They don’t get much more long or grueling than that.
The Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels decided to mess around and play 15 innings on Friday night in Southern California. Mercifully, it was Mookie Betts who came up with the clutch swing, clubbing a solo home run in the 15th to propel Boston to a much-needed 7-6 victory not long before sunrise back on the East Coast.
Coincidentally, Betts also led this game off with a home run.
But it was his late-night jack that will go down as one of the more memorable moments of the season.
After the game, Betts offered up his approach to the clutch AB.
“Just to get a good pitch to hit, you start waiting around, you kinda get lazy,” Betts said on NESN’s postgame coverage. “The game already is moving slow. I was just trying to be aggressive early,” Betts said.
So, what’s next?
“Sleep. Sleep and drink plenty of fluids,” Betts said. “Just wake up and understand that you have to win each and every day and hopefully that gets us over the edge.”
Here are some other notes from Friday’s Red Sox-Angels game:
— Nathan Eovaldi took a step forward in his reintroduction to the starting rotation.
He did not qualify for the win, tossing four innings, but settled in nicely after a 27-pitch first inning, ultimately striking out eight (a season high). He really only made one mistake all night, resulting in a Brian Goodwin solo shot. He threw 81 pitches, 17 more than his last outing.
— Andrew Cashner picked up the win after tossing four innings of shutout relief in extras.
— J.D. Martinez put forth another productive night at the plate with a home run — his 33rd — and three RBIs.
Through his first 1,060 at-bats with the Red Sox, Martinez’s numbers looks eerily similar to another prodigious Red Sox right-hander slugger — Manny Ramirez.
— Betts led things off with a home run. It was the first time this season the Red Sox led a game on the road off with a home run, but was the 14th time Betts has clubbed a leadoff dinger in his career.
It’s the 19th consecutive game the Red Sox have homered in, and the Boston has clubbed 14 home runs in five games on this current road trip.
