Here are the facts ...
There are 23 games left in the regular season. The Red Sox currently are in one of the two Wild Card spots, 1/2-game in back of the Yankees and three games in front of Seattle. Almost half of the team is unavailable due to COVID-related issues.
Sunday? in the hours leading up to first pitch their starting pitcher (Nick Pivetta) was scratched, with utiltyman Danny Santana also adding to the COVID-induced absences a few moments later.
And now, they they are heading into a stretch that includes series against the first-place Rays, the first-place White Sox and the aforementioned Mariners.
It feels like if the Red Sox can somehow land on that Sept. 16 off day - having just flown back from Seattle in preparation for the eagerly-anticipated home series vs. Baltimore - still feeling like a playoff team, they might just be writing songs about this club.
But, as we sit here right now, there is bizarrely still a strong sense that this could play out favorably for Alex Cora's club.
Even with the nothing-to-see-here, 11-5 loss to the Indians Sunday, this kind of feels like a team that knows something we don't.
In some ways, this offers the vibe of Cora bobbing and weaving his way through 2018 postseason all over again.
"Very proud," Cora said after the loss. "They’ve done an amazing job. It’s weird here in the clubhouse. You get in and it’s funny because today was Raffy’s off-day so it was like, hit and hide somewhere. Get in a bubble and stay away from everybody. And he did. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the clubhouse and some things we have to do to stop this. At the same time we won a series. That’s what we were trying to accomplish every time we went out there and compete against the other team. Now we move on to the Rays. It’s a three-game series. Thursday we get an off-day. Chicago, Seattle, we know it’s going to be a tough stretch, but we’re playing good baseball. We’re getting back guys, little by little. We’ll sit down with the medical staff and front office to see where we’re at and we’ll be ready for tomorrow."
While the series finale was definitely a play-for-the-long-haul type of moment for Cora, don't expect a whole lot of those going forward. Instances like pinch-hitting Rafael Devers for Jack Lopez in the fifth inning will become more the vibe. And that's OK.
We are officially in the portion of the season that screams for immediacy and creativity. For Cora, that's seemingly his sweet spot.
It sure helps that Chris Sale is kicking off this run Monday afternoon against the Rays. And it certainly doesn't hurt that some of these more familiar names will trickling back onto the roster this week, with Kiké Hernandez and Christian Arroyo first in line for returns.
But don't think for a minute this will be about rolling the regulars out and letting them show their stuff. There very well likely could be a few more COVID landmines along the way.
This is not going to be a by-the-book pennant race. Sacrifice bunts. Players casual fans never heard of two week ago. And all kinds of maneuvering that simply wouldn't have been considered in the early days of this season.
That, however, fits this manager just fine. Remember all of those postseason platoons. Or how about figuring out who might actually pitch the inning before Craig Kimbrel. Pull hitter up at the plate? Jackie Bradley Jr. and J.D. Martinez, you switch positions for one at-bat, but just one.
Perhaps this stretch is the true beginning of the end for this team. Too much adversity. Too little talent. Too many opponents who fancy themselves legitimate World Series contenders.
Or maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning. The regular regular season is over. Now comes the wild world of pennant race baseball, with or without the regulars. The guess here is that Alex Cora doesn't mind one bit.