Watching the Boston Red Sox bullpen let the game slip away in the eighth inning against the Texas Rangers on Sunday wasn’t ideal.
But watching Brock Holt be the one responsible for the comeback added another layer to the 5-3 loss.
“I mean, it was cool,” Holt said in his postgame media availability, via Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald. “It would’ve been cool regardless in that situation to get a hit, to put your team on top going into the ninth inning… Obviously, the Red Sox thing, it’s cool, but it would’ve felt good regardless of who it was.”
Holt, being the good guy he is, probably didn’t want to rub it in.
But it had to feel pretty good when, with runners on first and second and two outs, the third baseman hit an RBI single that helped bring home David Dahl Isiah Kiner-Falefa with assistance from a fielding error.
It just was not good for Boston.
“That kind of hurt, you know?” Xander Bogaerts said in his postgame availability. “Obviously people know how much he’s beloved. Ex-teammate, but I mean I talked to him a couple of times this series, it was great seeing him. You always kind of root for someone like that, a guy you’re pretty close with and you have nothing but good things to say about him, I just wish he (didn’t) do as good against us. Yeah, it stung, it stung especially coming from him. But it’s a good player, man, and I know probably wanted that bad and to be clutch in that situation. So, I mean, he put a good swing on it.”
Holt is batting .250 this season. Since his seven years with the Red Sox, he’s bounced around between the Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals and now Texas Rangers.
But as Boston knows, the utility man always comes to play.
“He’s a championship caliber player, you know, he’s done it before,” Holt’s former manager, Alex Cora, said after the game. “He put a good swing on a fastball-up, and he found green. He’s a good player.”
