With two weeks to go, the Red Sox are, what, 10 wins better than expected? Five wins better than their most optimistic projections, and a good 15 wins better than their most doom-and-gloom aspersions? They’re leading the wild-card race with 11 games to go, and FanGraphs gives them an 89.7 percent chance of making the playoffs.
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And going from middle-of-the-pack projections to the third-most wins in the American League has been a winding road of unexpected plot twists. Consider:
1. Out of spring training, manager Alex Cora announced utility man Kiké Hernández would be not only an everyday player but also the leadoff hitter.
2. After opening with three straight losses – at home, against the Orioles! – the Red Sox took control of the American League East thanks to a nine-game winning streak that included a sweep of the Rays, then stayed in first place for most of the next three months.
3. Rule 5 pick Garrett Whitlock emerged as a bullpen weapon and remains arguably the team’s most valuable reliever.
4. A league-wide crackdown on sticky substances left Garrett Richards scrambling for a new way to pitch, and he went from a 3.88 ERA in early June to being demoted to the bullpen in August (and now he’s actually excellent in that role, with a 0.87 ERA in September).
5. Matt Barnes went from being All-Star closer in July to posting a 13.50 ERA in August, which cost him the ninth inning and stripped the bullpen of any semblance of structure.
6. An otherwise aggressive trade deadline passed with the Red Sox staying relatively quiet, most notably trading for Kyle Schwarber, who plays left field and designated hitter — two positions the Red Sox had covered already.
7. On the verge of losing his job at first base, Bobby Dalbec delivered a Rookie of the Month performance in August to become suddenly indispensable again.
8. After weathering 2020 without a single in-season case of COVID-19, the Red Sox experienced a full outbreak of the virus with 12 players and three coaches testing positive.
9. Chris Sale returned from Tommy John surgery looking pretty sharp, but the American League’s leader in pitching fWAR is … Nathan Eovaldi?
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And number 10 on our didn’t-see-it-coming list …
10. Of all the out-of-nowhere roster moves, did you ever think you’d see José Iglesias back in a Red Sox uniform, a full decade after he was ranked the top prospect in the organization, and eight years after he was traded to help facilitate perhaps the most emotional championship in Boston sports history? Did you think he’d be released by the going-nowhere Angels, leaving his career in limbo, only to become the perfect short-term solution to a second base problem that had flummoxed the Red Sox all season?
“It’s been refreshing. It’s been great,” Cora said. “Veteran guy that understands where we’re at and what we’re fighting (to do). Obviously, we know the situation, and he knows it too, but he’s doing his best to get us there, and I think that’s good enough.”
The situation is this: because Iglesias was signed after August 31, he won’t be eligible for the playoffs, so his impact will be limited to these four weeks he’s on the roster. In that time, he’s already helped get the Red Sox back on track and kept them stable heading into these final two weeks.
Since arriving on September 6, Iglesias has had a hit in 10 of 12 games, batting .387 with a 1.022 OPS (his Angels OPS was .670 the previous five months). He’s been a steady and occasionally dazzling defender at second base despite having barely played the position the previous 13 years (his defensive metrics in L.A. were the worst of his career).
“I just try to help this team any way I can,” Iglesias said. “Wherever Alex (Cora) needs me, I’ll be there.”
Just a reminder that José Iglesias had basically never played second base until he went over there for the Red Sox less than a week ago. https://t.co/MNhR5TQAAF
— Chad Jennings (@chadjennings22) September 15, 2021
Since his return, Iglesias has more than once called the Red Sox “home.” The organization signed him as a Cuban defector in 2009, and he made his big league debut with them as a 21-year-old in 2011. Two years later, he was traded for Jake Peavy just a few months before the 2013 World Series, and two years after that, he was a slick-fielding All-Star shortstop in Detroit. He’s since bounced to Cincinnati, Baltimore, Los Angeles and finally back to Boston.
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“(Being released) was a mutual agreement between the Angels and I,” Iglesias said after he re-signed. “It was time for me to go and help someone else and get at-bats. I feel great. I’m in the best moment of my career. I feel like I can help someone else.”
Iglesias is the second unlikely homecoming of this Red Sox season. Corner infielder Travis Shaw — whom the Red Sox traded for Tyler Thornburg in 2016 – was claimed off waivers in August and has been a surprisingly effective bat off the bench, but Iglesias plugged a much bigger hole at a more important time.
By the time he took his first turn at second base, Red Sox had used eight different starters at the position. Half of them — Kiké Hernández, Christian Arroyo, Yairo Muñoz, and Jonathan Araúz — had at some point tested positive for COVID-19, and three of those have yet to return. Jack Lopez and Taylor Motter had been added to the roster, like Iglesias, specifically to deal with the outbreak, while Michael Chavis and Marwin Gonzalez had been traded and released within roughly two weeks of one another, neither one having hit enough to take control of the position.
Despite Arroyo’s better-than-expected season — another surprise for the Red Sox — second base had been a position of instability much of the year, but Iglesias has been steady, starting each of the past six games at second, including five straight wins that have pushed the Red Sox from a three-way tie in the wild-card race to the top position, ahead of the Blue Jays in the second wild-card spot, with the Yankees and A’s on the outside.
“This is what we saw the last few years against us,” Cora said. “Just a tough at-bat regardless of the result. … It felt like when we played (Iglesias) the last few years, he was getting two hits a day. It’s just, he puts the ball in play. Sometimes he chases a lot of pitches in one at-bat, but he keeps fouling off, fouling off, and then he hits a fly ball to right field.”
Arroyo, who was hit relatively hard by COVID-19, has played three minor league rehab games and could be activated soon, and presumably second base will be his again in the postseason, except for the occasional games when Hernandez moves from center field to the infield. But in the meantime, Iglesias has been more than a placeholder. He’s been a legitimate boost, a blast from the past propelling the Red Sox into the future. And if successful, by rule, that future will have to go on without him.
“This is home for me,” Iglesias said. “This is where I want to win. It’s very organic for me to fight for this organization, to fight for this team.”
(Photo of Iglesias: Winslow Townson / Getty Images)