Red Sox nix Roenicke
Red Sox beat Braves after telling manager he won’t be back.
ATLANTA — Jackie Bradley Jr. homered and made a leaping catch as the last-place Boston Red Sox won their final game under manager Ron Roenicke, beating the playoff-bound Atlanta Braves 9-1 Sunday.
The NL East champion Braves wound up as the No. 2 seed and will face Cincinnati in a best-of-three playoff series starting Wednesday. All games will be played in Atlanta.
Braves star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. was scratched with left wrist irritation and righthanded reliever Chris Martin exited with right groin discomfort.
Bradley had three hits, including a go-ahead home run, and made another superb play in center field.
The Red Sox announced before the final regular-season game that Roenicke will not return as manager next season. Boston won two of three from the Braves and finished 24-36.
Bradley, heading toward free agency, gave Boston a 2-1 lead with his fourth-inning homer to left-center off Will Smith (2-1).
J.D. Martinez had a two-run homer, the biggest hit in Boston’s five-run seventh off Luke Jackson. Xander Bogaerts and Jonathan Arauz also homered. Arauz had three hits and drove in three runs.
Nick Pivetta (2-0) allowed one run, four hits and two walks in five innings.
Marcell Ozuna hit a 468-foot homer, his NL-leading 18th, off Pivetta in the first. Ozuna also led the NL with 56 RBIs and hit .338.
Bradley’s leaping catch came near the 400-foot mark in center field of a long drive hit by Ozzie Albies in the third. Bradley’s glove was near the yellow line atop the wall as he made the grab before hitting the wall and falling to the warning track.
The Red Sox were 84-78 and third in the AL East last year.
Hired on the eve of spring training after Alex Cora was caught up in the Astros’ cheating scandal, Roenicke took over
a roster that would soon shed 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts and 2012 ALCyYoung winner David Price, who were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ace Chris Sale (Tommy John surgery) and Eduardo Rodriguez (COVID-19) never threw a pitch for the team this year.
Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom commended Roenicke for navigating the coronavirus shutdown and for holding the team together when racial protests interrupted the season.
“He did a tremendous job under really challenging and basically unprecedented circumstances,” said Bloom, who met with Roenicke in Atlanta on Sunday morning to give him the news.
“As you would expect, he handled it really well. Probably better than I did,” Bloom said on a Zoom call. “I think he is just an incredible human being.”
Sure to get attention as a possible successor: Cora, who led the Red Sox to a World Series championship in 2018, his first season as a major league manager. The team split with him less than a month before spring training after he was identified as the ringleader in the Houston sign-stealing scandal; Cora's one-year suspension for that scandal ends after the World Series.