Most have learned by now not to bet against the Boston Red Sox this season, but things looked especially bleak on Sunday.
They were being no-hit through the seventh inning, and their win probability plummeted when reliever Yacksel Rios walked two batters and hit another with a pitch to start the seventh. Alex Cora put reliable lefty Josh Taylor into the game, and according to Kiké Hernández, the manager made quite the proclamation.
If Taylor got out of the inning, Boston was winning the game.
“Well, things weren’t looking great, and when A.C. went up to the mound and he took Yacksel out of the game and he brought in J.T. he said to us, ‘If J.T. gets out of this inning, we’re winning this game.”
Taylor struck out Giancarlo Stanton and forced Rougned Odor into a right field flyout to get out of the jam. Brandon Workman allowed an RBI single to Gleyber Torres the next inning that made it a 4-0 game, but what Cora manifested played out anyway.
Alex Verdugo started things off with a double to deep right, and Hunter Renfroe’s RBI double kept the run going. Christian Vázquez, Franchy Cordero and Hernández strung together the rest of Boston’s five hits.
With sacrifices from Kevin Plawecki and Xander Bogaerts, the Red Sox completed the comeback rally.
“Next inning the hitting still went the same but you trust what A.C. says,” Hernández said. “A lot of times he sees things before they happen and you just go with it and if he says that we’re gonna win this game, it’s probably gonna happen. And you know, they score one more, but we said it many times, we’re not out of a game till the game’s over and we proved that today.”
Talk about the comeback of the year.
