COMMENTARY
Thirty-six games and 22 wins into the Red Sox season, those of us who have been aboard the “sneaky good” train since Fort Myers can’t help but notice that those who wrote them off as the No-Chance Brigade back then are saying an awful lot of nice stuff about them now.
I can’t crow beyond that mild I-told-you-so, though. They did lose their first three games, which seemed to confirm some of the worst suspicions about the shape the season would take.
It should have been obvious, even during that rough first series, that Chaim Bloom’s roster-building ingenuity had improved the organization’s depth and quality over last season’s 24-36 abbreviated debacle — but no one foresaw this:
The Red Sox entered Monday with the best record in the majors at 22-13, and the largest first-place lead (3½ games) in any division, and playing at a 102-win pace.