WORCESTER—It says something about the chemistry of the 2025 Worcester Red Sox that they can lose two of the best young players in minor league baseball and get better.
Both Marcello Mayer and Roman Anthony have made the the 38-mile trip, as the home run flies, from Polar Park to Fenway and the WooSox continue to win. Their 13-3 victory at Lehigh Valley Wednesday night extended their win streak to nine games, a team record.
Worcester is approaching the Pawtucket Red Sox mark of 11 in a row. That was set in 2014, a year they won the Governors’ Cup as International League champion.
“The streak is gonna end, we know that,” manager Chad Tracy said on a call from Lehigh Valley. “It’s just a matter of when but we’re trying to win as many in a row as we can, and we have been playing the game right in all four phases.”
That would be hitting, pitching, baserunning and defense.
The obvious numbers would be that the WooSox are batting .302 as a team during the streak and their staff earned run average is 2.96.
Including the streak the WooSox are 14-4 in their last 18 games. They had a similar stretch of good baseball late last year after the arrivals of Anthony and Kristian Campell. For all the attention Worcester’s offense got then and how well it has produced in recent weeks, pitching is the key factor in the WooSox’ resurgence.
“Just like last year,” Tracy said, “it directly coincides with our pitching, our work out of the bullpen. It’s not just hitting and the kids. Yes, we are scoring more runs but we’re getting good starts early, and really good work from our relievers, one after another.”
WooSox starters have 3.02 ERA during the streak. The bullpen is 2.88.
“The numbers don’t lie,” Tracy said.
Anthony was part of seven of the wins before being summoned to Boston on the heels of a 497-foot grand slam. The streak has featured a jolt of energy from two callups from Double-A — Jhostynxon Garcia and Blaze Jordan. Garcia is 10 for 30 (.333) with five extra base hits in seven of the games. Jordan is hitting .353 with six doubles and a homer in eight games.
The WooSox have also gotten strong offensive performances from experienced players like Nick Sogard, who has 12 hits, eight walks and a .400 average during the streak.
Trayce Thompson is batting .300 for the nine games, Nate Eaton is hitting .391 with eight runs scored and eight RBIs and when Ryan Noda was here he hit .333 with seven runs and 10 RBIs.
“They’ve been a big part of it,” Tracy said of his veterans. “Eaton’s been doing it all year, Sogard has started to get hot and now Thompson and (Nathan) Hickey. Noda was a big part of this, and now you’ve got a pretty good team.”
Worcester’s longest previous win streak was eight games from Aug. 31 through Sept. 8 of 2021. That was part of a 14-1 mark over a 15-game span. At one point last August the WooSox won 16 of 19 games.
Worcester was a season-high tying 12 and a half games behind Lehigh Valley on June 3, but thanks to their winning streak have cut that deficit to 6 ½ games with 10 games to go in the first half. Since four of those remaining games are against the Ironpigs, Worcester remains in the race.
The nine victories have come against Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Rochester and Lehigh Valley. Rochester arrived at Polar Park last week as one of the hottest teams in the minor leagues with an 11-2 record for its 13 previous games. Lehigh Valley was 43-20 when Worcester began this week’s series at Coca-Cola Park.
The WooSox will not finish the season at 121-28. We can assume that. Nine in a row — a team record — has them headed in the right direction, though.
Bill Doyle has been a professional journalist for 47 years, most of them as a sports writer for the Telegram & Gazette. He covered the Boston Celtics for 25 years and has written extensively about golf, boxing and local high school and college sports. He also worked for the campus newspaper when he attended UMass-Amherst. He can be reached at billdoyle1515@gmail.com
