I think this win solidifies that the Red Sox are officially, tentatively, back. If you told me two weeks ago that the Red Sox would win back-to-back one-run games to get to a four-game winning streak, I would’ve thought you might be talking about the wrong color Sox. But now, Boston’s won four of five games against the Yankees, Hunter Dobbins made the biggest non-story ever completely moot with a second gem against New York, and Trevor Story and Carlos Narvaez have saved the season.
Obviously, going into this one, the Dobbins “story” was going to be mentioned, especially since it was on a national network, and I couldn’t be happier for how Dobbins shut up any remaining discussion of that with an even better performance than what he showed last weekend. Though I think he could’ve been left in until a baserunner reached, I’ll take six innings of no-run ball — and more importantly, four straight quality starts by Red Sox pitchers — any day of the week.
Trevor Story has made all of my dreams as a Colorado native come true over the past week, and he kept it going tonight. It’s always a good sign when some of the lesser pieces of the lineup can make some noise while the “stars” struggle, and Story has greatly lived up to that from the middle of the order as of late.
Things got a bit dicey there at the end, but I guess we just have to throw all of our trust and support behind Greg Weissert! Good to get Chapman a day off for tomorrow, wish they could’ve extended Dobbins’ start and used one less pitcher, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
Three studs
Rob Refsnyder
Give me leadoff Rob Ref against lefties for the foreseeable future. Duran hasn’t been seeing lefties well, and I’m all for Refsnyder being an immediate threat from the beginning. His two hits might not have been massive, but getting a run across in the first was huge and kept the momentum rolling from last night.
Hunter Dobbins
He had the chance to choose his own narrative tonight, and he sure did. He’s handled this situation incredibly well, from a media perspective, and I’m even more pleased to see him handle it well on the field, too. While he had some scary sliders mixed in there, the drop on his curveball was beautiful, and watching him strike out Judge with it twice was absolute cinema.
Trevor Story/Carlos Narvaez
Because I can’t leave either of them out, and even after all the hype around the “Hunter Dobbins game tonight,” the offense deserves a tip of the cap as well for a solid performance against a lamentably good Carlos Rodon. Although Narvaez didn’t get credit for an RBI with his first-inning single, he kept the line moving at an important time and added on a leadoff double in the fourth to boot. As previously mentioned, Trevor Story is back on both ends of his game, and it’s beautiful to watch.
Three duds
Not much dud-age tonight, but Devers struggled again and hasn’t had a multi-hit game in two weeks, which isn’t fun. I also cannot keep watching Alex Cora pinch-hit David Hamilton for Kristian Campbell in the seventh inning anymore.
