The Boston Red Sox are not shying away from the pressure of the postseason — if they can even get there.
Thanks to a much-needed 11-7 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday, the Red Sox stayed 1 1/2 games clear of the surging Cleveland Guardians in the American League wild card standings. With eight games to play, Fangraphs estimates the Red Sox’s chances of a playoff berth to be 88.1%.
The best sign of all in that clutch win over the Rays may well have been third baseman Alex Bregman’s home run. Bregman entered Friday as one of the coldest hitters in all of baseball, with a .157 batting average in his previous 22 games.
Bregman is well aware that his and his team’s recent struggles have made it no longer a foregone conclusion that Boston is still dancing come playoff time. But he also isn’t heaping too much pressure on these last eight games — only because he doesn’t think making the playoffs should be the team’s biggest goal.
“I feel like the mentality here is we don’t want to just get into the playoffs. We want to play well in the playoffs and go play for another month,” said Bregman, per Ian Browne of MLB.com.
“So for us, I feel like getting back to playing our best brand of baseball on a consistent basis is super important. So that’s why I feel like the last few days (of struggling) could be good for us. We can learn a lot from it. And I feel like this team is ready to roll.”
If there’s anyone on the Red Sox’s roster the players want to take cues from at this time of year, it’s Bregman. He’s never missed the playoffs in his first eight major league seasons — with 99 career postseason games under his belt, he’s got more than double the postseason experience of any other player on the roster.
And projecting a message of confidence and high expectations certainly can’t hurt when it comes to sizing up potential AL postseason opponents.
Perhaps expecting bigger and better things will help the Red Sox continue to play loose over these last eight games, as they did at long last on Friday night.
More MLB: Red Sox Keeping Kristian Campbell, At Least Six Others Ready For Playoffs
