BOSTON -- After a statement win to open their final series ahead of the All-Star break, things went awry for the Red Sox in the subsequent days.

In what nearly became a poetic end to the first half, the Sox rallied back from a four-run deficit but fell to the Phillies, 5-4, on Sunday at Fenway Park. Boston (55-36) ended the first half with a lead of 1 1/2 games over Tampa Bay in the American League East.

“You can call them grinders, or [that] they never quit,” manager Alex Cora said ahead of the finale. “That’s up to you guys to name them. But from my end, like I said on Day 1, we have a good team, but we still have room to improve.”

Since the start of the 2021 season, the Red Sox have been no strangers to comeback wins. In fact, they lead the league with 29, so it was fair to think Sunday’s series finale would follow suit.

With the first half in the books, let’s look at how Boston has fared.

Rotation
Sunday wasn’t the outing Nick Pivetta had hoped for in his first start facing his former team, as he gave up five runs (four earned) in four innings. The righty cruised through the first two innings, retiring the first six batters he faced. The trouble started in the third and continued into the fourth when he surrendered a three-run shot to former teammate Ronald Torreyes.

“We’re not worried,” Cora said. “One thing that we have to do is be patient. We’ve gotta be patient. We know we’re going to be, you know, getting some guys throughout the upcoming weeks or months or whatever. So patience is huge here. We’ve been patient the whole season and there’s where we’re at. We trust these guys, we trust the bullpen, we trust our pitching staff. You’re going to go through games like this. They did an amazing job on the West Coast, it just happened that the last two weren’t great.”

Looking back to the offseason, it would be hard to find someone who had high expectations for this Red Sox rotation. With Chris Sale sidelined and Eduardo Rodriguez returning from a year hiatus after contracting COVID-19 and myocarditis, a lot of pressure was riding on the shoulders of Nathan Eovaldi and the rest of the rotation.

In 90 games, the rotation has cobbled together a 4.43 ERA, good for eighth in the AL. As Cora has said this season, “good, not great.” It’s been an encouraging grind and has featured the emergence of strong seasons from pitchers like Pivetta, who entered the day 7-3 with a 4.09 ERA.

Offense
Though there have been some stars who have separated themselves from the rest, the offensive production has been spread out throughout the lineup. With a .259 team average, .439 SLG and .761 OPS, the Red Sox rank near the top of the Majors in several offensive categories. 

Xander Bogaerts, who homered for the second time in as many days on Sunday, leads the team in average (.321), OBP (.385) and OPS (.930). Though it’s no surprise the veteran shortstop is on an offensive tear, the lineup is peppered with players who are outperforming expectations.

One such player is Christian Arroyo, who ended his first half with 12 RBIs in his last 14 games. In 2021, the infielder has set career highs in games (47), runs (20), hits (39), doubles (11), homers (5) and RBIs (22).

Defense
Cora spoke pregame about the team’s up and down defense, both of which were displayed on Sunday. Kiké Hernández’s highlight reel began in the fifth inning, when he started a double play with a diving catch in center that had a 5 percent catch probability. He followed it up in the sixth with another diving play with a low catch probability (10 percent) for the first out of the inning.

On the flip side, the Sox had three errors on the day, including an E5 on Rafael Devers in the seventh inning with two outs and an E1 on Adam Ottavino after he airmailed a dribbler past Bobby Dalbec.

“I think clean baseball matters,” Cora said. “And it's something that we’re going to be relentless about, [that] we're going to keep preaching about.”

Despite the ups and downs of this final series, the Red Sox enter the break with sole possession of the AL East. After three days off for the All-Star Game presented by Mastercard, they return to play with a chance to cushion their division lead with a four-game series against the Yankees in the Bronx starting Thursday.