Party of 5 for Sox
Ride hot streak home after extra-inning win
MIAMI — They did it to themselves, with mistakes in the field and on the bases, as the Red Sox were forced to play 13 innings last night with the Miami Marlins.
Two innings after Matt Barnes blew a save chance and Xander Bogaerts gunned down Miami’s Justin Bour at the plate to keep the game alive, Hanley Ramirez delivered a two-out, tworun double in the top of the 13th to lift the Red Sox to 4-2 win, plus a two-game series sweep in South Florida and a five-game winning streak.
The next time the 5-1 Red Sox play, they’ll have David Price on the mound against Tampa Bay at Fenway Park in tomorrow’s home opener.
Manager Alex Cora got only 15 outs from Chris Sale in this one but maneuvered through the rest of the game with Bobby Poyner (five outs), Carson Smith (one out), Joe Kelly (six outs), Craig Kimbrel (three outs), Barnes (three outs) and Heath Hembree (six outs), who closed out the win more than four hours after the first pitch.
Otherwise, Cora might’ve had a hard time sleeping on the flight back to Boston.
The game started well for the Sox, but much of what happened from inning No. 1 through inning No. 13 left plenty to be desired.
Andrew Benintendi’s legs led to a run in the top of the first, when the 23-year-old outfielder singled and then swiped second. It was his first stolen bag of the season. The Marlins shifted hard to the pull side of J.D. Martinez, typically an opposite-field hitter, and Martinez punched a low liner where the second baseman usually is positioned for an RBI single.
Sale didn’t bring his best stuff to the table, averaging 93 mph on his four-seam fastball after averaging 95 mph on his four-seamer on Opening Day in Tampa. But he was still plenty good enough and got some help from Jackie Bradley Jr., who made a Superman dive to rob a hit in the second.
Mookie Betts started the game on the bench, so J.D. Martinez got tested, and failed, in his first start of the season in right field.
With two outs in the fourth, Brian Anderson singled and then Bour sliced a blooper into right-center, but Martinez took a crooked angle to the ball and rather than make a diving effort to catch it, he bent over, dropped his glove and stumbled on top of it. By the time he found the ball and picked it up, Anderson had scored and Bour was on second.
Sale was done after five, striking out six and throwing just 93 pitches, one more than he threw in six innings on Opening Day.
Questionable baserunning killed Sale’s chance at a win and haunted the Sox throughout.
Rafael Devers, the secondyoungest position player in the majors at 21 years old, made a rookie mistake in the fifth. On second base after a leadoff double, Devers mistakenly took off for third on a dribbler back to pitcher Jose Urena, and he made the unforgivable first out of the inning at third base.
Martinez, too, had a rough game. In the sixth, Benintendi and Ramirez singled, then Martinez grounded into a double play to end the frame.
In the eighth, the Sox made yet another out on the bases. Bradley hit a leadoff double and advanced to third on a fly ball by pinch-hitter Mitch Moreland, but took off running on a grounder to second base hit by Eduardo Nunez and was thrown out at home.
Betts entered as a pinch hitter to lead off the 11th inning, when he had a homer stolen by Lewis Brinson at the center field wall.
Nunez doubled behind him and then scored on a single by Benintendi, but Barnes gave up the lead with two outs in the bottom of the frame.