are battling," Bloom explained, per WEEI. "And the fact that the schedule is tough. ... You talk about Toronto (Blue Jays) and Texas (Rangers), we wanna play Toronto and Texas. Obviously, we'll see how this series goes, we gotta play our best, but to do what we wanna do, you wanna play the teams that are ahead of you. That's how you gain ground."