The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
RedSox cap epic year
BOSTON (AP) >> On the final day of their record-setting season, the AL East champion Boston Red Sox picked up a few more titles.
Mookie Betts had another hit to coast to the big league batting championship and J.D. Martinez won the RBI crown on Sunday as the Red Sox headed into the playoffs with their franchise-record 108th win, a 10-2 victory over the secondplace New York Yankees.
“That’s a lot of wins,” said Martinez, who hit his 43rd homer, the most ever for a player in his first year with the Red Sox. “It’s been exciting, and nowwe’re focused on the playoffs.”
Five days before they have a chance to meet in the postseason for the first time since Boston’s epic comeback in its 2004 World Series championship run, the teams phoned in a meaningless Game 162. In all, the usually bitter rivals ran out 26 position players and 15 pitchers, with Red Sox manager Alex Cora pulling starter Rick Porcello from a no-hitter after two innings and sending out a sub for Betts so he could get a curtain call.
“It really doesn’t matter,” said Cora, who before the game compared it to the final day of spring training. “Now we start. We’re ready to go, whoever we play on Friday.”
New York has to go through Oakland first, in Wednesday night’s AL wild-card game. Thewinner will be in Bostonfor Game 1 of the ALDivision Series, starting Friday.
“Excited to go chase it down,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s an opportunity none of us should take lightly — the opportunity to get in the postseason.”
Xander Bogaerts also homered for Boston, and Luke Voit hit one for the Yankees to give them a major league-record 267 home runs for the year. Betts finished with amajor league-best .346 average, and Martinez’s three-run homer gave him an AL-best 130 RBIs.
Porcello left with a 7-0 lead and afterwardwasnamed to start Game 3 of the ALDS, following Chris Sale and David Price to the mound. The