Tzu-Wei Lin and Mookie Betts, after beating the Angels Thursday night. (Victor Decolongon/Getty Images)
BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- If there was ever a way to undersell what the Red Sox have been quietly doing as the Bruins and Celtics have surged in the postseason and the Patriots have commanded their year-round attention, Alex Cora did it.
"We're playing quality baseball," he said. "We're pretty good right now. We're pitching, we're playing good defense, we're hitting the ball, we're driving the ball."
The first-year Sox skipper has his club out to a Major League-best 16-2 start after a commanding sweep of the previously-streaking Angels.
Boston defeated Anaheim by a combined 27-3 margin and belted 11 homers for the first time in a three-game series since 1977. Sox batted .371 in the set and totaled 19 extra-base hits.
They'll try for an eight-game winning streak when their road trip continues Friday night in Oakland at 10:05 p.m.
Drew Pomeranz will make his season-debut following a 17-win campaign and, fittingly, against his old team circa 2014 and 2015. The lefty's been out since straining his forearm in his first start of spring training, but he's made a pair of rehab outings in the minors.
Pomeranz will be opposed by Kendall Graveman. He's 0-3 with a 9.87 ERA in four starts, but the Athletics have won their last four with an average of eight runs per.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Adam Kaufman reports