Red Sox reliever Kaleb Ort and second baseman Christian Arroyo combined for a game-altering play in the eighth inning of Boston’s 2-1 series-clinching victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday.
But Red Sox manager Alex Cora wanted to make sure Boston’s bench coach Ramón Vázquez received his fair share of credit, too, after Ort and Arroyo successfully picked off Angels’ Brett Phillips at second base to end the stanza.
“The big play at second, that’s stuff that you work on in spring training,” Cora told reporters after Boston’s win, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “It looks boring and it’s repetitive and people hate it, but it happens once. That’s the hope when you work on stuff like this, like at least once in the season you’re gonna get somebody out and we did. Credit to Ramón on that one.”
Cora hinted it was something the Red Sox bench saw, as well as the timely spot in the game, which prompted the decision. On the play, catcher Connor Wong lowered his glove to initiate Ort’s turn and throw to Arroyo. Wong doing so behind the plate was a nonverbal cue when Phillips’ momentum took him a step further away from the bag.
“It’s something that, obviously, we wait and wait and wait,” Cora told reporters. “And everybody knows we have a play like that. Everybody in the big leagues has a play like that. You just have to wait for the right moment, right? And it was perfect timing.”
You can watch the play here.
The pickoff resulted in the Red Sox escaping an otherwise frightening situation. Ort started off the eighth frame by throwing just two of his first 10 pitches for strikes and allowed a lead-off single to Gio Urshela and a one-out walk to Brandon Drury. Phillips ran for Urshela when he went to second on the walk.
After the pickoff got the Red Sox out of the eighth inning, fellow reliever Ryan Brasier retired the side in the ninth inning to conclude the contest.
Boston and Los Angeles will return to Fenway Park for the series finale on Marathon Monday. First pitch is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. ET, and you can watch it on NESN after an hour of pregame coverage.
