The Red Sox managed to complete a two game sweep over the Braves in Atlanta after rallying from a late deficit and riding that momentum to their 42nd win of the 2021 season.
On the heels of winning a back and forth affair Tuesday night, Boston jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first on Hunter Renfroe’s two-single to right field, but Atlanta didn’t go away quietly.
The Braves began to chip away in the bottom of the third on a sacrifice fly by Abraham Almonte, beginning the see-saw battle. And though Boston answered with two in the fourth, the Braves managed to pull back within a run in the bottom half.
The Sox regained some of that momentum in the fifth with RBI hits by Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers, but that was also quickly dissipated, as Dansby Swanson hit a three-run shot off Sox starter Garret Richards to pull even. The reigning NL MVP, Freddie Freeman went deep in the bottom of the sixth to put Atlanta in front for the first time.
But Boston was far from through. Loading the bases with two outs in the seventh, they called on the red-hot Christian Arroyo to pinch hit for Yacksel Rios.
Coming into that at-bat, Arroyo had hit three homers in the past week to either tie the game or put Boston over the top. And a big swing on a 1-2 pitch from Braves reliever A.J. Minter prompted a most familiar sight.
Arroyo sent a ball into the left-field seats for yet another go-ahead home-run; this time, a grand slam, which ended being the difference as Boston held on for a 10-8 victory.
“This is why we play the game – we play the game to win and we play the game to have fun,” Arroyo said. “And when you’re doing both of them, everything’s great. I’m not going to ride the highs too hard and I’m not going to ride the lows too low. I’m going to keep having fun. My motto has kind of become, ‘I’m just living, and that’s it. Living in the moment and just playing.”
With the win, Boston finished a stretch of 17 straight days without an off-day, going 10-7 in the process.
“It wasn’t a perfect game, but we’ll take it again,” said manager Alex Cora. “Reset tomorrow. We ended a tough stretch, we grinded through it. We had a positive record, 10-7, so for how ugly it looked, I know a lot of teams will take a 10-7 in a 17-stretch against teams that made the playoffs last year.”
Boston has an off-day today, but they’ll be back in action tomorrow night in Kansas City, with Nick Pivetta taking the ball against the Royals.
Watch Arroyo’s pinch-hit here.
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