The Red Sox scored a two runs on four wild pitches by New York reliever Brooks Kriske in Thursday's game at Fenway Park and it propelled Boston to a 5-4 win in extra innings.
It's probably fair to say the Red Sox, who benefitted from a Kiké Hernández two-out, two-run double in the ninth inning, were gifted Thursday's victory. All Hunter Renfroe had to do was to send a one-out, game-winning sacrifice fly to right field and Xander Bogaerts scored from third base.
Bogaerts, of note, earned a leadoff walk to start the inning and then advanced to both second and third on wild pitches. And that was after Rafael Devers, who started off the extra inning on second base, advanced to third and ultimately scored the tying run on wild pitches, as well.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora was asked if that was something he had ever experienced before.
"No, but we'll take it," Cora said rather simply during a postgame video conference. "... It was a good battle and we ended up winning."
Hernández said it wasn't something he expected either.
"No, not at all. But we were just asking for one more -- one more wild pitch," Hernández said. "It didn't happen, but Hunter was able get on top of that ball and do his job, hit a fly ball deep enough to score the run. We survived today and we get to do it all over tomorrow."
The Red Sox and Yankees will return to Fenway Park on Friday for the second game of the three-game set.
