It’s mid-summer at Fenway Park. The Red Sox are dead last in the AL East. The Yankees came in with a division lead to protect. And somehow, some way, Boston is one win away from a four-game sweep of their biggest rival. Even Dave Portnoy is confused.
The Barstool Sports founder posted on X during Saturday’s game: “Are the Red Sox really gonna sweep the Yankees? What is going on here?” It’s a fair question. This is a Red Sox team that has spent months underperforming, sitting at 35-46 after Saturday’s win. A team that has given its fans very little to cheer about. But for three straight days, they’ve looked like a completely different squad.
Thursday’s opener was a 6-3 win. Friday they won 6-1. Then Saturday they took it 4-1. Masataka Yoshida and Anthony Seigler provided the early pop. Jake Bennett kept the Yankees lineup quiet. It was the kind of clean, confident baseball Boston hasn’t played all year.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are suddenly sweating. They dropped to 48-34 and watched their AL East lead over the Rays shrink to half a game. A team that spent June trying to build separation now has to deal with questions about why they couldn’t handle a last-place club at Fenway.
Boston’s season still has plenty of ugly stats attached to it. Three wins don’t fix months of inconsistency. But they do change the mood. Fenway has been louder this weekend than it’s been all summer. Fans are staying in their seats. The handshake line after Saturday’s win had some actual energy behind it.
Portnoy isn’t the only one surprised. Red Sox fans have been conditioned to expect the worst this season. So watching their team roll through the Yankees like this feels like a glitch in the Matrix. Nobody knows if it means anything going forward. But for one weekend, a brutal season has a highlight worth talking about.
The four-game series wraps up Sunday. Boston can complete the sweep. New York can salvage something. Either way, the Yankees are leaving town with more questions than they had when they arrived.
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