The Boston Red Sox keep finding ways to stay relevant in a crowded American League Wild Card race, and Monday night’s 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels only added to the sense that something has clicked.
The victory was their fifth in a row, and it came with a timely swing from Adley Rutschman, the switch-hitting catcher they acquired at the trade deadline.
Rutschman went 1-for-4 and launched a three-run homer that effectively put the game away. Then, on Tuesday, the club made a quieter but notable choice: he was not in the starting lineup, via Underdog MLB.
That decision is less a slight than a calculated pause. Rutschman arrived in Boston after a slow start with his new team, hitting .188 with four home runs and nine RBI across 19 games.
Lately, the bat has come alive. Over his previous seven games he collected seven hits, three of them homers, and drove in five runs.
Managers tend to reward that kind of surge by keeping a player in the lineup every day. Alex Cora and the coaching staff instead gave the start to Connor Wong, who was slotted ninth while Patrick Sandoval took the ball.
The rest of the order featured Roman Anthony in left, Jarren Jones at designated hitter, Wilyer Abreu in right, Trevor Story at short, Nate Sogard at first, Caleb Durbin at third, Andruw Monasterio at second and Eli White in center.
The move fits the larger picture of a roster that has been managed with October in mind. After a first half that left many observers writing the Red Sox off, the club heated up around the All-Star break and then added pieces at the deadline, including Rutschman and Curtis Mead.
The result is a deeper lineup and one of the stronger rotations in the league. Giving Rutschman an extra day after a high-leverage homer is the sort of small adjustment that can keep a catcher’s legs fresh over the final weeks of a long season.
Whether Boston can turn this stretch into a genuine World Series run remains an open question. The wild-card picture is still unsettled, and Rutschman’s overall numbers since the trade are modest.
Yet the recent power, combined with his reputation as one of the better defensive catchers in the game, gives the Red Sox a different look than they had in April and May.
Tuesday’s lineup is a reminder that even a player who just delivered a game-changing swing can sit when the schedule allows it. If the winning streak continues, that rest may look wise rather than cautious.
