Boston beat Los Angeles 5-2 at Fenway Park on September 7, and the final score doesn't tell you much. The Red Sox have been winning a lot lately. The real story is who got them there.
Brayan Bello threw five scoreless innings in his first start since early June, and that's the headline for me. This is a guy who gave up a career-high-tying eight runs back on June 4 and got shipped to Triple-A for nearly a month to sort himself out. He came back to a big-league mound in the middle of a playoff push and didn't just survive, he shut a team down for five innings and struck out seven. Say what you want about the opponent, but you don't know how a guy will respond to that kind of pressure until he's actually out there. Bello answered it the only way that counts.
That's the part the Rutschman homer will overshadow, and I get why. A three-run shot off the Pesky Pole is the kind of swing that ends up in every highlight package, and it came as part of a hot stretch for Rutschman that's made him one of the most dangerous bats in Boston's lineup through the first week of September. Jarren Duran's solo homer, his 20th of the year, kicked off a four-run second inning that put the game away early. Boston out-hit LA and got the win without much drama once that lead was built.
But championship rosters aren't built on hot bats alone in September. They're built on starting pitching depth, and a team that thought it might be down a starter for the stretch run just got a version of Bello back that looked like he belonged. If that holds up, it changes Boston's rotation math heading into October in a way one more Duran homer never could.
Zoom out and this win is just the latest brick in an excellent stretch for Boston, who improved to 80-65 and have won five straight. The Red Sox have been the hottest team in the American League since the All-Star break, and they've clawed back within a couple games of New York for the top AL wild-card spot, even though the Yankees still hold the season-series tiebreaker after taking three of four from Boston in late August. That race is still moving day to day, and I'm not going to pretend it's settled, but the mood at Fenway right now is about as good as it's been all year.
For the Angels, this one barely moves the needle. Moisés Ballesteros hit a solo homer, the only offensive highlight in a game LA lost from the jump. Grayson Rodriguez took the loss, falling to 4-7, and the Angels dropped to 54-90, having lost 12 of their last 14 games. This isn't a team playing for much beyond pride right now, and it showed. The Angels weren't going to threaten Boston's win streak, and they didn't.
Everyone's going to talk about Rutschman off the pole and Duran's 20th homer, and both deserve the credit they'll get. But if you're Boston, you should be more excited about Bello's line than either of those swings. A rotation that gets a healthy, effective version of him back in mid-September looks a lot scarier come the Wild Card Series.
