The Red Sox looked lost at the plate for nearly three hours on Friday night, grounding out 11 times and leaving six men on base.
It was shaping up to be the kind of game they hadn’t played in a while, a one-run loss in which they squandered valuable opportunities and were done in by error and misplay.
And then it wasn’t.
With one out, and pinch-hitter Roman Anthony on first having drawn a walk, Ceddanne Rafaela, the man on a hot streak hotter than the sun, blasted Pete Fairbanks’ 1-2 slider high and deep into the inky summer sky. As it soared 406 feet at 103 mph, the Fenway Faithful roared, knowing where it would eventually land:
Safely atop the Green Monster and in the win column, 5-4.
“I was waiting for this moment since I was watching games with my mom, 2004, ’05, ’06, ’07, to play in this atmosphere,” said Rafaela. “When I hit that home run, I was thinking about my mom, my wife back home … I was a Red Sox fan before I signed, so when I signed with the Red Sox, I wanted to play October baseball up here, to feel what it is.”
Simplification key to Red Sox’ Ceddanne Rafaela becoming ‘premier player’
It was the much-needed bolt of lightning to reinvigorate a Red Sox team that, hours after welcoming Alex Bregman and Hunter Dobbins back from the injured list, saw the latter exit his start with another injury.
Racing to cover first base in the top of the second, the rookie right-hander made the out but pulled up in pain and struggled to put weight on his right leg. Manager Alex Cora and a trainer immediately rushed out from the dugout. After several minutes of discussion and a walk over to the mound, where they watched Dobbins attempt to throw a pitch, they all walked off the field together. His night was done after just 1.2 innings and 27 pitches (17 strikes); he yielded one earned run on two hits, walked a batter, and struck out two. The Red Sox later announced Dobbins exited with “right knee pain.”
From there on out, it was a Boston bullpen game.
The Red Sox put Cora’s pregame proclamation, “We got a full bullpen,” to the test, and used six relievers.
Jorge Alcala replaced Dobbins, but a confluence of mistakes by umpires and players marred his inning of work. With Alcala back out to begin the third, the Rays took a 4-1 lead on three unearned runs. With two outs and men on second and third, home plate umpire CB Bucknor missed two crucial strike calls on Alcala’s first and third pitches to Taylor Walls. The result was a bases-loading walk.
What followed was a comedy of errors, minus the comedy. Jonathan Aranda scored the go-ahead run as José Caballero reached on a fielding error by first baseman Abraham Toro. That was it for Alcala, who handed the ball to lefty Brennan Bernardino.
Bernardino ultimately tossed a new career-high 2.1 innings, but the first moments after he took over for Alcala were frustrating. A passed ball by catcher Carlos Narváez allowed Jake Mangum to score, and the left-hander’s Ball 4 to Chandler Simpson was a second passed ball; Walls touched home for the Rays’ fourth run.
The error and passed balls (as well as the missed calls) loomed large as Greg Weissert, Justin Wilson, Jordan Hicks and Chris Murphy pitched an inning apiece and held the Rays scoreless through the end of the ninth.
It was a Tampa Bay bullpen game, too. Hours after being added to the All-Star Game’s Team American League roster, starter Drew Rasmussen only pitched the first two innings. The Red Sox grabbed one earned run on three hits and struck out just once against Rasmussen, who worked around Masataka Yoshida’s two-out double in the first, stranded two after Rafaela’s game-tying RBI single in the second.
Rafaela’s second-inning knock extended his MLB-leading active streak of games with an RBI to seven. By game’s end, he joined Ted Williams (8 in 1942) and Duffy Lewis (7 in 1912) as the only players in franchise history with as many as seven games with a run and RBI.
“The quality of the at-bats, right, you can see it,” said Cora of Rafaela. “He understands what he needs to do … I’m a big believer that the big moves don’t work here. They don’t. And if you look at his numbers last year against fastballs – even in spring training he wasn’t catching up with fastballs, he was hitting soft in the zone. … He’s able to catch up with the fastball now. He’s a good breaking ball hitter.”
Bregman’s two-out double, his first hit since May 23, nearly landed in the Green Monster seats in the bottom of the seventh, but it mattered little when Yoshida grounded out moments later.
Trevor Story, playing his 1,000th career game, was a consistent highlight through the contest. Until Rafaela walked it off, Story had Boston’s only multi-hit performance: 2 for 3 with a walk and run scored. When the veteran shortstop made a spinning midair throw to Toro for the first out of the ninth, the crowd roared.
When lefty Garrett Cleavinger replaced Kevin Kelly with one out in the eighth, Cora turned to one of his lefty killers. But pinch-hitting for Wilyer Abreu, Rob Refsnyder struck out. As did Story, to end the inning.
The crowd was on its feet as the Red Sox prepared to face Fairbanks in the bottom of the ninth. Their faith was rewarded moments later, when Rafaela sent them home happy. For the second night in a row, in fact; his go-ahead two-run single in the seventh inning of Thursday’s series opener made the difference in Boston’s 4-3 win, too.
“He wants that environment tonight, in October,” said Cora, “Because that was October today, with the fans.”
The Red Sox are 51-45 and have won eight in a row for the first time since early in the 2023 season.
With Friday’s win, they overtake the Rays for third in the AL East standings and move up to the second Wild Card.
“The future of this organization is bright,” said Cora. “The present is bright, too.”
Originally Published:
