The Boston Red Sox are one of the most storied sports franchises of all time, yet for much of the 20th and early 21st century, their fans went through years of agonizing pain as they watched the team suffer an 86 year-long championship drought. When the Red Sox finally broke through the so called “Curse of the Bambino” in 2004 by winning that year’s World Series, Boston celebrated in a way it hadn’t been able to for almost an entire century. Since then, the Red Sox have been an MLB powerhouse, capturing four World Series titles to date, the most of any other team since 2004, and the most recent of which came just days ago at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

With a new core of homegrown players, the Red Sox steamrolled through the regular season with a league best record of 108-54. They then went on to thrash their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees, in four games, take on the defending champion Houston Astros in five and faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 113th Fall Classic. It only took five games for Boston to capture the elusive trophy and begin city-wide festivities.

First-year manager Alex Cora led the Red Sox to the title and has made great decisions throughout the season for Boston. Using starting pitchers in the bullpen to win tight games many times throughout the postseason was an unorthodox method of dealing with Boston’s relief issues, but it worked to great effect and was an instrumental piece to the Red Sox success. “To see these guys compete on a nightly basis and finally win it, you try to put them in situations where they’re gonna be successful, and obviously at the end they decide games and what they did was amazing. I’m very proud of them,” Cora said in a post-game press conference.

The Red Sox now get to celebrate, enjoy the offseason, and get back to work for a challenging 2019 season. With the Yankees rivalry alive once again, the season was not only an indicator of how bright Boston’s future is, but it showed how exciting baseball in the northeast will be over the next few years.