Devers, Sox turn page
Rookie’s last-second decision keys big win
TORONTO — To appreciate how well the Red Sox played last night, you must first remember how poorly they played the four previous games.
There was the one when their ace couldn’t pitch beyond the third inning, there was the night they committed five errors, there was the game when they were shut out at home, and there was the outing they had one hit in 13 chances with runners in scoring position.
In every facet of the sport, at one point or another, the Red Sox had been a total wreck. The only thing keeping them in first place was how well they’d played the previous three and a half weeks, and the only thing they could say about the brief but dramatic free fall was that it eventually would end.
This team was good at turning the page, manager John Farrell kept saying.
But this particularly ugly chapter just kept going, one deflating twist after another, until the page finally did flip in the bottom of fifth inning last night.
Bases loaded. Down by 1. Sharp ground ball to third base. Rafael Devers said he wanted to turn two, decided he only had time for one, and at the last second — with his body still turned toward first base — he elected to throw home.
Couldn’t have been more on the money.
“When I saw where the runner was, I just wanted to make sure I got it as quickly as possible to home,” Devers said. “That seemed like the right play.”
Right play at the right moment, exactly what the Red Sox needed to get out of a jam and snap out of a funk, one that seemed to carry more weight than a typical four-game losing streak.
“I think more than anything, our guys and the resiliency,” Farrell said. “You know, we talk about their ability to move past some challenging times, and that might have been the toughest four-game stretch that we’ve had this season. We came out and we put together a good effort (last night).”
Drew Pomeranz had little feel for his curveball, but he kept the ship steady through six innings. Christian Vazquez is supposed to be a glove-first catcher, but he hit a go-ahead home run in the seventh. A stationto-station lineup manufactured an insurance run by stringing together baserunners, then getting an RBI single when it mattered. And the reloaded bullpen locked down the last three innings, giving Craig Kimbrel just enough wiggle room to withstand a ninthinning home run.
It was not the Red Sox’ most memorable win of the year — it wasn’t their finest offensive showing, or their best pitching performance, and Devers’ heads-up throw to the plate wasn’t even the most jaw-dropping play of the night considering Kevin Pillar’s latest Superman impression — but in the context of recent history, last night was pretty close to perfection.
It was a game that easily could have slipped away and extended the losing streak to five games. There were plenty of chances to blow it — the Red Sox walked seven, committed an error, and nearly lost it at the end — but they didn’t.
They weren’t flawless, but they did the right things. They looked like a first-place team again, and they were rewarded by extending their division lead back to 31⁄2 games, exactly where it was at the AllStar break.
And it started with the kid at third base.
Talk about turning the page. He had to flip through two or three pages before settling on the correct answer, but when he found it, he executed.
“Last-second instincts kicked in,” Farrell said. “Knowing that he can’t turn a double play, and then I’ve got to believe, out of the corner of his eye he probably sees where (Josh) Donaldson is in relation to home plate, and he threw a strike from about 115 feet. So, like I said, a key play at that time in the game.”
It wasn’t Donaldson. It was Pillar speeding to first that triggered Devers’ final decision.
“My mentality initially was to go to first,” Devers said. “But when I saw he was already halfway down the line, I went home with it.”
Vazquez was so certain Devers would throw to first, he’d lost track of home plate, but got his foot there in time to record the out. Two innings later, he hit the home run that put the Red Sox in front.
“You could sense maybe that little bubble burst in the dugout,” Farrell said.
That bubble bursting was a page turning, and suddenly the Red Sox weren’t lost after all.