Red Sox
“Put up six-spot — feels like a million with Crochet going.”
The Red Sox didn’t have a single player cross home plate after the first inning on Sunday night against the Yankees.
But on a night where New York slugged three pitches into (or over) the seats at Fenway Park, Boston’s first haymaker of the evening still stood as the knockout blow.
For the second time this season, the Red Sox rattled off six runs in the first inning — giving themselves a lead that they would not cough up en route to a 6-4 win over New York.
While New York doled out damage via three home runs on Sunday, the Red Sox only had one offering leave the ballpark — a solo shot from Carlos Narvaez that capped off Boston’s six-run start.
The rest of Boston’s first-running run was generated off of five straight hits against Yankees starter Will Warren, along with two runs scored off a sacrifice fly and ground out.
“In an era that people love what they [Yankees] do, right? I mean, hit the ball out of the ballpark. And that’s the reason they’re so good,” Cora said. “Where we at right now, we’re not doing that. So we have to cash in. We have to make contact when it matters and try to score, of course, as many runs as possible.”
Boston’s early offensive salvo was a welcome sight — especially for a Red Sox lineup that entered the game with just three hits in its last 31 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
But beyond that, Sunday’s much-needed win stemmed the bleeding for a Boston team that suddenly saw its grasp of a wild-card spot slip after back-to-back losses to their top rival.
With Boston snapping a three-game losing streak and both the Astros and Rangers losing, the Red Sox do have some breathing room again in the Wild-Card race.
The Red Sox still trail New York by 2.5 games for the first Wild-Card spot, but remain one game ahead of third-place Houston — and more importantly, three games ahead of the Rangers, who are just below the playoff cut-off line.
“If you told me in Fort Myers — we’re in a playoff spot with two weeks left, I would take it,” Cora said after the win.”I know a lot of people here would take it, too.”
Boston’s early surge at the plate also helped alleviate the pressure off of starter Garrett Crochet. Despite surrendering three runs off of two big flies to Aaron Judge and Amer Rosario, the lefty struck out 12 over six innings of work to secure his 16th win over the season.
“Just trying to right the ship early,” Crochet said. “Obviously the offense came out in a big way early, and I was just trying my best to maintain that lead for as long as my outing lasted.”
Boston started off if its first-inning assault via a triple from Jarren Duran, who sliced a ball into left that took a fortuitous bounce off the Green Monster and allowed him to get within 90 feet of home plate.
As fans continued to file into their seats, Alex Bregman gave Boston its first lead of the series by singling up the middle and bringing Duran home.
Trevor Story followed that up by singling into right, while Nathaniel Lowe doubled Boston’s lead with a sharp single that plated Bregman.
Romy Gonzalez extended his hitting streak to an MLB-best 14 games by punching a double into right — scoring Story and making it a 3-0 contest.
Boston’s five-straight hits marked the first time since May 19, 2021 that the Red Sox’s first five batters all recorded a hit to start a game.
Boston padded its lead with a sac fly off the bat of Masataka Yoshida, an RBI groundout from Rob Refsnyder, and Narvaez’s solo shot into the centerfield seats.
That was all that Crochet and Boston’s bullpen ultimately needed to secure the victory and close out Boston’s season series against New York with a 9-4 record.
“Put up six-spot — feels like a million with Crochet going,” Story said. “But, yeah, it was huge. We felt like we’ve had some opportunities the last couple days and just haven’t got that big hit. We just hadn’t had the quality of those bats that we’ve had. “So we put a lot on them early and it was enough.”
With just two weeks left in the regular season, the Red Sox will resume play on Tuesday when they welcome the A’s to Fenway Park for a three-game series.
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