BOSTON — After a 10th-inning walk-off in Friday’s opener and a hard-fought one-run win on Saturday, the Red Sox looked to ride the momentum of the past two days into Sunday’s series finale against the Yankees.
Facing the American League’s ERA leader in lefty Max Fried, they had their work cut out for them.
The offense applied pressure early, with Romy Gonzalez legging out a triple and coming around to score on a bloop single from Trevor Story to get the Red Sox on the board in the first.
Two runs were enough for the Red Sox to hand Fried just his second loss of the season and secure the three-game sweep with a 2-0 victory to extend their win streak to five games.
Story may have kickstarted the offense, but for manager Alex Cora, the tone was set before the Red Sox even stepped up to the plate.
“I think it starts on the mound,” Cora said. “You pitch [well], you’re throwing strikes, the defense is going to be better. … I think at the end, pitching and defense are the pillars of baseball. You do that consistently, you’re going to have a chance to win a lot of games.”
Entering Sunday, Boston’s relievers had thrown the sixth-most innings (271) in the Majors this season. Starters were consistently struggling to go five innings, leading to a taxed bullpen with overworked arms. By the time the Red Sox came up to bat, they were often playing from behind.
The past three series have indicated that trend has shifted closer to what the Red Sox were expecting at the start of the season after signing and extending ace Garrett Crochet, adding Walker Buehler and welcoming back Lucas Giolito from the injured list.
Brayan Bello was the latest member of the rotation to show a shift on the mound, turning in Boston’s season-high-tying sixth consecutive quality start. Bello threw a career-high 114 pitches over seven scoreless innings, ending his day by recording his eighth strikeout on a punchout of J.C. Escarra.
“Fastball command was good,” Cora said. “They did a good job as far as game planning. It was a little bit different today, especially with all those lefties. The cutter was playing. I think [Connor Wong] did an amazing job behind the plate. And the kid, his stuff was good at the end, he was still good. So we rolled with him and he earned that one. He was outstanding.”
The Yankees hit back-to-back singles to open the eighth against lefty Brennan Bernardino, but Bernardino struck out DJ LeMahieu and Garrett Whitlock got Aaron Judge to ground into a rally-killing double play to end the inning and secured his first save of the year in the ninth. The Red Sox held Judge to 1-for-12 in the series with eight strikeouts.
“Double plays are momentum changers,” Cora said. “We don’t turn that one, [Cody] Bellinger comes up first and third with two outs. So you turn that one and the crowd goes wild, everybody’s excited. You have to finish routine plays. And we’ve been OK … I think we’ve kicked a few the last few days, but we have been good at turning the [double] play.”
The feed from third baseman Abraham Toro to second baseman David Hamilton to Gonzalez at first elicited a rare physical response from the ever-stoic Whitlock.
“I mean, I gave a fist bump. So that tells you how much I was excited,” Whitlock said. “It was really, really cool to see.”
As Whitlock pumped his fist in the eighth, the crowd’s cheers segued into the opening notes of Sweet Caroline. When Whitlock had Anthony Volpe in an 0-2 count with two outs in the ninth, the Fenway faithful were on their feet as he got Volpe swinging to secure the win.
A happy sendoff as the Red Sox head to Seattle to open a three-city West Coast trip on Monday.
“It started last weekend at [Yankee] Stadium,” Cora said. “I think this weekend here, compared to the last few against them, it was loud, it was fun. People showed up early, and they were into every pitch. Even stood up with two strikes. I haven’t seen that in a while here. So hopefully we go on the West Coast and play good baseball, and when we come back, we got that winning feeling here around town, and this place gets rocking.”