The hottest team in baseball right now isn’t the Braves. It’s the Red Sox. Through the big Friday night they had at Wrigley Field, they had won nine of their last 10 and six in a row -- and suddenly found themselves tied with the Yankees for fourth place in the American League East and just two games behind the Astros for the third Wild Card spot. There are better teams than the Red Sox as everybody begins the second half of the season. No team is more interesting these days, though, or as much of a surprise.

The Sox are still technically the best last-place team in baseball, because of the division in which they play. They’re still 8 1/2 games behind the Rays in the AL East heading into play on Saturday -- and seven behind the Orioles, another surprise team that's now tied with the Rays in the loss column. But the Red Sox have a better record than the Twins, the first-place team in the AL Central. They are one-game worse than the Brewers and Reds, tied for first in the NL Central. They are currently just four games worse than the Rangers, who have been a top team all year long.

They came barreling into the second half on Friday night by hitting six home runs against the Cubs on their way to an 8-3 victory. Boston continues to make this kind of move still down three starting pitchers: Chris Sale, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock. Anybody and everybody who thought Alex Cora, as great a manager as he is, was going to have this kind of team and season when the Sox left Ft. Myers raise a hand.

It turns out there is a baseball summer at old Fenway after all. After Chicago, the Sox play three against the A’s in Oakland before they come home to play the Mets -- who are now back to being seven games under .500 after winning six straight themselves before the All-Star break, but who got one-hit by the Dodgers on Friday night.

The Red Sox still can see what’s ahead of them in the AL East and know that Aaron Judge is supposed to be close to coming back soon for the Yankees. But they’re six games over .500 thanks to six homers they hit last night at Wrigley and after another fine start from their kid ace, Brayan Bello, now 7-5 with a 3.14 earned run average. With the low expectations they all brought into the season, this all ain’t nothing in Boston.

Here were the guys at the top of Cora’s batting order against the Cubs:

Jarren Duran: .322
Masahito Yoshida: .317
Justin Turner: .288
Rafael Devers: .259 (but with 22 homers and 72 RBIs)
Alex Verdugo: .289
Adam Duvall: .256

By comparison, the highest batting averages in the Yankees lineup that lost, 7-2, to the Rockies on Friday night belonged to Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo, both at .257, one point higher than Duvall. The Yankees got two runs in the first inning against the Rockies on another long Giancarlo Stanton home run, then stopped scoring after that. In Chicago, the Red Sox got two home runs from Devers, one from Duvall, one from Turner, plus one from Triston Casas, who is quietly up to 10 homers now and a .229 average. They even got a homer from .145-hitting shortstop, Yu Chang.

Trevor Story, still recovering from right elbow surgery, might soon begin a rehab assignment that would add more stick to what the Red Sox have already. Houck, who took a line drive to the face against the Yankees in June, is scheduled to start throwing soon. Ian Browne of MLB.com reported that Sale is scheduled to throw a bullpen session next week. For now, the starter with the sketchiest prospects because of the sore right elbow that put him on the IL is Whitlock, who hasn’t started throwing yet.

But somehow the Red Sox haven’t just been hanging around waiting for reinforcements to come over the hill. They are thriving with the best record in baseball over the past 10 games, including taking two of three from the Rangers at Fenway last week. The Red Sox can only imagine where they would be in their division and in the AL Wild Card race if they were better than 4-9 against the NL Central this season, and hadn’t been swept by both the Pirates and Cardinals at Fenway. Here is something Cora said to me one Spring Training day in West Palm Beach:

“This is a perfect group to turn the page, the kids and the veterans we’ve brought in. You’d be amazed at how little talk there is about the past around here. Don’t take this the wrong way, but they’re not worried about Bogie [Xander Bogaerts] being in San Diego now or [Christian] Vázquez being with the Twins. They’ve got their own story to write.”

Then, Cora added this, nearly five months ago:

“The message is that we need to get better. If we get better, we’re not going to finish last.”

His Red Sox have gotten better. Much better lately. There's still a lot of work ahead of them, and three teams. For now, though, there's nobody behind the Red Sox in the AL East.