Red Sox 5, A’s 2: Back at .500 for the first time in a hot second

The Red Sox came into Sunday’s game one game below .500 and playing their third straight last place team in a row. Finally—FINALLY!—they managed to finish the sweep, get back to .500, and make everyone happy heading into tonight’s Celtics game. Franchy Cordero is the main man to thank, but Rich Hill isn’t far behind. For the full recap, see below.

____

Red Sox legend Frankie Montas started on the mound and gave up a single in the shift-influenced shortstop hole to Jarren Duran on the first pitch. Then Enrique Hernández hit a single, and the Sox were in business. Then Rafael Devers took it the other way for another single (on a crazy moving pitch) and Duran scored to make it 1-0, Sox. Rejoice!

Next, Xander Bogaerts struck out swinging on a full count. Boo. It was 97 MPH so one gets it, but still. Then, on another full count, Alex Verdugo went opposite field again to bring up Trevor Story with the bases juiced. Which was neat until he struck out, albeit on Montas’s 25th pitch. Then Franchy came up absolutely pulverized one... into Seth Brown’s glove at first base. In the words of Shakespeare: Butts. Also:

Correct. Especially when Chad Pinder laced a double just inside the third base line to start the bottom of the first. Which stunk and got worse when, with two outs, Ramon Laureano laced a double down the right field line to score him, making it 1-1 before Christian Bethancourt struck out to end the first.

Then I fell asleep — it’s hard and overly personal to explain how long a weekend it’s been — but I woke up and the score was the same in the top of the fifth. So everyone is cool. The Sox did nothing and then Rich Hill retired his 11th, 12th and 13th guy in a row. Maybe a sign to go back to sleep? Wouldn’t hate it! But I have to serve the people.

In the sixth inning, the Sox got two men on with no outs only to see a couple of popups seemingly ruin the chance to score. Spirits were down as Franchy Cordero came to the mound. Spirits were RAISED when THE FRANCH went yard to left center on a man’s man homer, putting the Sox up 4-1. It whipped ass.

Meanwhile in the bottom of the sixth, Hill retired his 14th, 15th and 16th guys in a row to make it 4-1 heading into the seventh. In our humble opinions, this is a lot of batters to retire in sequence.

Jed Lowrie led off the bottom of the 7th with a single to right, at which point Hill was finally pulled, having done a heck of a job. John Schreiber came on in relief and eventually loaded the bases with two outs, only to strike out Kevin Smith on three pitches, which was awesome.

In the top of the eighth, Rafael Devers went opposite field to push it to 5-1, which was good. Nothing happened after that, so Tyler Danish came on to pitch the eighth and retired the 9 and 1 hitters easily before Elvis Andrus singled to center. But then Lowrie popped out to the Franch and that was that.

Top of the ninth was more of the blah blah blah game filler stuff, and in the bottom of the ninth, Ryan Brasier came in to finish things off. Which he did, albeit after giving up a run on a Tony Kemp blooper. Thankfully, that was all. The Sox are at .500 again. Please rejoice.

BOX