BOSTON – Before this streak, there was another. Thirteen consecutive July victories have lifted the plucky Boston Red Sox into playoff position two weeks before the trading deadline. But it’s only an outgrowth of a different run in June.From June 18 through June 29, Boston pitchers spun off 12 quality starts in a row. Call it the canary yellow uniforms in the coal mine – except the Red Sox have shot up the elevator shaft, bursting from their subterranean crypt.Groan if you must about the quality start, but it’s a big deal, now more than ever, to work six innings while allowing no more than three earned runs. Yes, the minimum qualifications get you a 4.50 ERA. In bulk, it looks a lot better.In the quality start streak – Boston’s longest in 38 years – the starters had a 1.75 ERA and the team went 8-4. Two of the starters have since gotten hurt (Ranger Suarez with a groin injury and Connelly Early with elbow inflammation), but Suarez could return on Tuesday, and the team has kept rolling.“I’ll compare it to golf,” starter Peyton Tolle said on Sunday, after Sonny Gray held the Tampa Bay Rays to one run – an inside-the-park homer – in six innings of a 6-1 victory at Fenway Park.“You strike that one shot, maybe on the 17th hole, and it’s like, now the round starts. I think that New York series was big for us: ‘Oh, there’s one, there’s two, two turns into three, three turns into four.’ Then we lose (a series) to the Nationals, but it’s like: there’s a formula for us. So I think we’re just finding out that formula and letting the putts sink.”These days, whatever the Red Sox wear – white or gray or red, Fenway green or Marathon yellow – they are Tiger Woods in a black Nike hat on a 2000s Sunday. They show up to beat you, and they won’t be torn down.The players have trashed the sale signs. Barring an unlikely collapse – they play only losing teams through July 30 – the Red Sox should buy at the deadline.“We have to,” third baseman Caleb Durbin said. “We’re a good team and we’ve shown that. We were a good team before, we just weren’t showing it. Now we’re showing it, so I’d like to think it kind of takes care of some of those questions, because we’re playing great baseball and we swept the three teams with the best records in our league. That doesn’t happen by accident.”Indeed, since June 25, the Red Sox have swept four-game series here against the Rays and the New York Yankees and a three-game series on the road against the Chicago White Sox. (They’ve also swept the also-ran Los Angeles Angels and New York Mets.)