‘Clear-cut favorites to win AL pennant’: How Red Sox have surged up standings
Bob Nightengale and Steve Gardner break down the Red Sox’s surge up the standings and why Boston has emerged as the clear-cut favorite to win the AL pennant.
BALTIMORE – After a nearly flawless long weekend of baseball at Camden Yards, the Boston Red Sox flew out of Baltimore and back home Sunday, Sept. 6, their spot in the MLB playoffs virtually assured, their World Series hopes very real.
And as their interim manager buckled into his seat, he felt far more secure than the first time he flew into Charm City this year.
More than four months ago, Chad Tracy’s professional odyssey took a shocking turn when, in the fourth inning of the 28th game of his fifth year managing Class AAA Worcester (Massachusetts), he was summoned by club president Craig Breslow.
The message: You’re going to be the new manager of the Boston Red Sox.
The circumstances: Suboptimal. The Red Sox were 17-27 when Breslow opted to eject Alex Cora, their World Series-winning manager, from the manager’s chair eight years into his tenure during a series at Camden Yards.
In his place: A minor-league lifer whose stomach turned on that April 25 flight from Worcester to Baltimore, his to-do list – Calm the youngsters, reassure the veterans, salvage the season – longer than a CVS receipt.
Tracy admits those early hours in Baltimore amounted to a “fire drill.” And the many players he’d sent from Worcester to Boston along with skeptical veterans who knew him only from spring training and brief rehab assignments were watching closely.
And quietly blown away.
“He did a great job,” says lefty starter Payton Tolle, “of being transparent, being honest. Of saying, ‘Hey, I’m going through this with you guys. This sucks, but we’re going to find our way around it and through it together.’
“He’s done a great job of reminding guys of that. He makes sure you know he’s in the foxhole with us. To me, he was the same guy he was in Worcester. His calming presence.
“I’m sure there was a little bit of nerves – there’s got to be nerves going through that – but you wouldn’t have noticed.”
Not that Tracy was an immediate salve. The Red sox went 19-26 in their first 45 games with him, seemingly cementing their spot in the American League East cellar. Yet, what happened since justified Breslow’s bold venture and Tracy’s young charges’ belief in him.
A 15-game winning streak highlighted a 21-4 July. The club is 47-19 since June 25 – a scorching .712 winning percentage. And now they’re 69-48 under Tracy.
Sunday, they completed a four-game sweep of the Orioles with a 3-1 victory, capping a series of deftly-managed, well-pitched games. They have a six-game lead for the No. 2 wild card spot in the American League with 18 games to play.
They are almost certain to square off against the rival Yankees in the wild-card round, most likely in New York. And guiding them will be a manager who might find the playoffs in the Bronx a smoother ride than the trial-by-fire that made him a big league skipper.
“Everything’s slowed down,” Tracy tells USA TODAY Sports, reflecting on his 105-day journey since getting tapped to run the Red Sox. “Getting up to speed with an entirely new coaching staff. Up to speed preparing for a big league game instead of a minor league game. Getting to know the guys and watching games and getting comfortable with having visual cues for when a guy starts to fatigue.
“So many things that, when you now fast-forward four and a half months, you feel like you have a good handle on all of them.”
The one thing Tracy does not have? The interim tag removed from his job title. Playoff baseball has a way of overturning narratives well-crafted from April to September.
Yet ,“interim” can adorn many managers like a scarlet letter. Tracy, 41, is not one of them.
“A wild situation to get thrown into,” says veteran All-Star closer Garrett Whitlock. “But he doesn’t ride the rollercoaster. Smooth and steady. The spring trainings I’ve had with him, he’s someone you want to talk to, someone you want to be around just because of how good a guy he is.
“I’d never been on his roster, but I still had a great relationship with him going into this. Just because of how easy a person he is to get along with.”
Which is perhaps the biggest prerequisite to survive in Boston.
A ‘bittersweet moment’
Mickey Gasper was on the field for the WooSox on April 25 when he glanced into the dugout during the fifth inning. Something was missing.
“I was playing first base and I was just like, ‘Why isn’t Tracy in the dugout?’” remembers Gasper. “And I noticed Collin Hetzler, our hitting coach, he’s not here, either.
“And then after the game, they had a meeting with us.”
Breslow had called. Tracy and Hetzler were bound for Baltimore, where Breslow had fired Cora and five members of the coaching staff. Tracy was getting the promotion of a lifetime, one his charges in Worcester dreamed about for themselves.
“It was a bittersweet moment being there. We loved having Trace there,” says Gasper. “I certainly did; he’s one of the best managers I’ve ever played for. Always there for us, always ready to work.
“Always wanting to get us better, wanting us to succeed.”
Yet, several reunions were soon in the offing.
In Boston, Tracy was surrounded by several former Worcester pupils, most notably outfielders Roman Anthony, Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu and pitchers like Tolle. By summer, three members of the Worcester lineup on that fateful April afternoon would rejoin Tracy in Boston.
None made quite a splash as Gasper, 30, who’s hit eight homers in 17 games since an Aug. 17 recall and had a 1.671 OPS in August. Gasper is in his ninth season of pro ball and, entering this season, had just 58 major league games under his belt.
When he bade Tracy farewell when the manager left Worcester in April, it resonated.
“I thought he’d earned it, you know?” says Gasper, a 27th-round pick of the Yankees in 2018. “That’s a guy that’s paid his dues in the game of baseball, played the game, managed the game for quite some time, been in the game his whole life.
“A guy that paid his dues and earned his way to his spot. I was ecstatic for him getting this opportunity.”
Yet much of the heavy lifting was ahead.
Veteran outreach
Oh, Tracy wasn’t exactly a major league newbie: His dad, Jim, spent 11 years managing the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies. Yet, Chad’s playing career hit a ceiling at Class AAA, getting that far with the Texas Rangers, Rockies and Kansas City Royals.
He’d bring pedigree but not playing bona fides to Boston’s clubhouse. Which he knew might be a challenge in a room largely bifurcated between the kids and a group of veterans led by shortstop Trevor Story.
The veteran crew was buttressed by off-season acquisitions of first baseman Willson Contreras and ace Sonny Gray from St. Louis, but the group was misfiring when Tracy joined them.
“It was important to get to know Willson,” says Tracy of Contreras, who’s having an All-Star season but currently on the injured list. “It was important to get to know Sonny. I knew Trevor, had managed him on rehab assignments, but it was important understanding what those guys are all about.
“They’re what helps your locker room go. That was important.”
Gray, now 17-4 with a 2.69 ERA, says he appreciates that Tracy does not overmanage. Eventually, the Red Sox found themselves, and their scorching July and August have set the stage for bigger things.
“I think it says that we have good players and it just took us a little while to gel and find our rhythm,” says Gray. “But I think if you find it, hopefully you can maintain it.”
A feel for the room
Or at least regain it. Their sweep at Baltimore came after losing four of five against the Seattle Mariners and the Yankees. The weekend came with a bonus: Tracy summoned Worcester hitting coach and Red Sox legend Rich Gedman to Baltimore for the weekend.
Gedman, the catcher for their 1986 AL pennant-winning team who’s been in the organization since 1979, coached almost all the current Red Sox hitters in Worcester and remains beloved. When the team convened a hitter’s meeting during their final game against Seattle at Fenway Park, Gedman walked into the room.
His former pupils roared in delight, and responded even louder when Tracy said, “And he’s coming with us to Baltimore.”
It was a symbolic nod to a longtime friend of the franchise. Perhaps more significantly, it was a sign the man running the dugout knows his players and recognizes that respect is earned in the game’s endless meritocracy.
“You want to recognize people,” says Tracy, “who mean what he means to the organization.”
Soon, Tracy may find out just what he means to the Red Sox.