What Red Sox Have to Do to Take Summer Fire Sale 'Off the Table'

The Boston Red Sox have a day off on Thursday before kicking off their most critical road trip of the season so far.

Boston is 37-48 on the season right now and its playoff hopes are alive, even if barely. The Red Sox are 6-4 over their last 10 games, including a five-game winning streak that was snapped by the Washington Nationals on Tuesday. The Red Sox lost two out of three against Washington, which was a momentum killer, but this club has shown some progress over the last week or so. Over the next 10 days, the Red Sox will play three games against the Los Angeles Angels, three games against the Chicago White Sox, and three games against the New York Mets before the All-Star break.

These are three winnable series and Boston certainly needs to do so. It's crunch time. The trade deadline is 32 days away. The Red Sox don't have wiggle room to wait around any more. These next three series on the road are all winnable and could be the difference between the Red Sox really getting back into this thing, or eventually selling in August.

What Will Boston Do At The Trade Deadline?

May 27, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; A Boston Red Sox hat and glove sit in the dug out before a game against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. Mandatory Credit: Michael McLoone-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

On Wednesday, Red Sox president and chief executive officer Sam Kennedy joined the NESN pregame show and talked about the upcoming deadline and certainly didn't sound like someone who wants to sell, although he acknowledged that Boston needs to stack up wins right now in order to avoid difficult decisions like that.

"The trade deadline is strategically placed where it is placed where it is, I think, to make those decisions very hard on teams," Kennedy said. "We can take that decision off the table if we can just keep doing what we've been doing the last week or so because when you have a team that can pitch and play defense like this, with some guys starting to get hot at the plate, it's pretty obvious what this team is capable of. We just swept one of the better teams in baseball, the New York Yankees in a four-game set, which is really hard to do. So, we need more of that and we need it right now."

Over the last few months, the Red Sox have consistently been talked about as a team that could sell. The fact that Kennedy alluded to that not being a guarantee is a positive. Plus, he made it clear what Boston has to do to avoid: just keep playing as they have over the last week or so.

The Red Sox's rotation took a hit throughout the week with Connelly Early landing on the Injured List, but he seemingly avoided anything serious. Even without Early over the next two weeks, the Red Sox's rotation should still be elite with Payton Tolle, Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez and Jake Bennett. Then, the Red Sox could add Patrick Sandoval or Brayan Bello into the mix.

Kennedy isn't wrong about the bats waking up a tad. Caleb Durbin is the biggest example of that. He was brutal to begin the year offensively, but he's slashing .321/.351/.594 since May 28. Masataka Yoshida's bat is waking up a bit. Willson Contreras and Ceddanne Rafaela have been good all season. Wilyer Abreu was cold, but is starting to find it again. Also, Anthony Seigler has been a huge bright spot at second base over the last week or so as well.

The season isn't over. The first few months have been bad for Boston. But the club has started to turn a corner and now has three winnable series in front of them before the All-Star break. If they can hit the road and take care of business, we could be talking about this team very differently when the All-Star break begins.

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