Best Red Sox season

By Trey Lyle

The Boston Red Sox are one of the oldest teams in baseball, being founded in 1901. They've won the World Series nine times, with the first five coming from 1903 to 1918 and the last four coming from 2004 to their most recent in 2018. Obviously the biggest gap is due to the Curse of the Bambino after the team sold its best player Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918. So what is the Red Sox best season? 

For historical reasons you could say 2004, the team that broke the curse also made maybe the most historical comeback in postseason history coming back from down 3-0 to beat the Yankees in the ALCS. But that team didn’t win the AL East. 
    
For emotional and maybe unifying reasons is 2013, the team that came together after the Boston Marathon Bombings to win a World Series. Also, this was the second team ever to come from finishing last in their division the year before to win the World Series the next season, along with the 1991 Minnesota Twins. This team did win the AL East but only won 97 games, which is one less than their '04 team.  
    
If you look at just the teams as they sit on the field, I know this is very recent, but the statistics just are too good to pass up. The most recent championship team for the Red Sox, 2018, is the best in franchise history. 

The team won 108 games,, which was the best record in baseball and the best record in franchise history. The team featured the league MVP in Mookie Betts, their last being in 2008 with Dustin Pedroia. The team also led the league in runs per game, RBIs, Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Slugging. Mookie was also the batting champ, with JD Martinez taking both the RBI and home run crown. Plus their pitching was no joke either; with Chris Sale at the helm the team was 7th in ERA and had the 4th most strikeouts that season. 
    
Their postseason run you could say was one of the most difficult of all time and they made it look easy, facing the two other 100-win teams that season in the Yankees and Astros and only losing once to each of them. They then were able to win the World Series over the Dodgers in five games. 


The 2018 Boston Red Sox is the franchise's best team ever because when you take the whole season in its totality and look at the statistics you could argue that they are one of the greatest teams of all time.