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BOSTON, MA – APRIL 20: Ceddanne Rafaela #3 of the Boston Red Sox reaches out to hit a two-run single against the Detroit Tigers during the seventh inning at Fenway Park on April 20, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
When the Boston Red Sox<\/a> fired manager Alex Cora in April<\/a>, it caught a lot of people off guard. They were struggling and sitting in the basement of the American League East Division.<\/p>\n What made the firing even more surprising was that it came after a 17-1 rout of the Baltimore Orioles<\/a>. You don\u2019t see a manager fired very often, if ever, after a 16-run victory.<\/p>\n Boston\u2019s Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow<\/a> named Worcester Red Sox (Boston\u2019s Triple-A affiliate) manager Chad Tracy interim manager<\/a>. Slowly, the Red Sox are turning the corner under Tracy and have won five of their eight games in May after a 2-0 shutout of the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> on Friday night at Fenway Park.<\/p>\n The win improved Boston to 17-22, just five games below .500. After the win, one young star had a bold statement about the remainder of the 2026 season for the Red Sox.<\/p>\n Boston Red Sox Outfielder Ceddanne Rafaela Makes Bold Statement After Win Over Tampa Bay Rays<\/p>\n Young Boston left-hander Connelly Early<\/a> dominated the surging Rays on Friday night. He went seven innings, scattering four hits, walking one, and striking out eight. He needed 96 pitches to get through his outing and worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the top of the third inning.<\/p>\n Tampa Bay right-hander Jesse Scholtens<\/a> nearly matched Early pitch-for-pitch, but solo home runs to Wilyer Abreu<\/a> in the bottom of the third, and Ceddanne Rafaela<\/a> in the bottom of the fourth inning, for the two runs the Red Sox needed to win. Yes, things are turning around for Boston, but Rafaela likes the way things are going so much that he dropped a bold prediction after the game.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve been playing pretty good baseball lately,\u201d said Rafaela<\/a>. \u201cI think it shows we\u2019re a pretty good team and we\u2019re going to be in a pretty good spot in September.\u201d<\/p>\n Being in a pretty good spot in September is certainly a bold statement. Especially for a team that has not been very good through the first six weeks of the season. Even more so, they have struggled at Fenway Park, winning just seven of 18 games. If they\u2019re going to be in a good spot in September, improving their home record is a must.<\/p>\n Boston Red Sox Looking To Turn Things Around Quickly<\/p>\n The good news for the Red Sox is that there are three American League wild-card spots available. They are just one game back of the final spot. Sure, it\u2019s May, but it\u2019s never too early to look at the standings.<\/p>\n The first goal for Boston should be getting back to .500, then getting healthy. There are concerns with another injury, placing Roman Anthony<\/a> on the injured list with a wrist injury. If the Red Sox are going to make a run, Anthony needs to be a big part of that.<\/p>\n Scoring two runs is not a recipe for success on a nightly basis. However, Boston made it stand up on Friday night. If they can get the pitching consistent and scratch out runs, then just maybe Rafaela\u2019s prediction will come true in a little less than four months. However, a roster that isn\u2019t great, well, that makes this a bold statement.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tScott Roche<\/a> Scott Roche covers college football, NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com and has three decades of sports writing, covering everything from college to professional sports. More about Scott Roche<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty BOSTON, MA – APRIL 20: Ceddanne Rafaela #3 of the Boston Red Sox reaches out to hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-266016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}