Mookie Betts, Chris Sale Make Red Sox Admission That Will Leave Fans Longing For 2018

It's been awfully hard not to feel a bit of pain when thinking back to the 2018 Boston Red Sox of late.

That Red Sox team was special, bulldozing its way to a franchise-record 108 regular-season wins, an 11-3 record in the playoffs, and a fourth World Series title in 15 years. It sometimes feels like it was yesterday, but it couldn't feel farther away when the Red Sox are playing the way they are now.

Once again, the Red Sox find themselves stuck at .500 early in 2025. Their 18-18 record has them in second place in the American League East, but it's hardly something to be proud of, when they could have easily won five to eight more games if they'd come through in the clutch.

Meanwhile, two stars of that 2018 team have gone on to major success with other franchises. And over the weekend, the two met up to reminisce about their time in Boston, which ended all too soon for one of them.

Mookie Betts, the 2018 American League Most Valuable Player, hosted 2024 National League Cy Young winner Chris Sale on his "On Base with Mookie Betts" podcast over the weekend, and the conversation turned to the championship-winning Red Sox.

"I just remember showing up to the park, and every day was like, 'we're gonna win,'" Betts said. "I remember a stretch when it was just like, every day we just came, and we beat the brakes off them, and we went home. And Cora had it to where we were just hanging out in the clubhouse... and we get to the playoffs, and we were just steamrolling them."

"There was really no panic at all," Sale added. "And the playoffs are very pressured, I mean, it's a tense environment. I think just the way AC (Cora) ran that team, there were a couple of points in the year where you look up, and you're like, 'man, we're the nastiest team in the league.'"

Betts was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers before the 2020 season, and he's won two more World Series rings in Southern California. When he goes into the Hall of Fame, it will likely be with a Dodgers cap on his head, which will sting every Red Sox fan for many decades to come.

Meanwhile, Sale was dealt to the Atlanta Braves in 2024, and after years of injuries plaguing his excellent career, he stayed healthy and won his long-awaited first Cy Young Award at age 35.

Even if the 2025 Red Sox shouldn't be wishing they could bring back Betts and Sale, they certainly need to find a way to bring back that 2018 attitude. Because what they're doing now simply isn't going to cut it.

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