Bullpen and Story Lead Red Sox to Win in Extras

The Boston Red Sox won their fourth baseball game of the 2024 season, and it was also their third straight win. The game went to extra innings as the Red Sox after being down 4-3 entering the seventh inning, the Red Sox scored a run to tie the game and the game would go to extras, neither team scored in the tenth inning, and in the 11^th the Red Sox got a run and were able to keep Oakland at bay to secure a 5-4 win.

Brayan Bello

Bello made his second start of the 2024 season, and he didn’t look bad, but he made two mistakes and it cost him both times as both were two-run home runs and gave the A’s a 4-3 lead after three innings. His final stat line was five innings, five hits, four runs, one walk, and six strikeouts; he threw 87 pitches which has been the norm to start the season for all the Boston starters, out of those 87 pitches 56 of them were strikes.

Bullpen

Once Bello was pulled after five innings the Red Sox turned to Greg Weissert, Isaiah Campbell, Chris Martin, Kenley Jansen, and Josh Winckowski; they combined to go six innings and allowed just two hits, no runs, two walks, and eight strikeouts. Weissert was first out of the pen going one inning giving up one hit, no runs, no walks, and struck out one. Campbell finished with the same stat line as Weissert. Martin in his lone inning didn’t give up a hit, a run, or a walk, and struck out one. Jansen didn’t allow a hit or a run, but he did walk two and struck out two. Winckowski went two innings and didn’t allow a hit or a run or a walk and struck out three; he threw 15 pitches in those two innings all of which were strikes and he also picked up the win.

Lineup

Trevor Story and Jarren Duran led the charge on offense with Story going 3-5 with two doubles, and two RBI while Duran went 2-3 with an RBI, a run, and a stolen base which gives him six on the year now which is still the most in the American League and tied with Brice Turang from the Milwaukee Brewers for the lead in all of baseball. Story drove home Duran to tie the game in the seventh and Tyler O’Neill drove home the game-winning run on a double play that scored Wilyer Abreu who was the ghost runner to start the inning.

Managing

This game was a managing master class by Alex Cora with all the moves he made. On top of that Wilyer Abreu ended up being the ghost runner on second base in the 11^th inning because Connor Wong was the last out the inning before but his spot in the order belonged to the pitcher however a pitcher can’t be a ghost runner, so it ended up being Abreu. Cora later stated that Andrew Bailey told him about that rule. It was just a fantastic game from the minds on the bench that helped lead the Red Sox to a victory.

Next Up

The Red Sox will wrap up their series with the A’s this afternoon with first pitch set for 3:37 PM EST and will have Nick Pivetta (0-1, 1.50 ERA) taking on Ross Stripling (0-1, 7.20 ERA). The Red Sox will have Thursday off before heading to take on the Los Angeles Angels for three games starting on Friday.