Red Sox Notes: Boston ‘Maximizes Roster’ To Battle Back In Series

The Boston Red Sox needed just about everybody to finish off a 4-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday afternoon.

Boston trailed 3-0 early after the Reds tagged Nick Pivetta for a pair of home runs. This time around, the Red Sox were able to respond and fight back to a victory.

The offense found life in the eighth inning trailing by a run. After Ceddanne Rafaela reached, Rob Refsnyder pinch-hit and singled to tie the game. Jarren Duran started a standout final few innings by taking the lead on a sacrifice fly from Rafael Devers.

“A lot of credit to our offense hanging in there and having tough at-bats,” Refsnyder told Jahmai Webster during NESN’s postgame coverage.

From there, Alex Cora utilized 12 position players and seven pitchers to secure the win that evened the series for Boston.

“I think we put good at-bats throughout the game,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “We hit the ball hard. We had chances early on. We just stayed with them, right? We maximized the roster. We deployed the righties. … It’s a much different club than Opening Day. We can mix and match with everybody. We will continue to do that.”

As the ballclub battles inconsistencies and injuries, total team efforts like Saturday’s must continue. Boston has done that this month, going 12-7 in June.

Here are more notes from Saturday’s Red Sox-Reds game:

— Connor Wong and Duran each extended their hitting streaks to 12 games.

— Pivetta and Kutter Crawford each allowed three earned runs from home runs before limiting the damage in each of their starts.

— The Red Sox move to 9-3 in Cincinnati all-time during the regular season.

— Boston returned to a season-best five games over .500.

— The Red Sox won just their third game of the season when trailing after seven innings.

— Zack Kelly got the Red Sox out of the seventh inning and has not allowed a hit to 31 straight hitters, according to Red Sox senior manager of media relations and baseball information J.P. Long.

— The Red Sox and Reds finish their three-game series on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is set for 1:40 p.m. ET. You can catch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.