For the second straight night, the Red Sox were a rollercoaster. But at more than four hours long, Tuesday night's 11-9 win over the Minnesota Twins was a much longer ride.
It saw four lead changes in four innings, and after Boston built up a six-run lead in the fifth, the bullpen allowed Minnesota to chip away. After Tanner Houck went 4 2/3 innings giving up three runs, it took six relievers to get the job done, with Hansel Robles coming in to protect a two-run lead in the ninth, no outs and two inherited runners on first and second.
Hunter Renfroe perhaps put it best in his postgame press conference:
"It was stressful. It was fun."
His manager didn't exactly see it that way, but also just seemed relieved to miraculously have come out on top after two games where a lot went wrong.
"It is what it is, we won," Alex Cora said in his media availability. "You know, people can criticize our team and the holes that we have or we don't have. It's a big league, we'll take it, we'll work tomorrow, we'll try to get better, but nobody's going to take the joy out of a big league win for us.
"We got 72 of those, and not too many teams can say that."
Robles and a superb offense ultimately bailed them out. Travis Shaw and Hunter Renfroe (who went yard twice) had clutch home runs that either tied the game or scored go-ahead runs. But it was the birthday boy's bat that ultimately saved the day.
After a rather contentious stretch, where relievers Martín Pérez and Hirokazu Sawamura allowed the Twins to climb within a run, Kiké Hernández blasted a 425-foot, two-run homer to left for some insurance.
Then, Robles came in to get the save against the team who traded him.
"I was just pumped up," Robles said after the game. "I had the adrenaline flowing and wanted to get the job done."
Robles threw 13 of his 21 pitches for strikes with two strikeouts, while Barnes cheered loudly from the dugout.
"Hey, the biggest takeaway from today, obviously, Robles came in and picked me and the guys up. The offense was incredible tonight," Barnes said postgame. "Guys put a ton of quality at-bats together. At the end of the day it's about winning ball games right now, plain and simple. Now I picked a bad time to start sucking, but it's about winning ballgames, and even with my struggles the last couple of nights guys have come through in the clutch to pick me up and they won both ballgames."
And with that, the Red Sox are 72-55 on the season.
-- Barnes is going through it. We're at the point where he's getting booed at Fenway Park after giving up a solo homer, walking two consecutive batters and getting pulled in the ninth before recording an out.
Barnes acknowledged his struggles in postgame and that it's been hard for him to stay the course, but that he'd get back to work and figure this out. After all, he's in the midst of his first All-Star season. Unfortunately, the outing came amid questions about his future as the team's closer. Cora stood by him ahead of the game, but admitted his concern after it.
"We're concerned, yeah we are. Obviously we're not going to pick on the guy but we have to make adjustments, whatever it is."
-- Renfroe's two home runs put him at nine in August -- the most of any player in Major League Baseball this month.
-- A lot of this is thanks to Nathan Eovaldi and Chris Sale's combined 1.55 ERA with 36 strikeouts and three walks, but the Red Sox starting rotation has a 3.11 ERA in their last 15 games.
As noted by Red Sox Notes on Twitter, that's their lowest collective ERA of any 15-game stretch all season.
-- One last note about pitching. Hilariously, Josh Taylor recorded the win despite throwing just one pitch for one out...and making history in the process.
-- Even the blues got banged up in this one. Umpire Tom Hallion had to leave the game and is in concussion protocols after being hit with a foul ball off Xander Bogaerts' bat.
-- That was a long one. More than four hours, actually.
-- The Red Sox and Twins go at it again Wednesday. Hopefully they can get a win for the kids at the Jimmy Fund. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. ET live on NESN.
