Boston Red Sox reach 100-win milestone behind David Price: 3 takeaways

The hunt for a hot arm in October

Back in 2013 it was the unstoppable duo of Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara who combined to throw 7.0 scoreless innings against the Cardinals. Let’s not forget the fact that Uehara wasn’t even signed to take over the closer role in John Farrell’s bullpen. The Boston Red Sox only witnessed the first hand emergence of Uehara due to the season ending injuries of both Andrew Bailey and Joel Hanrahan.

Now we’re in a slighty different scenario with this 2018 Red Sox club. Boston has no reliable setup arm whatsoever! Back in early April through the first few months of the season, it seemed as though we had that arm in Joe Kelly. That spark which ignited to a classic Yankees-Red Sox brawl had Kelly throw below 1.0 ERA ball all of May. That’ll be remembered as the immaculate  Kelly which disappeared following those 14 flawless appearances. It seemed as though early on that Cora struck gold with a perfect Joe Kelly.

Unfortunately his run ended like we’ve seen with several arms in the rotation when going through the list.

Last season that arm was ironically David Price. Let’s go back to the final stretch of the season and heading into the 2017 postseason. In that ALDS series, Price threw 6.2 scoreless innings. That was within just two games which made Price a semi-starter considering the hefty load of “bullpen work” he carried in that series. Unfortunately that arm is yet to emerge for Alex Cora and this Red Sox team.

Yet, October is October. That’s where unknowns make themselves known, making a sliver of hope existent within the bullpen.

Speaking of Alex Cora, let’s give the man his well deserved props. He’s the first manager in Major League Baseball to tally up 100 wins in his first year since the 2003 Giants and Felipe Alou did so. That was fifteen years ago! Now pressure still remains on him as well.

The Boston Red Sox have recorded just one victory within their last two playoff series they’ve played. Those seasons also included clinching their division. Back-to-back early exits for Boston in the past two seasons are something this team can soon make a forgotten memory of the past.

With 16 games remaining on the season, next assignment’s up in clinching the American League East.