Subscribe
Follow Us
The 2025 season has been a rather eventful one for the Boston Red Sox. And yet they've played average baseball for most of the year, being a .500 team for much of it. But something appears to have clicked for the Red Sox in recent weeks. On Friday night, the Red Sox took a 5-4 win at home against a division rival in the Tampa Bay Rays, moving to 51-45 on the season after winning their eighth consecutive ballgame thanks to a walk-off home run from 24-year-old center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela.
The recent schedule has helped Boston immensely; six of those eight wins have come against two bottom-dwellers in their respective divisions in the Washington Nationals and the MLB-worst Colorado Rockies. But the Red Sox have shown that they can hang with a solid team in the Rays, yet another playoff contender in the stacked AL East.
What has helped the Red Sox turn quite a corner is the performance of their young players, particularly Rafaela, whom manager Alex Cora shouted out in his postgame presser.
“[Rafaela] is the best defensive center fielder in the big leagues. He's hitting ninth in a pretty good lineup. It helps what we're trying to accomplish. That was a great swing,” Cora said of the 24-year-old Red Sox center fielder, who took an 86-mph slider from Pete Fairbanks deep during the bottom of the ninth, much to an uproar from Fenway Park.
Alex Cora: “It was Marcelo, Roman, and Rafaela. … The future of this organization is bright. The present is bright, too.” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/qTnWLMNdB2
— NESN (@NESN) July 12, 2025
But it wasn't just Rafaela who helped power the Red Sox to victory. Two other youngsters, 22-year-old Marcelo Mayer and 21-year-old Roman Anthony also had Cora singing their praises.
“It was Marcelo, Roman, and Rafaela. That's pretty young. The future of this organization is bright. The present is bright, too,” Cora added.
Red Sox are in world-beating form and will look to sustain against good teams
The stretch ahead for the Red Sox could be season-defining. They still have two games against a Rays team that currently has a 50-45 record, but after that, they will be battling against three division leaders in three separate three-game sets, traveling on the road to face the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies before heading home to host the powerhouse Los Angeles Dodgers.
Nonetheless, it looks like the Red Sox have been playing with a “nothing to lose” mindset, which is the most dangerous mindset a young team can adopt. Cora has them playing with a chip on their shoulder, and Boston will look to keep their momentum going even against the best that MLB has to offer.
