Category: Sports

The Brock Holt Free Agency Conundrum

At the conclusion of the 2019 season, Red Sox utility man Brock Holt is set to become a free agent for the first time in his career.

The 31-year-old has put together a well-rounded campaign this year, slashing .316/.380/.427 with three home runs and 31 RBI over 77 games and 255 plate appearances while playing all around the field.

Given those numbers, it appears that Holt is set for quite the pay raise this winter after earning $3.575 million this season.

Per FanGraphs’ Dollars statistic, which is, “the amount of money a player’s production would be worth on the free agent market in millions of dollars,” Holt has been worth $11.9 and $11.3 million over the last two seasons respectively. Not too shabby.

Off the field, the Texas native provides even more value, both as a positive influence in the Sox clubhouse and as a Jimmy Fund Captain.

Even more so, what Holt provides off the field was on full display this past week, as he was named Boston’s nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award on Thursday, marking the the third time since 2016 that he was selected for, “the most prestigious individual award” in the league for “represent(ing) the game of Baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field.”

So, not only does Holt provide the Red Sox with quality play on the field. He has also become a staple in the Boston community and a favorite among Sox fans. Both are positive factors working in his favor.

That said, it’s not out of of the realm of possibilities that Holt could have plenty of suitors come free agency in the next few months.

As already mentioned, he gets on base, he plays multiple positions, and he would be a well-respected veteran and potential mentor wherever he lands. Any club, contending or rebuilding alike, has a reason to be interested in Holt’s services.

This past February, former Houston Astros utility man Marwin Gonzalez inked a two-year, $21 million pact with the Minnesota Twins. In his time with Houston, Gonzalez played up to seven different positions and was viewed as a leader in the Astros’ clubhouse.

Granted, Gonzalez had a down year in 2018, but I don’t think it it too difficult to fathom Holt receiving offers of $10+ million per season in the coming months.

If the Red Sox were not willing to pay that much given their other well-documented salary concerns, there is a cheaper alternative in the form of Marco Hernandez, who will be entering just his first year of salary arbitration in 2020.

Since initially being recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket on June 8th, the recently-turned 27-year-old is slashing .284/.318/.402 with two homers and 10 RBI over 48 games spanning two stints with the big league club.

Like Holt, Hernandez can play all across the infield and may even be a better defender.

As MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo questions in this attached article, “Is Holt really worth something like $7-8 million more per year than Hernandez?” That will be a tough question for the Red Sox to answer in November.

 

Arizona Diamondbacks Extend Contract of General Manager and Potential Red Sox Target Mike Hazen

The Arizona Diamondbacks have reportedly reached agreement on a contract extension with general manager Mike Hazen, per the Athletic’s Zach Buchanan. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Hazen, 43, was viewed as a viable to candidate to take over for Dave Dombrowski as the head of baseball operations for the Red Sox.

The Abington, Ma. native spent 11 years in the Sox’ organization, serving under Theo Epstein, Ben Cherington, and Dombrowski in various scouting and executive roles before accepting the job of executive vice president and GM of the DBacks back in October of 2016.

In Hazen’s tenure with Arizona, the Diamondbacks secured the top National League Wild Card spot with a 93-69 record before being swept and eliminated by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS in 2017, missed the postseason altogether with an 82-80 record in 2018, and are currently four full games off the pace for the second NL Wild Card spot with a 75-72 record to this point in 2019.

When speaking with reporters on Friday, Hazen noted that extension talks between him and the DBacks began before the Red Sox and Dombrowski parted ways, so it would not appear as though the club reached out to their former executive beforehand.

With Hazen off the list of potential names to head Boston’s baseball operations department moving forward, it will be worth monitoring who else the Sox may be interested in.

For me personally, getting Theo Epstein back would be incredible, but that seems to be more of a pipe dream at this point.

Eddie Romero, one of the three assistant GMs tasked with leading the Sox’ baseball operations department in Dombrowski’s place, seems to be the leading option internally.

 

 

 

Red Sox’ Xander Bogaerts Becomes Second Shortstop Ever to Hit 30 Home Runs and 50 Doubles in Same Season

With his two-out double in the third inning of the Red Sox’ 7-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday night, Xander Bogaerts made some history,  as he became just the second shortstop ever to mash 30 home runs and collect 50 two-baggers in the same season.

He also joined Sox legend David Ortiz as the only other player in franchise history to hit 30 homers and 50 doubles in the same season, 12 years after Ortiz became the first, per Red Sox Notes.

Alex Rodriguez first accomplished the feat in his age-20 season with the Seattle Mariners way back in 1996 and went on to finish second in American League Most Valuable Player voting that year.

Following Thursday’s win, Bogaerts is now slashing .304/.380/.560 to go along with those 31 long balls, 50 doubles, and 106 RBI, all of which are career-highs for the 26-year-old, through 141 games in 2019.

Bogaerts’ teammate and partner on the left side of the infield, Rafael Devers, notched his 50th two-bagger of the campaign this past Tuesday, meaning the two are the first pair of Red Sox players to hit 50 doubles in the same season. Pretty remarkable.

As things stand at the moment, it appears as though Boston will have four players finish in the top-10 in AL MVP voting, presumably in the order of Bogaerts, Devers, Mookie Betts, and J.D. Martinez.

Brock Holt Starting at Third Base, Juan Centeno Catching Jhoulys Chacin as Red Sox Look to Avoid Sweep Against Clay Buchholz, Blue Jays

The Red Sox have lost five straight games and are one more loss away from getting swept by the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. In order to prevent that from happening, they’ll have to get the best out of old friend and former Sox right-hander Clay Buccholz on Thursday night.

Since being traded from Boston to the Philadelphia Phillies in December of 2016, Buccholz has yet to pitch against the club he began his professional career with, but has made 26 total starts across three different organizations over three seasons, including eight for Toronto in 2019.

The 35-year-old owns a 5.31 ERA and .283 batting average against in 42 1/3 innings pitched over that span, but has looked better since returning from the injured list due to shoulder inflammation on August 25th, allowing a total of eight runs (seven earned) on 13 hits and nine walks over his last three outings and 17 2/3 innings of work.

Against Buccholz, third baseman Rafael Devers will get the night off for the Red Sox, while Brock Holt slides into the two-hole to make his second start of the year at the hot corner. This will also be the first time this season that the 31-year-old will hit as high as second in Boston’s lineup.

Behind the plate, it will be Juan Centeno making his first start in a Red Sox uniform to catch Jhoulys Chacin.

Centeno entered Wednesday’s loss as a defensive replacement for Christian Vazquez in the middle of the sixth inning and popped out to third in his lone plate appearance in the eighth.

Signed as a minor league free agent by Boston last November, the Puerto Rico native was part of the first round of September call-ups at the beginning of the month. He has never caught Chacin before in his career.

Speaking of Chacin, the 31-year-old hurler will be making his second start for the Sox after impressing with two scoreless frames against the New York Yankees last Friday and tossing a scoreless frame of relief in the same series on Sunday.

Here is how the rest of the Red Sox will be lining up behind Chacin.

First pitch Thursday is scheduled for 7:07 PM EDT on NESN.

 

Red Sox Officially Part Ways with Dave Dombrowski Less Than a Year After Winning World Series

In case you somehow missed it, the Red Sox officially parted ways with now former president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski on Monday morning after the news was first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan late Sunday night.

This comes on the same night that the Red Sox fell to the New York Yankees by a final score of 10-5 to fall back to 76-67 on the season and a full eight games behind the Oakland Athletics for the second American League Wild Card Spot, all but snuffing out any hope of making a late push for October baseball.

Dombrowski, 63, had one year remaining on his contract that ran through the end of the 2020 season, and is less than a full year removed from constructing a Red Sox team that won a franchise-record 108 games en route to a historic World Series title this past October.

The ex-Detroit Tigers general manager was hired by the Sox in August of 2015, inheriting a club from Ben Cherington that was on its way to its third last place finish in the American League East since 2012.

In the three full seasons he was at the helm in Boston, Dombrowski won three consecutive division titles, the first time that had ever been accomplished in Red Sox history, and of course capped it off with the World Series win last year.

Per the Sox’ official release that you can visit above, Dombrowski was informed of this decision by principal owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, and president & CEO Sam Kennedy.

“We were extraordinarily fortunate to be able to bring Dave in to lead baseball operations,” said Henry. “With a World Series Championship and three consecutive American League East titles, he has cemented what was already a Hall of Fame career.”

While the club begins the pursuit to find its next head of baseball operations, assistant general managers Eddie Romero, Brian O’Halloran and Zack Scott will take over those duties for the remainder of the 2019 season.

Red Sox Held in Check by J.A. Happ, Fall to Yankees as Xander Bogaerts Picks up 1,000th Career Hit

After taking the opener of a four-game weekend series against the New York Yankees with a commanding 6-1 win on Friday, the Red Sox fell back to Earth on Saturday, as they managed just one run themselves in a 5-1 loss at the hands of the Bronx Bombers to fall back to 76-66 on the season.

Making the first start of his big league career for Boston and 11th appearance overall was Travis Lakins, who was named the opener for this one on Friday in what was another bullpen day for the Sox.

Tossing two no-hit innings like Jhoulys Chacin the day before, the rookie right-hander kept the Yankees off the scoreboard while fanning three of the six hitters he faced on the afternoon.

Finishing with a final pitch count of 29 (17 strikes), Lakins relied on his four-seam fastball more than 48% of the time he was on the mound Saturday, inducing four swings and misses and topping out at 96.1 MPH with the pitch while Christian Vazquez was behind the plate. Four of those heaters were the hardest pitches Lakins has thrown this year, per Red Sox Stats.

Ultimately hit with the no-decision while lowering his ERA on the season down to 4.15, it will be interesting to see if the Red Sox turn to the 25-year-old hurler as an opener again given the level of success achieved in his first go at it.

In relief of Lakins, left-hander Bobby Poyner entered the top of the third in a scoreless contest, and he got another busy day for the Boston bullpen started by sitting down the only three Yankees he faced in order.

The fourth inning is where things got sticky, as Ryan Weber yielded a leadoff double to D.J. LeMahieu before punching out Aaron Judge on four pitches for the first out of the frame.

A line drive to right off the bat of Didi Gregorius should have gone for the second out of the fourth, but with the sun directly in his face, J.D. Martinez, not Mookie Betts, had trouble picking up the ball, and it ended up glancing off his glove before rolling to the wall for a one-out double.

So, with runners at second and third with only one out instead of one runner at first with two outs, Colten Brewer came on for Weber, and he got Gary Sanchez to hit a weak fly ball to shallow right field.

The only thing was, the ball was essentially in no-man’s land, and neither of Mitch Moreland, Brock Holt, nor Martinez were able to come up with it for what would have been the second out.

Nope, instead, Sanchez was credited with a two-run ground-rule double and the Yankees had themselves a 2-0 lead just like that.

Things would not improve for the Sox following that series of mishaps though, not with Edwin Encarnacion unloading on the very first pitch he saw from Brewer, a hanging 81 MPH curveball down the heart of the plate, and depositing it 423 feet over the Green Monster for a two-run blast to double his side’s lead at 4-0.

Brewer was able to escape the fourth without surrendering anything else following that Encarnacion homer, but the damage had already been done.

From there, Trevor Kelley worked his way around two walks in a scoreless fifth, Hector Velazquez stranded the bases loaded with the help of an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play in a shutout sixth, and Josh Smith walked one and struck out another in a clean seventh to make way for Mike Shawaryn in the eighth.

Shawaryn proceeded to punch out the first two Yankees he faced before allowing the next two to reach base, but got out of it by getting LeMahieu to ground into a force out at second to retire the side.

In the ninth, Shawaryn again got the first two outs of the inning in simple fashion, but was unable to keep New York off the scoreboard this time as he plunked Sanchez and served up an RBI double to Encarnacion to increase the deficit to five runs before ending the frame.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against Yankees left-hander J.A. Happ, who entered the weekend fresh off one of his better starts of the season in his last time out against the Oakland Athletics this past Sunday.

Winless against Happ in his first three outings against them this year, that trend continued for Boston on Saturday.

Two hits and one walk. That’s all the Sox bats could manage off of Happ, and none of those three runners made it up to second base either.

It was not until the bottom half of the eighth, with Happ out and right-handed reliever Tommy Kahnle in for the Yankees, when back-to-back one-out singles from Mitch Moreland and the pinch-hitting Marco Hernandez finally put a runner in scoring position.

That led to left-hander Zack Britton taking over for Kahnle, and all Brock Holt could do was watch as strike three blew past him on a 1-2, 95 MPH slider at the knees.

Mookie Betts followed by making hard contact, but only on a ball that was hit right to Aaron Judge in right field to extinguish the threat.

And in the ninth, J.D. Martinez made things a bit interesting against Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman as he took the lefty deep to the Red Sox bullpen off an 0-1, 99 MPH heater on the inner half of the plate for his 35th home run of the season.

That 397-foot solo shot, Martinez’s 16th of the year off a left-handed pitcher, cut the deficit to four runs at 5-1, but that would ultimately go on to be Saturday’s final score.

Some notes from this loss:

The Red Sox went 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position on Saturday. They left four men on base as a team.

Xander Bogaerts collected the 1,000th hit of his major league career on Saturday with a fourth-inning single.

From Red Sox Notes:

From The Eagle-Tribune’s Chris Mason:

—

As of right now, the Red Sox are 6 1/2 games behind the Oakland A’s for the second American League Wild Card Spot. That is sure to change with the A’s, Cleveland Indians, and Tampa Bay Rays all in action on Saturday night.

Next up for the Red Sox, it’s the third installment of this four-game set on Sunday Night Baseball, with right-hander Rick Porcello getting the ball for Boston and fellow righty Masahiro Tanaka doing the same for New York.

Porcello struggled mightily in his first start of September against the Minnesota Twins, surrendering six earned runs on eight hits in an eventual 6-5 loss this past Tuesday.

In his last start against the Yankes, the 30-year-old toughed out a quality outing after allowing two runs in the second inning of a contest the Sox eventually won by a final score of 19-3.

Tanaka opposed Porcello in that game on July 25th, when he yielded 12 earned runs in just 3 1/3 innings of work and ultimately got hit with the losing decision.

The 30-year-old has recovered nicely since then though, posting an ERA of 3.38 and batting average against of .250 over his last seven starts and 42 2/3 innings pitched. The Yankees are 5-2 in those games.

First pitch Sunday is scheduled for 8:05 PM EDT on ESPN.

 

Mitch Moreland Celebrates 34th Birthday with Three-Run Homer, Three-Hit Night as Red Sox Top Yankees in Jhoulys Chacin’s Debut

After falling to the Minnesota Twins in heartbreaking fashion on Thursday, the Red Sox bounced back and opened up a four-game weekend series against the New York Yankees with a commanding 6-1 victory on Friday to improve to 76-65 on the season.

Making his first start for Boston and 20th of the season overall was Jhoulys Chacin, less than a week after inking a minor-league deal with the club while they were in Anaheim this past weekend.

Working just the first two innings in his Red Sox debut, the right-hander was perfect as he fanned four of the only six Yankees he faced and was more of an opener than anything.

Finishing with a final pitch count of 35 (23 strikes), Chacin relied on his slider exactly 40% of the time he was on the mound Friday, inducing four swings and misses with the pitch. He also topped out at 92.6 MPH with his four-seam fastball, a pitch he threw nine times while Christian Vazquez was behind the plate.

Not factoring into the decision of this one, I would think Chacin’s status going forward would depend on the health of David Price, as he was originally supposed to start on Friday.

If anything, the 31-year-oldwill likely work in short bunches rather than being stretched out too much.

In relief of Chacin, left-hander Josh Taylor entered the top of the third in a scoreless contest, and he kept it that way by punching out two in a 1-2-3 inning.

From there, Marcus Walden worked his way around a two-out double and walk with a three-pitch strikeout of Edwin Encarnacion, which eventually earned him his ninth winning decision of the year.

Andrew Cashner yielded New York’s only run of the night on a one-out solo blast off the bat of Brett Gardner in the fifth, Ryan Weber tossed a scoreless sixth before stranding a leadoff walk with the help of Jackie Bradley Jr. in the seventh, and Darwinzon Hernandez also walked one in an otherwise clean eighth.

And in the ninth, Bobby Poyner recorded a pair of strikeouts in another shutout inning to secure the 6-1 win.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against Yankees right-hander Domingo German, who picked up the win the last time he made an appearance at Fenway Park back on July 28th.

Kicking off the scoring in the fourth, a leadoff double from Rafael Devers finally got Boston in the hit column, and a J.D. Martinez groundout, as well as an Andrew Benintendi walk, put runners on the corners with two outs for Brock Holt.

It was clear that German was concerned with Benintendi at first, and perhaps taking advantage, Holt took a 1-1, 91 MPH heater at the top of the zone following two straight unsuccessful pickoff attempts and laced an RBI single right past Gleyber Torres in shallow right to drive in Devers for his side’s first run.

Still with two runners on, Mitch Moreland rallied from a second inning groundout by unloading on a 1-1, 81 MPH curveball from German and deposited it 389 feet into the right field seats.

Moreland’s 15th big fly of the year, this one good for three runs, had an exit velocity of 106 MPH, per Statcast, and it gave the Sox a four-run edge. On his birthday no less.

An inning later, a Mookie Betts walk with one out led to a Yankees pitching change, with Nestor Cortes Jr. taking over for German.

That move would prove to be quite costly for New York though, as Devers followed by drawing a six-pitch walk of his own to move Betts up to second, and Xander Bogaerts came through with a scorching, 108.4 MPH two-RBI double to plate both runners.

That run-scoring two-bagger, Bogaerts’ 49th of 2019, gave the Red Sox a 6-1 lead, which would go on to be Friday’s final score.

Some notes from this win:

From Red Sox Notes:

From The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham:

From The Eagle-Tribune’s Chris Mason:

Red Sox pitching combined for 13 strikeouts and just three walks on Friday.

Mitch Moreland went 3-for-4 with three RBI on his 34th birthday.

Xander Bogaerts is one hit away from 1,000 for his career.

—

With the Tampa Bay Rays winning and both the Cleveland Indians and Oakland Athletics still in action Friday, the Red Sox currently sit 6 1/2 games behind Oakland for the second American League Wild Card spot.

Next up for the Red Sox, it’s the second game of this four-game set on Saturday evening, with right-hander Travis Lakins getting the start as the opener for Boston, and left-hander J.A. Happ doing the same for New York.

Lakins allowed two earned runs over two innings of relief in his last time out against the Los Angeles Angels this past Sunday.

The 25-year-old has never started a big league game, but does have 41 under his belt at the minor-league level, with the last coming on July 18th of this year in which he tossed a scoreless first inning for the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Happ, meanwhile, has for the most part struggled since the All-Star break, but is coming off an outing where he held the Athletics scoreless over six strong innings on September 1st.

In three starts against the Red Sox this season, the 36-year-old has posted a 4.24 ERA and .254 batting average against over 17 total innings pitched. The Yankees are unbeaten in those games.

First pitch Saturday is scheduled for 4:05 PM EDT on NESN. Red Sox going for their second straight win.

Jhoulys Chacin Makes First Start for Red Sox in Series Opener Against Yankees

Newly acquired right-hander Jhoulys Chacin will make his first start for the Red Sox on Friday night, one day after left-hander David Price was scratched due to tightness in his left wrist.

Chacin, 31, inked a minor-league pact with Boston this past Saturday after a successful workout in Anaheim and was selected to the club’s major league roster the day after as part of the first round of September call-ups.

Released by the Milwaukee Brewers on August 26th, the Venezuela native posted a 5.79 ERA and .282 batting average against over 19 starts and 88 2/3 innings of work before that.

In two career starts at Fenway Park, Chacin is 1-1 with a 6.52 ERA and .409 batting average against over just 9 2/3 innings pitched. He has also made two career starts against the Yankees, and has posted a 4.09 ERA, as well as a .302 BAA over 11 total frames.

Friday will be the first in-game action since July 24th, when he surrendered four runs (three earned) on six hits and one walk over three innings pitched against the Cincinnati Reds in his final start for Milwaukee.

There was a point this past Tuesday in the opening game against the Minnesota Twins where Chacin was warming in the Sox’ bullpen, but he was not deployed from there.

First pitch Friday is scheduled for 7:10 PM EDT on NESN. Here is how the rest of the Red Sox will be lining up behind Chacin.

Red Sox’ Second-Ranked Prospect Bobby Dalbec Will Be Working out with Team During Homestand This Week

When major league rosters expanded this past Sunday to kick off the month of September, the Red Sox did not call up their second-ranked prospect in first baseman Bobby Dalbec.

Instead, the 24-year-old finished off the minor league season with the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox, where he slashed .257/.301/.478 with seven home runs and 16 RBI over 30 games after being promoted from Double-A Portland on August 3rd.

The Sox very well could have made the decision to call up Dalbec, but with Mitch Moreland and Sam Travis already on the roster, playing time for the Washington native would most likely be hard to come by.

So, instead of starting his service time clock now, Dalbec will get familiar with the big leagues in a different fashion, according to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe.

The same sort of thing happened in Los Angeles last season, when the Dodgers brought up then-top catching prospect Will Smith in September without actually adding him to their active roster.

Per Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times, Smith, “traveled with the team. He was given a locker. He watched film and attended pregame meetings as the Dodgers charged their way to a sixth straight division title. But when the games started, Smith wasn’t allowed in the dugout. He watched them in the club’s video room — at home and on the road — alongside the team’s video coordinator.”

Through 38 games with the Dodgers in 2019 the 24-year-old Smith is slashing .282/.356/.684 with 13 home runs and 34 RBI and has been worth 1.8 fWAR in that time, second-most among rookie catchers across baseball behind Carson Kelly of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“It made this transition way easier for me,” Smith said back in June. “I was kind of bombarded with everything but I didn’t have to stress about playing. This year, I wasn’t bombarded. I’m used to it.”

Obviously, coming up as a catcher comes with more challenges than coming up as an infielder, but if Smith’s 2018 experience is any indication, the next few weeks could shape how Dalbec comes into big league camp next February. Definitely something worth keeping an eye on.

Back-To-Back Homers from Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez Power Red Sox to 4-3 Win over Angels in David Price’s Return

After snapping their mini three-game winning streak with a 10-4 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday, the Red Sox rallied on Sunday and topped the Halos, taking the series with a tight 4-3 victory to end the last west coast swing on a positive note and improve to 74-63 on the season.

Making his 22nd second start of the season for Boston and first since August 4th was David Price, who was activated from the injured list earlier Sunday after missing nearly four weeks with a left wrist issue.

Tossing just two full innings in his first in-game action of September, the left-hander kept the Angels off the scoreboard while giving up one hit and one walk to go along with two strikeouts on the afternoon.

A two-out double off the bat of Brian Goodwin in the first and a one-out walk drawn by Kole Calhoun in the second. Those are the only two hitters Price allowed to reach base in this one.

Goodwin was stranded at second, as Price got Albert Pujols to fly out to right to end the first, and Calhoun was also stranded at second after swiping the bag in between two straight Angels flyouts induced by Price to retire the side in the bottom half of the second.

Finishing with a final pitch count of 45 (26 strikes), the 34-year-old hurler relied on his four-seam fastball more than 31% of the time he was on the mound Sunday, inducing one swing and miss and topping out at 91.7 MPH with the pitch while Christian Vazquez was behind the plate.

Ultimately hit with the no-decision due to the length of his outing, control was a bit of an issue for Price in this one. Out of the eight batters he faced, four got into three-ball counts and two got into two-ball counts. He’ll look to continue to shake off the rust in his next time out, which should come against the New York Yankees on Saturday back at Fenway Park.

In relief of Price, the Red Sox bullpen was dealt another long day of work, but they were better prepared for that this time around with rosters expanding on Sunday.

The recently called up Travis Lakins got the first call to begin the third, and he yielded one run on three straight two-out hits in the inning, and another on a leadoff walk and sacrifice fly in the fourth to cut his side’s lead down to two runs at 4-2.

From there, Ryan Weber scattered one hit and one walk over two scoreless frames of relief in the fifth and sixth, Hector Velazquez worked his way around a Mike Trout leadoff walk with the help of an unassisted double play turned by Sam Travis on a liner from Goodwin in a clean seventh, and Matt Barnes served up a leadoff solo shot to Justin Upton before sitting down the next three Angels he faced in order to preserve the 4-3 lead.

That made way for Brandon Workman in the ninth, and he plunked Trout with two outs in the inning to bring the winning run to the plate in the form of Goodwin, but held on by getting the Angels outfielder to fly out to Jackie Bradley Jr. in center to notch his 10th save and secure the one-run win.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against a familiar opponent in Angels left-hander Andrew Heaney, someone who held them to one run in less than four innings back on August 10th.

Kicking off the scoring right away in the first for the third consecutive day, Xander Bogaerts got his side on the board with a one-out, one-run single through the left side of the infield to bring in Mookie Betts, who led the inning off with a single and advanced twice on two wild pitches, from third. 1-0.

Fast forward to the third, and Bogaerts struck again, this time following up a one-out Rafael Devers single with a two-run home run hit 418 feet to dead center off a 1-1, 84 MPH changeup on the bottom half of the zone from Heaney for his 31st of the season.

On the very next pitch thrown by Heaney, a red-hot J.D. Martinez provided some power of his own, depositing a 77 MPH curveball on the inner half of the plate 411 feet into the seats in left field.

Martinez’s 34th big fly of the year and sixth of this road trip gave the Sox a commanding 4-0 lead, and after the Angels made things somewhat interesting in the end, 4-3 would go on to be Sunday’s final score.

Some notes from this win:

From The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham:

Xander Bogaerts’ last 15 games: .371/.443/.790 with six homers and 15 RBI.

J.D. Martinez’s last 30 games: .389/.482/.770 with 12 homers and 33 RBI.

—

With the Oakland Athletics and Cleveland Indians losing, and the Tampa Bay Rays winning on Sunday, the Red Sox currently sit five games behind Cleveland for the second American League Wild Card spot.

The Red Sox finished their last west coast road trip of the season by going 6-2 and now have just 25 regular season games remaining on the year.

Next up for the Red Sox, it’s an off day on Monday back in Boston before opening up a seven-game homestand against two of the three best teams in the American League in the Minnesota Twins and New York Yankees.

Right-hander Rick Porcello will get the ball for Boston in the opener against Minnesota. The Twins have yet to name a starter.

Porcello is coming off a solid month of August in which he posted a 4.00 ERA and .233 batting average against over his last five starts and 27 innings pitched.

The last time he matched up against these Twins came on June 17th at Target Field, where the 30-year-old hurled seven scoreless innings in a game the Sox won by a final score of 2-0 and eventually took the series at two games to one.

First pitch Tuesday is scheduled for 7:10 PM EDT on NESN. Red Sox looking to start another winning streak.