The Boston Red Sox showed their fans very little to be excited about during the first month of the 2019 MLB season, but some executives around the league remain optimistic about the defending World Series' chances of returning to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year.
MLB.com recently polled 25 front-office executives and asked them to answer a few questions, and one was predicting where the Red Sox will finish this year. The most popular predictions were American League Wild Card berth (12 execs), fail to make the postseason (seven execs) and "in the wild card hunt" (four execs).
Here are some of the comments from execs polled.
“They have too much talent to not get really hot at some point,” an NL executive said.
Another NL executive noted the number of rebuilding teams in the AL, which should help Boston contend regardless of whether it can get back to last year’s level of play.
“How do they not make the playoffs?” the exec said. “Still, I have the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox in that order in the AL East. They win 85 games and come in third.”
The Red Sox have enough time left to make a run, but their consistency must improve ASAP. Boston has won three or more games in a row only once.
Entering Wednesday, the Red Sox needed to finish with an 80-52 record (.606 win percentage) to total 93 wins, which should be good enough for at least one of the two AL Wild Card spots. In fact, 93 wins would've secured one of these playoff berths in six of the last seven seasons.
The Red Sox are more than talented enough to turn around their season and put a disappointing April behind them, and their upcoming schedule is pretty favorable -- beginning Thursday, Boston's next 12 games all are against teams that didn't make the 2018 postseason. This is an opportunity Boston must take advantage of.
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