Bloom was 'a little' surprised by reaction to 'underdogs' comment

Chaim Bloom calling the Red Sox “underdogs” when explaining his approach to the trade deadline seemed to garner as much, if not more, criticism than his relative trade inactivity.

In an interview with NESN’s Tom Caron on the “TC & Company Podcast,” Bloom said he was “a little” surprised by the blowback to his comment, which referred to the team’s playoff odds as they were 1.5 games back of a playoff spot prior to Tuesday’s deadline.

“I didn’t think I was making news,” Bloom said. “Like I said, we’re not in a playoff spot.”

As Bloom acknowledged that the Red Sox will have to outpace the Toronto Blue Jays the rest of the way (they’re three games back of them for the final playoff spot in the American League entering the second game of their three-game set on Saturday), he fired back at some of those who criticized him.

“I don’t think any of the folks whose eyebrows were raised when I said that didn’t pick us to make the playoffs in the first place,” Bloom said. “I certainly didn’t think it’d be news to them.”

Entering the season, the Red Sox’ playoff odds weren’t too high. Their win total was set at 78.5 at many sportsbooks and their preseason odds to make the postseason were +270.

But a strong end to June and a hot July had some thinking differently about Boston. The Red Sox went an MLB-best 15-8 in the month, winning series’ against the Braves, Rangers and Blue Jays during that stretch. They were also 41-35 against teams above .500 entering Saturday, which is the third-most wins any team has against others above that mark in MLB this season, adding more optimism to their playoff chances.

However, the Red Sox held just a 21.1 percent chance to make the playoffs on FanGraphs and a 16.4 percent chance to make the postseason on Baseball Reference entering Saturday.

Still, Bloom remains optimistic about the Red Sox’ chances to make the playoffs this year.

“We’re going to have to play well the rest of the way, but again, we believe we can,” Bloom said. “The crew believes that they can. The arrow’s been pointing in the right direction. We’ve been picking up steam as the season’s been going along. That’s a good thing.

“But it’s on us. We got to go do it.”

Following their weekend series against the Blue Jays, the Red Sox will have a lighter schedule over the next week-plus as they face the Royals, Tigers, and Nationals during that stretch. After that though, 11 of their final 13 series are against AL East teams with winning records or teams that currently hold a playoff spot.

They should be getting some help soon, though. Trevor Story and Chris Sale’s returns to the roster appear to be imminent, while Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock appear to be making their way back to Boston in the coming weeks.