Red Sox in Seventh Heaven: Win streak reaches seven games

In the absence of solid relief pitching, Hanley Ramirez’s Walk-off blast that ignited the Red Sox, much like any hopes for a ninth championship, would be moot.

The Boston Red Sox have won seven consecutive games for the first time this season. To be precise, the last occurrence of a seven-game win streak in Boston was from May 26, 2014 to June 1, 2014. Some readers may wonder if a modest seven-game winning streak is even worthy of its own article.

Normally, my response to such a query would be negative; however, this winning streak assumes added significance for numerous reasons.

First, all seven triumphs were against division adversaries with whom we were vying for the divisional crown. Second, the timing of the winning streak, mid-September, greatly amplified its significance, and lastly, Red Sox fans had to feel that this was a total team effort, representative of one required for a deep October run.

When the starters produced a sub-par exhibition, the bullpen performed brilliantly, holding down the fort and enabling the offense to engineer a comeback. As a result of consistently excellent pitching from virtually every member of the pitching staff, the offense was never required to author a monumental comeback in order to produce victories.

In fact, during the seven-game streak, the offense scored 40 runs, which is merely its average seasonal output for seven games. The crucial aspect of this winning streak was limiting our opponents to 24 runs during the streak’s duration.

This is the most consecutive games in recent memory that a starting pitcher or reliever did not put the offense in an inexorable deficit. I cannot overestimate the importance of this, as in the post-season, games are not won 12-10; rather, they are typically low-scoring affairs decided by only a run or two.