Xander Bogaerts waved goodbye to his slump Sunday while Michael Wacha hurled a nearly perfect five innings. The Boston Red Sox broke it open in the eighth and clobbered the Minnesota Twins, 8-1.
It was scoreless for the first five and a half innings until the Sox were able to get on the board on a two-run rally that started with Rafael Devers reaching base on an error by Twins first baseman Miguel Sano. Bogaerts followed up Devers with a double to put runners on second and third with nobody out, and sac flies from J.D. Martinez and Alex Verdugo made it 2-0 Sox.
All nine hitters came to the plate for Boston in the eighth, as Kiké Hernandez started the inning and ended the inning. Four straight hits from Hernandez, Devers, Bogaerts and Martinez (double) scored two to begin the bottom half of the frame, and that was followed up by three more consecutive singles from Trevor Story, Bobby Dalbec, and Jackie Bradley Jr. that broke the affair wide open. Kevin Plawecki topped it off with a sac fly to make it 8-1.
On the mound for Boston, Wacha didn’t go the distance inning-wise but was flawless through his five innings of work, yielding just one hit on two free passes and five punchouts, hurling 79 pitches. Matt Strahm worked a scoreless sixth but began the seventh with a one-out single, and Ryan Brasier was summoned on only to allow a sac fly on two hits and a walk for Minnesota’s only run of the game.
Jake Diekman and Austin Davis then both tossed 1-2-3 innings in the eighth and ninth and Boston is now over .500 on the season at 5-4. Bogaerts ended his day 3-for-4 as well.
With that, Boston will take on Minnesota in the series finale tomorrow morning on Marathon Monday at 11:00 p.m. ET.
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