The Red Sox have survived.
With a jaw-dropping come-from-behind win over the Nationals, Boston finished off a sweep and secured the top Wild Card spot in the American League. They’ll play host to their arch rivals, the Yankees in Tuesday night’s AL Wild Card game on ESPN.
“We’ll be ready,” said manager Alex Cora. “It should be fun. I think baseball enjoys it. I think our fans will show up on Tuesday and make Fenway feel like home.”
The Sox fell into an early hole on Sunday. Chris Sale was knocked out of the game early, and the Nationals took a 5-1 lead. To make matters worse, their lead in the AL Wild Card race over the Blue Jays was down to one, Toronto was making noise, and J.D. Martinez had to exit the game early due to injury.
And on a crazy last day of the regular season, it was beginning to evoke memories of their 2011 collapse.
But Boston rallied, scoring one in the sixth and three in the seventh, tying the game on Alex Verdugo’s two out double.
“I remember looking up and seeing that the Yankees won in the bottom of the ninth and I was like, ‘All right, we’ve gotta go boys. Let’s go,’” Verdugo said. “Sure enough we ended up having some really, really good at-bats with teammates coming up huge.
Rafael Devers’ two-run homer in the ninth put Boston over the top, and was enough for Nick Pivetta to get the final three outs and secure a 7-5 win.
“Always resilient, man,” said Pivetta. “Never giving in, never giving up. We fought really hard to get to this point, and we’re a bunch of fighters and grinders on this team, so we’re gonna keep going out there and keep this thing going.”
The Red Sox finished the regular season at 92-70, eight games behind the first-place Rays. By virtue of winning the season series over the Yankees, Boston will have home-field advantage in the Wild Card game.
They’ll turn to Nathan Eovaldi, who went 11-9 with a 3.75 ERA and has a career postseason ERA of 1.61. He’ll match up against Gerrit Cole. First pitch will be at 8:08 p.m. eastern time.
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