The Boston Red Sox entered the 2025 MLB season with heightened expectations. After a disappointing start to the campaign, they’ve started to live up to those expectations with their recent hot streak.
They entered the All-Star break with 10 consecutive wins, giving them a 53-45 record that puts them only three games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings. If the season ended today, they’d clinch the second AL Wild Card spot and their first postseason berth since 2021.
But there’s still plenty of baseball left to be played, and the next two weeks could ultimately determine Boston’s fate. Before the July 31 trade deadline, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow is expected to make moves — particularly for starting pitching — that can help his team stay in postseason contention over the final two months.
Time will tell whether Breslow pushes the right buttons, but for now, MLB pundits are buying back in on this Red Sox club. Boston has skyrocketed into or near the top 10 in the latest batch of national MLB power rankings.
Here’s where the Red Sox stand as we prepare for the second half, according to experts across the league:
“The Red Sox head into the All-Star break as the hottest team in baseball. They won their 10th game in a row on Sunday, completing a huge four-game sweep over the Rays to overtake Tampa Bay in the Wild Card standings. Boston is getting healthy at just the right time too; both Alex Bregman and Masataka Yoshida were activated off the IL last week. The real star of this hot streak has been Ceddanne Rafaela, who blasted a dramatic three-run walk-off home run on Friday. He’s posted a .390/.405/.902 slash line in July.”
“While that four-game sweep of the Rays was mighty impressive and shook up the AL East standings, surging into the All-Star break is nothing new for the Red Sox. They went 8-1 in their final nine games of the first half in 2023 as well as 10-3 last year before their current 10-game winning streak. But can they maintain that momentum for a change? Boston went from a combined 101-86 in the first half of the past two seasons to a combined 58-79 after the ASB, and they have the toughest remaining schedule in the American League, including a gauntlet in the next nine games.“
“I was high on the Red Sox coming into the year, and while things haven’t exactly worked out the way I thought they would — Rafael Devers trade included — they’ve won 10 straight games to put themselves in a strong position leading into the trade deadline.”
“A 10-game winning streak and only three games out. My “Red Sox win the AL East” preseason prediction lives!”
“In addition to his offensive exploits, rookie Carlos Narvaez leads the majors with 20 runners caught stealing.”
“The Red Sox have been excited about their young hitters for many moons at this point, but they couldn’t have asked for a better time for them to break through than in the immediate weeks after trading Rafael Devers. Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Jarren Duran, Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony, all hitting like crazy, all in their 20s, all at the perfect moment.“
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