Don't look now, but the Boston Red Sox are finally making some noise in 2026's underwhelming American League. Boston has won nine of its last 11 games, including sweeps of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels, and climbed into fourth place in the AL East for the first time since May 23.
The Red Sox are hardly a playoff contender yet, as they have a lot more winning to do before anyone takes them seriously up against the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. But Boston is seemingly beginning to find the one thing it's needed to win all season long: power.
The Sox's winning surge has been fueled by a sudden outburst of slug from their top players. Willson Contreras has hit three homers with 11 RBI in his past seven games. Caleb Durbin has three homers in his last 15 games, Andruw Monasterio has two and six other players have hit one home run in that time.
The Red Sox are the lowest power team in MLB with 80 homers through 89 games. Slug has been the clearest deficiency in their lineup — they can get on base, but continuing innings after that happens has been a struggle all year.
Red Sox are finally hitting home runs consistently during recent winning streak
Finally, the homers are coming in a way they haven't all season. For the fist time this year, the Red Sox have hit more than one home run in each of their last three games (according to Rob Bradford of WEEI). The Angels and White Sox are hardly tough competition with pitching staffs that rank in the bottom half of the league in ERA, but they were still able to show Boston exactly what it's been missing.
Contreras has been a huge part of the Sox's power burst which makes his impending suspension even more troubling than it would've been otherwise. Other Boston bats are finally hitting their stride in the power department, however, so this could be the ideal time for Contreras to miss some games. The New York Mets' pitching staff ranks No. 27 in the league in ERA, so the Red Sox could stay hot against them, even with Contreras on the sidelines.
The Red Sox's winning spell has finally awarded them some relevance in the trade deadline and postseason conversations. It's also showed that their trade deadline focus should be adding a right-handed power bat, provided they continue their hot streak long enough to justify not taking advantage of this year's seller's market (subscription required).
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