After lengthy rain delay, Red Sox finally prevail over Braves

As the Red Sox put the finishing touches on a four-run sixth inning to take the lead over the Braves on Wednesday night, rain started pouring down at Fenway Park, sending the game into what was ultimately a lengthy delay.

Talk about timely hitting.

The Red Sox rallied to take three-run lead into the seventh inning when thunderstorms and unrelenting rain gave the umpires no choice but to hit the pause button. Nearly four hours later, with maybe 100 people still in the seats at Fenway who stuck out the delay, the Red Sox finally closed out their 9-5 victory over the Braves that ended at 12:58 a.m. on Thursday morning.

Long before the delay, which officially lasted two hours and 53 minutes, the Red Sox needed a spark on offense. And a night after being shut down by Charlie Morton as they recorded just three hits, they turned to their clutchest hitter to give them a lift.

Rafael Devers had struggled against lefties this season, entering Wednesday hitting .224 with one homer and a .639 OPS, but against Drew Smyly, he had no problems as he cracked him for two of the biggest hits of the game. Trailing 3-1 in the fourth with Xander Bogaerts on first and two out, Smyly served up a juicy curveball to Devers, who smashed it to center for his 14th homer of the season.

Some life was restored for the Red Sox, even after NIck Pivetta coughed up the lead. They tied the game again in the sixth when Devers launched another pitch from Smyly, a go-ahead double to put them up, 5-4. The Red Sox put up two more runs in the inning and ultimately didn’t look back.

With his two big hits, Devers now has 19 game-tying and go-ahead RBI this season, which leads the majors. He has 71 since the start of 2019 as he continued his stretch of being one of the clutchest hitters in baseball.

Other takeaways from Wednesday’s (Thursday?) victory:

— One of the Red Sox’ biggest issues this season has been producing with a runner on third and less than two outs, as they entered with . It was a glaring problem in Tuesday’s loss as they wasted two huge chances. But they came through Wednesday.

Alex Verdugo and J.D. Martinez hit back-to-back one-out singles in the sixth before advancing on a wild pitch from Smyly. Alex Cora has been preaching to simply put the ball in play, and that’s exactly what Bogaerts did as he hit a grounder to third. Verdugo made a good jump on the play and slid home safely as he beat the throw home — confirmed via video review — and he jumped up with an emphatic fist pump as he tied the game at 4.

That helped the Red Sox get going as Devers followed with his go-ahead RBI double and Christian Vazquez tacked on insurance with a two-run single.

After the delay, the Red Sox succeeded again with a runner on third and one out. Bogaerts scored on a fielding error and Hunter Renfroe scored on a sac fly as the Sox added on.

— After nursing a five-run lead heading into the ninth, Alex Cora was again forced to call on closer Matt Barnes when he didn’t need to. Matt Andriese gave up a monster homer to William Contreras and then a single to Ronald Acuna. Cora didn’t hesitate to go to Barnes, who induced a game-ending double play.

— Nick Pivetta wasn’t his sharpest as the Braves hit him hard for four extra-base over the first two innings — three doubles and a triple — but he responded to go six innings as he recorded a season-high nine strikeouts. The Red Sox’ four-run sixth allowed him to earn the victory as he improved to 6-0 this season.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2SuA98j