Red Sox win four straight, but the injury math keeps getting harder

Boston beat Chicago 14-2 on Monday to stretch the winning streak to four games, and the recent numbers are genuinely good: 7-3 over the last ten, averaging 5.0 runs per game in that stretch, holding the final wild-card spot at 51-52 with 59 games left. The team that went 1-4 in March and cratered through June has looked like a different outfit lately.

The problem is Willson Contreras, who took a 95 mph fastball to the helmet on August 1 and sat out the following day for concussion testing. Contreras is one of Boston's three All-Stars this season and the anchor of the lineup at .278/.388/.502 with 13 home runs and 40 RBIs. Lose him for any meaningful stretch and the offense runs through Ceddanne Rafaela and a collection of contributors — Braiden Ward's 1.027 OPS is real, Mickey Gasper has been efficient off the bench — but none of that replaces what Contreras does every day.

The roster context makes it worse. Twelve players are currently on the injured list, several of them on the 60-day. The trade for Curtis Mead was supposed to add infield depth; Mead broke his wrist in his first game and is expected to miss most of the remaining regular season. Danny Coulombe has been outstanding in relief at a 1.29 ERA over 14 games, and Sonny Gray at 13-3 remains the rotation's spine. The pitching can hold this team in games. But the margin for another position-player loss is essentially zero.

Four straight wins is a real thing. So is a 12-man injured list. Both are true right now, and the next ten days will sort out which one matters more.