There was already a sort of otherworldly sense around this Red Sox season before sweeping rainbows became the norm before their World Series home games. (AP)
Champions find a way.
It’s a staple idea of commemorative magazines and season recap DVDs, because it’s a simple, undeniable concept. Banners are won in big moments, but size can be hard to judge in real time. Christian Vazquez pushing a two-out, two-strike single into right on Wednesday night didn’t much matter until the four guys after him made it the spark of a three-run, game-winning rally.
“That was such a perfect example of just grinding at-bats out,” J.D. Martinez, whose two-run bloop single made him the biggest of the four, said after Game 2. “Finding ways to get guys on and keeping the line moving.”
His Red Sox, 117 in the bag, are still two wins from declaring themselves champions in the only meaningful sense, but the blueprint has long started to form.
They’ve been finding a way since at least the home opener, when — you can be forgiven for forgetting — Tampa led 2-0 in the ninth before three straight men reached and Xander Bogaerts, after the aforementioned Martinez hit into a double play to put the game on the line, ripped a two-strike, two-out double off the Monster to tie a game the Sox won in 12 innings.
“We had three hits heading into the bottom of the ninth,” said David Price, whose team delivered four in that April frame alone and, six months later, helped secure him a second postseason win as a starter on Wednesday. “We’ve done that a couple times this year (already). That’s just what good teams do.”
Rarely quite like this.
As was noted plenty during Fox’s broadcast, 36 of the Red Sox 68 runs in their first 11 postseason games scored with two out. In their six-game winning streak since losing the ALCS opener to Houston, it’s even more striking — 26-of-39, a full two-thirds and miles beyond the 37 percent of regular-season runs leaguewide scored with two away.
If all holds, the Red Sox would become the first Series winners above the 50 percent threshold since the 2010 Giants, who scored 34 of their 59 with two out. No Series winner since has come close.
The Red Sox scored more runs (332) and posted a higher OPS (.766) with two outs than any team in the regular season. Having the top overall offense in baseball doesn’t make that the biggest surprise in the world — the 2017 Astros and 2016 Cubs can claim the same — but these Sox also maintain that success on the edge of failure late into at-bats.
No other team can claim three of the top-15 two-strike OPS hitters this season, with Andrew Benintendi (.679) beneath Mookie Betts (.922) — who hit .300 with two strikes, baseball’s best since 2014 — and Xander Bogaerts (.715), MLB’s ninth-best two-strike hitter since he entered the league in 2014.
Of the Sox 98 hits to date this postseason, 41 — 4-5 more than the regular-season average — came with two strikes. Six of Martinez’s 13 have, including two of his biggest: His solo shot off Justin Verlander in Game 5 against Houston and his double off Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 on Tuesday. Benintendi’s bases-clearing double to break open Game 3 against New York was on a 2-2 pitch.
“I was trying to stay short and just put the ball in play,” he said that night. Hardly a headline grabbing quote, but a simple thought process too often lost in the brightest lights and the loudest crowds.
“We put together a ton of good at-bats. That’s kind of how we’ve beat good pitchers this whole year,” Brock Holt told reporters during the ALCS. “Not necessarily singling them to death, but not trying to go up there every time and hit a three-run homer. Put together a good at-bat, you work a walk, you hit a single, a sac fly, that wears guys down. Then you get the big blow.”
Their two-out scoring could easily be more statistical oddity than a product of specific effort, but it’s clearly a part of that very real messaging. Also among those 68 runs are:
• Four scored on bases-loaded walks, twice as many as the combined total of every other postseason team this year and the second-most by one team in the last 70 years. (The 2007 Red Sox collected seven, including three in a World Series inning against Colorado.)
• Four scored on wild pitches, passed balls or hit batters, including the eventual winning run in Game 2 against Houston. More gifts, yes, but still situations where they gave the opposition little room for error.
These Sox seems to specialize in demoralization, even beyond just what 117 victories would infer. On Tuesday, they answered single Dodger runs in the third, fifth and seventh with one, two and three of their own. On Wednesday, after L.A. took a 2-1 lead, Sox pitchers retired all 16 remaining Dodgers hitters on 58 pitches while the offense completed its 49th comeback win of the year.
“It has to be tough,” Alex Cora quipped on Wednesday night.
So will watching any other Red Sox team the rest of our lives if this one gets these last two wins.
Will Dodger Stadium be the site of the World Series clincher two years in a row? Far, far stranger things have happened at far less worthy sites. (AP)