Red Sox extends World Series lead

JD Martinez and the Boston Red Sox made magic with two outs during the AL playoffs.

With a World Series on the line, seems they have plenty left.

Martinez delivered a two-out tie-breaking single, and Boston got all of its runs with two down while beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 last night for a 2-0 World Series lead.

Boston has done most of its scoring with two in the books: nine of its 12 runs through two World Series games have come that way, and 36 of 68 for the postseason.

Martinez has been the electrifying force for much of that two-out October lightning. He entered the series batting .667 with a 1.515 OPS with two outs in the post-season.

Despite playing on the sore right ankle he rolled in Game 1, Boston’s free-agent pickup went the other way for a two-run single in the fifth, a two-out knock that snapped a 2-2 tie.

The Red Sox entered yesterday’s game batting .405 with a

1.335 OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position, getting 29 runs out of those situations. It they went 2 for 4 in those situations yesterday.

Nothing new for Boston. The

108-win Red Sox led the majors with 329 two-out runs during the regular season.

That offence has chased some of baseball’s best pitchers thanks to threats 1 through 9 in the batting order. In Game 1, Andrew Benintendi had four hits to send away Clayton Kershaw. Eduardo Nunez then provided a pinch-hit, three-run homer late to help seal it.

Ian Kinsler kicked off the twoout trouble, driving a single down the third-base line to score Xander Bogaerts from second on a two-out offering from starter Hyun-Jin Ryu in the second.

Ryu nursed a 2-1 lead into the fifth and got two quick outs. He then gave up consecutive singles to Christian Vazquez and Mookie Betts and walked Andrew Benintendi.

Ryan Madson relieved with the bases loaded. For the second night in a row, he opened by walking Steve Pearce, this time to bring in the tying run.

Martinez then poked a fastball into shallow right, bringing Betts and Benintendi around to score.

And just like that, the World Series was two down, two to go for the Red Sox.