The Red Sox lead the MLB in comeback wins, with today being their 32nd. Even with all these comebacks, today was probably the most impressive of the entire season.
Domingo German absolutely dominated most of the game as he had a no-hitter through seven innings, and there were no signs of him slowing down. In the seventh inning, German had to face the middle of the Red Sox lineup: Jarren Duran, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, and J.D. Martinez. In what one might see as an opportunity for the Red Sox to break up the no-hitter, German was looking unstoppable. He ended up with a total of not three but four strikeouts in the inning. Bogaerts reached first on a passed ball after striking out. German remained focused and was able to strikeout Devers and Martinez, and keep the no-hitter going with 10 K’s on the day.
This game started out as a pitchers duel but the Yankees quietly got out to a lead, scoring single runs in the third, fourth, sixth, and eighth. Second baseman Rougned Odor was a large part of the scoring, as he had two RBI including a solo homer.
The Red Sox headed into the bottom of the eighth in a bad spot. It appeared they were about to lose the AL East lead, split with the Yankees, and let the Yankees get back to within seven games of first place. However, even with German’s dominance, the Red Sox were inspired by Alex Cora’s words during the seventh inning, as Kike Hernandez noted during the postgame press conference.
“Things weren’t looking great,” Hernandez said. “When [Alex Cora] went up to the mound and he took Yacksiel [Rios] out of the game and brought in [Josh Taylor], he said to us, ‘If JT gets out of this inning we’re winning this game…’ You trust what AC says, a lot of times he sees things before they happen and you just go with it. If he says we’re going to win this game, it’s probably going to happen… we’ve said it many times, we’re not out of a game until a game’s over and we proved that today.”
Alex Verdugo led off the bottom of 8th by breaking up the no hitter as he nailed the ball to deep right center for an off the wall double. With that hit, Yankees manager Aaron Boone decided to pull German after 93 pitches. Jonathan Loaisiga entered the game in relief, but he didn’t have any success against this Red Sox lineup.
Against Loaisiga, Hunter Renfroe drilled the ball down the third base line for another double to knock in Verdugo. The Red Sox were on the board, but they weren’t done there. They were ready to rally. Christian Vazquez’s ball dropped into the outfield for an RBI bloop single. Franchy Cordero, who was up next, had struggled at the major league level so far this year despite success in Worcester. Cordero, the potential tying run surprisingly tried to bunt on the first pitch. Fortunately, the bunt was hit foul and out of play and then with two strikes, he hit a ground ball single right up the middle quickly over the mound and by second base.
Kike Hernandez was 0-3 on the day, but after playing a major part in the two other victories of this series, he came up clutch. He drilled another one down the third base line for a double and made it a one run game. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The Red Sox had gone from a hitless day to five consecutive hits, two runners in scoring position, and still nobody out in the inning as Kevin Plawecki came in to pinch hit for Duran. The Sox were down 4-3 and now had a chance to take the lead.
Duran had struck out three times on the day so Sox manager Alex Cora opted for Plawecki to face the tough lefty Zack Britton who had come in to replace Loaisiga. Plawecki, a good contact hitter, hit a soft roller to short, but with both Hernandez and Cordero running on contact, both were able to advance with Cordero touching home to tie the game. The Red Sox still had Bogaerts, Devers, and Martinez ready to hit after Plawecki. Bogaerts hit a fly ball into right field just deep enough for Hernandez to try to tag up and score. He began charging towards home plate and arrived just in time to beat the throw with a diving head first slide. The crowd was on their feet as the Sox now had a 5-4 lead and a well rested Matt Barnes ready in the bullpen to record his 21st save and secure another Red Sox comeback win, and the 10th win against the Yankees out of the 13 games with their longtime rival.
Barnes came in to pitch the top of the ninth inning and retired the first Yankee batter helped out by a good running catch by Verdugo on a hard liner to left by Greg Allen. D.J. LeMahieu grounded out to second for out number two. DH Giancarlo Stanton followed with a base hit off of Barnes though, and the Yankees brought in Tyler Wade to pinch run. Meanwhile, coming up to bat was Rougned Odor, the same guy who had knocked in two of New York’s four runs. Wade stole second, and with a runner in scoring position, Odor had the chance to get another run on the board for the Yanks and tie the game back up. However, Odor popped one up to third base and Devers was there to end the ballgame. Barnes had survived a scare and the Red Sox had gone from being no-hit to pulling off their best comeback of the season.
I think this game really shows what the 2021 Red Sox are capable of, and I’m excited to see how the Red Sox can improve themselves with Chris Sale close to returning and the MLB trade deadline approaching fast.
The Sox are now 61-39 after 100 games. With 62 games left in the regular season and 13 of them against the second place Rays, fans may look back on today’s game the as the one that defined their season of success.
Bryce Harper, OF
Craig Kimbrel, CL
Dallas Keuchel, SP
Adam Jones, OF
Gio Gonzalez, SP
Boston Sports Mania 