Sox sweep doubleheader
Stretch winning streak to 9 games
The bunt started it all. Playing small ball hasn’t typically been Alex Cora’s style. But when the Twins pulled their infield too far in with the bases loaded and nobody out in the second inning, Kevin Plawecki pushed a bunt down the firstbase line that caught them completely out of position.
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The backup catcher’s perfectly-placed bunt forced Twins pitcher Kenta Maeda off the mound to his left, and with nobody covering first base, his only play was at third. He made a quick throw but it sailed into left field and the Sox scored two on a bunt that went about 20 feet.
It was the most pivotal play in the first game of a doubleheader Tuesday afternoon, as the Red Sox held on for a 3-2 win.
They sailed to a 7-1 win in the second game thanks to five strong innings from Eduardo Rodriguez and have now won nine in a row after starting the season 0-3.
“The sense of urgency,” Cora said when why he liked the bunt in that situation.
“You get the lead and with (Nathan Eovaldi) on the mound, it’s a seven-inning game and it’s different.”
The Sox had just seven sacrifice hits in the entire 2018 season under Cora, but he said he’s looking at the bunt differently this year, especially in the shortened games in doubleheaders.
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“The whole topic we can we can talk for a while, and I know people think that when you bunt actually you’re not going to score runs in bunches,” Cora said. “But if you look at run expectancy and win expectancy in that situation, because second and third and the chances of winning the ballgame, they go up, actually. Maybe we don’t have a big inning, but that run at third base is huge and you score that one and the chances of winning the ballgame, they go up.”
The Sox ended up scoring three in the inning after Plawecki’s bunt.
They scored six in the fifth inning of the second game after going down 1-0 in the first inning. Six of their nine wins have been come-frombehind victories.
Takeaways
1. Alex Verdugo made the defensive play of the year for the Red Sox with two outs in the ninth inning to preserve the save for Matt Barnes in Game 1. Luis Arraez smoked a liner that was tailing toward the left-field line when Verdugo charged in and timed his dive perfectly, catching the ball near the ground with his outstretched glove. His sunglasses went flying and he came up celebrating. Verdugo had started the game in center but moved to left after Kiké Hernandez took over in center starting in the bottom of the sixth.
“He played great left field last year,” Cora said of Verdugo. “I’m learning about them. I remember Alex asking this question early in spring training about the alignment. I had some ideas, the front office had ideas too and now we blend them together we see them play.”
Verdugo also went 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs in the second game and was arguably the MVP of the day.
2. Cora secured his 200th career victory as a manager in Game 1. He entered the day 199-135 (.596) but soon became the 19th manager in Red Sox history to win 200 games with the club. The only managers to reach 200 wins with the Red Sox in 335 games or fewer are Joe McCarthy (323 in 1950), Don Zimmer (326 in 1978), Bill Carrigan (327 in 1915), and Terry Francona (334 in 2006), according to Elias Sports.
“It means a lot,” Cora said. “This organization has given me a chance, has given me two chances to be a big league manager. I’ve got to thank everyone who was part of this process. The people in Boston, the family, the Red Sox and obviously my family.”
3. The Sox pitching continued to look strong as Nathan Eovaldi went five innings of two-run ball while striking out three in Game 1, and Rodriguez made it look easy over five innings of one-run ball, striking out five, in Game 2.
“For me, it’s the pitching staff,” Eovaldi said about this year’s success. “Last year, we lost Eddie (Rodriguez), we lost Chris Sale, we lost Darwinzon (Hernandez), Josh Taylor. Those were both two huge presences in the rotation but also two big guys in the bullpen as well. We had to fill a lot of holes. I think that’s what happened. That’s why we ended up where we were last year. I felt like at the end of last year we were doing better with it.
“This year, we go out there and we have Nick Pivetta coming back in, we got Eddie back, Sale is coming back eventually, we got Garrett Richards, Adam Ottavino, Matt Andriese. We’ve added a lot of the key guys we needed to add into the rotation. Our offense is one of the best in the game . ... I like our team a lot.”