They did look pretty good earlier in the season. But I watched the Red Sox later in the year and Rafael Devers was a key guy who finished the season smoking hot. Even when the Yankees swept Boston in Fenway, they couldn't get Devers out, and that continued in the following series. Devers adjusts his swing depending on how he is being pitched very well. The Yankees tried to pitch him down in the strike zone with off speed stuff and it was a massive fail. How he reacts and adjusts his swing to pitches is very impressive, almost Bonds-like.Incredible how the Red Sox have woken up in the playoffs...this is a team during the regular season that choked it's way out of first place in the AL East...
got in the playoffs back door on the last day of the season at the expense of the Yankees, Blue Jays and Mariners...and now they look like World Series Champs!
Nate Eovaldi was impressive in the wild card game, but his prior start against the Yankees just 2 weeks earlier, he was bombed for 7 earned runs. Eovaldi was like that when he pitched for the Yankees as well. When he pitched great, you couldn't understand why he wasn't more consistent, and part of the problem was his fastball was a little flatter earlier in his career. You can't survive with a flat fastball regardless of how hard you throw, so he has made adjustments.