NEW YORK — After losing three out of four to the Yankees in a long weekend in the Bronx, the Red Sox appear resigned to the reality of the math.
Boston’s 5-2 loss in Sunday’s finale — coupled with wins by both Minnesota and Detroit — dropped the Sox back to 4½ games out of the third and final wild card spot in the American League. The Red Sox, back at .500 at 75-75, are behind three teams — the Twins (4½ games), Tigers (2 games) and Mariners (2 games).
“We’re 4½ games back and Detroit won. It’s getting tougher and tougher,” acknowledged manager Alex Cora.
“It has been tough,” Cora added. “We’ve lost games in a lot of different ways. We’ve been talking about the offense lately but I think we’ve done a good job bouncing back. At one point, it was the rotation and at one point, it was the bullpen. As a whole, if you look at our season, it might be a good one in the eyes of a lot of people but we felt — we feel — like we can play in October and be good. But right now, it’s getting tougher.”
The Red Sox had a chance to open their second-to-last road trip of the year with some positive momentum after going 4-2 at home against the White Sox and Orioles. But they were walked off by Juan Soto on Thursday, allowed a dramatic grand slam to Aaron Judge on Friday and couldn’t do much offensively Sunday. The only win was Saturday’s emotional 7-1 victory.
The Red Sox are now 22-32 since the All-Star break.
“It wasn’t like it was a bad series because we lost three out of four,”. We were in every game,” Cora said. “You look at this week. We played Baltimore and New York. We lost three here, one at home and every game was a close one. But that’s not enough in this league. You don’t get wins by playing tough games. You get Ws when you win games and we didn’t do it.”
For days, Cora has been talking about a goal being having next weekend’s home series against the Twins be a meaningful one. At this point, it’s unlikely that’s the case. After an off day Monday, Boston has a three-game set against the Rays in St. Petersburg and it feels like the Sox will need to sweep to remain in it. The Twins (four against Cleveland) and Tigers (three against Kansas City) and Mariners (three against the Yankees) all play tough teams this week.
For now, Boston’s odds of making the playoffs are at just 2.4%, per FanGraphs.
“The days are definitely getting more valuable,” said starter Kutter Crawford. “Each game now just means that much more. Hopefully, we can get on a little heater here in the next week or so and still have a chance.
“It hasn’t been easy. We had the awesome walk-off the other night and we were looking to build some momentum going into this series. It just didn’t work out that way.”
AMERICAN LEAGUE WILD CARD STANDINGS (as of Sunday afternoon):
1. Baltimore Orioles — 84-66 — +4.5 games
2. Kansas City Royals — 82-68 — +2.5 games
3. Minnesota Twins — 79-70
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4. Detroit Tigers — 77-73 — 2.5 games back
5. Seattle Mariners — 77-73 — 2.5 games back
6. Boston Red Sox — 75-75 — 4.5 games back
