Red Sox series against White Sox shows they're destined to be a .500 team

The Boston Red Sox have been a perpetually-.500 ball club — Boston sits at 33-33 after its series with the league-worst White Sox.

The Red Sox have been 32-32, 31-31, 30-30, 29-29, 28-28, 27-27, and 26-26 this season. Their record has been torturous for fans and they can't seem to break in one direction or the other.

Boston is known to struggle against good teams this year. The Red Sox have one of the most difficult stretches of their season coming up, and they couldn't break north of .500 to be ready for it.

Chicago was in the throes of a 14-game losing streak when it encountered the Red Sox on June 7. The White Sox held them to just two runs that day and one the next. They won two consecutive games for the first time since May 14-15.

The Red Sox's two losses to the White Sox could haunt them for the rest of the season

Boston's sloppy defense and quiet bats got the best of the team in a completely winnable — in fact, sweepable — series. The Red Sox set expectations high early with a 14-2 win to open the series, but their bats never matched that production again.

The Red Sox committed four errors in the series in Chicago. Their defense looked as poor as it did in April, and when one person made a mistake it frazzled everyone else on the field. On June 9, they made three errors on three consecutive plays, which resulted in a three-run homer to the worst homer-hitting team in the league.

Boston is set to face the Phillies and Yankees in consecutive series. The teams lead their respective leagues in the win column. They're neck-and-neck in the race for the best pitching staff in the league. New York has the second-strongest offense and Philly isn't far behind.

The Yankees and Phillies are better than the Red Sox in every category. Boston had every chance to give itself some wiggle room during the Chicago series, but the Red Sox played themselves out of a series win. Injuries are certainly part of its struggles, but Boston needed those wins against the White Sox to stay afloat.

The race for fifth place in the American League East is too tight for the Red Sox to lose games against 15-win clubs. Every win and loss feels important to a club that can't break away from an even record, and Boston lost two of the most winnable games it might play this season.

If the Sox miss out on a wild card spot, two losses to the White Sox will jump back into fans' minds. They could end up being the nail in Boston's coffin unless it can string together some wins against the two best teams in the league, or go on a run later in the year — but that's something we've yet to see after two and a half months.

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