Mookie to Sox’ rescue
Sale remains hot, but Betts delivers in 10th
Leave it to Mookie Betts to save the night.
After the Red Sox bullpen tried hard to ruin another blistering hot performance by starter Chris Sale, Betts pushed away any bad karma with a walkoff home run in the 10th inning of a 4-3 win over Minnesota.
Despite Craig Kimbrel blowing a save and the lead in the ninth inning despite getting one strike away from a one-run victory, the Red Sox rallied to tie in the bottom of the ninth before winning on the first pitch of the bottom of the 10th at Fenway Park.
Down 3-2, Rafael Devers laced a leadoff solo shot just over the wall in front of the right-field bullpen to level the score at 3-3.
After Tyler Thornburg pitched a clean 10th, Betts hit his 25th home run of the season, adding more ballast to his MVP cause on a night when Sale bolstered his Cy Young drive.
Sale continued his torrid pace of domination with another scoreless outing, six innings this time, with 10 strikeouts and three hits, to lower his leagueleading ERA to just 2.09.
He had reached the 100-pitch count after six, which meant the Red Sox needed to trust their relievers to collect the final nine outs.
However, they couldn’t do that job.
As soon as Sale came out, the Red Sox bullpen struggled, which continued a recent trend that also damaged its reputation as one of the better relief units in the game. A similar disaster happened in a 2-1 loss to the Twins on Thursday.
Ryan Brasier took the mound in place of Sale in the seventh and immediately gave up a double to Max Kepler. A groundout brought Kepler to third and from there he scored when second baseman Eduardo Nunez inexplicably called off first baseman Steve Pearce from a ball that Pearce had no problem reaching. Nunez was playing behind Pearce, but he allowed the ball to go under his glove and Kepler scored to bring the score to 2-1.
From there Brasier escaped further damage, thanks to an extremely odd play. After a Jorge Polanco single, Eddie Rosario hit into a double play started by Pearce. On the relay throw from shortstop Xander Bogaerts, Pearce found himself flat on his belly, his thigh on the base. Still, he caught the ball for the second out of the play, third of the inning.
Matt Barnes retired the first two batters of the eighth before giving way to Kimbrel, who walked the first batter before retiring the next.
Kimbrel was unable to collect three outs in the ninth to preserve the win, setting up the extra-inning heroics.
The Red Sox scored the first two runs of the game in the fifth inning, thanks to Jackie Bradley Jr.’s tworun shot off of Twins starter Lance Lynn.
Before Bradley hit his home run, Nunez had led off with a well-struck Wall-ball double.
Sandy Leon then launched a fly ball deep to right field to send Nunez to third base.
That brought up the No. 9 hitter, Bradley. He waited for a 2-1 95-mph fastball, middle-up, and sent the ball into the second row of the seats above The Wall in left-center to put the Red Sox up, 2-0.
On his sprint into second, Nunez’ helmet fell off.
In his enthusiasm to collect Nunez’ protective body gadgetry, first base coach Tom Goodwin also ran away with Nunez’ helmet. The game was held up for a split second in order for Goodwin to bring Nunez’ helmet back to him.
After the third inning, Sale surpassed teammate Eduardo Rodriguez for the longest scoreless innings streak this season. That streak is now at 23 innings.
In his last six starts, Sale has posted a 0.23 ERA.
In his last five starts, Sale has posted a 0.28 ERA. No Red Sox pitcher has posted a lower ERA over a five-start streak since Ray Culp (0.20, September, 1968). According to STATS Inc., Sale is just the second AL pitcher in the live ball era to allow one or fewer runs with 50 or more strikeouts over a five-start span. The other? Randy Johnson, in 1997.