Boston at Toronto, June 27-29

The hottest team in the AL in June? That would be these here Red Sox, who have gone 19-4 so far, and that's a chin hair better than the Yankees 19-5 log. The Bostons had played .460 (23-27) through April and May. Their offense can't quite match the Bronx Bombers, but their run prevention this past month has been even stingier (after a major blip in May when they were allowing almost 5 runs per game).

After struggling badly in April (0-3, 8.27) Nick Pivetta has been as good as any stater in the AL (8-2, 2.11), Michael Wacha has been good all along, and the ancient Rich Hill hasn't missed a start. The Sox are even getting by without ace Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Whitlock, both on the IL but expected to return shortly (neither has an arm injury.) Chris Sale is now making rehab appearances and James Paxton is throwing off a mound. No AL manager goes to his bullpen as often as Alex Cora, who seems to have settled on Tanner Houck as his closer (all 6 of Houck's saves have come in the last three weeks.) Houck is the only reliever who's actually been pitching all that well - there are lots of other arms down in the pen, all of them getting plenty of work, none of them being very impressive.

Their hitting doesn't look all that impressive either, except for the three guys who are hitting like they're filling out their Cooperstown resumes.  Xander Boagerts, Rafael Devers, and J.D. Martinez have been awesome. Everybody else has been ordinary at best, The Red Sox are second in the league in runs scored because Bogaerts, Devers, and Martinez have been that good.