Red Sox 9, Yankees 7: Boston makes big comeback after blowing three more leads

Wow! That felt like an old-school Red Sox vs. Yankees game!

For more than three hours, the two teams traded blows before a packed house in an electric atmosphere at Fenway. The excitement reached a fever pitch in the eighth inning when the Sox drove in the final three runs of the seesaw-slugfest.

Rob Refsnyder led off the inning with a single, his third hit of the night, and then Connor Wong followed that up with a gutsy (four to be exact) walk on nine pitches.

This laid the foundation for Wilyer Abreu, who served as a pinch hitter for Tyler O’Neill, thus gaining the pack advantage.

Everything about this moment was gold! The hit itself, the euphoric crowd, O’Neill on the top step of the dugout cheering it on, the ongoing problems with the Yankee bullpen, and Alex Cora having the Midas Touch in the first home game after signing that three-year extension.

Moments later, things got even better when Masataka Yoshida grounded Clay Holmes for the second time this month with a game-winning two-run hit late in Friday night’s game.

The Yankees tried to fight back in the ninth inning and got two men on board, but Kenley Jansen was able to shut things down and make his 440th career save, tying him for fourth place all-time.

This comeback, after a middle-inning kick in the face, illustrated the first undeniable truth about this Red Sox team: They’re a refreshingly resilient group that fights like hell every time and is extremely hard to kill. Whatever “it” is when it comes to sports teams. They seem to have “it”!

The offense’s comeback tonight is even more impressive when you consider that they gave the pitching staff three leads early in the game, yet still found themselves in a position where they had to turn a three-run deficit into a win.

All of which brings us to the second undeniable truth that was emphasized again during tonight’s game: the bullpen is in desperate need of help!

Below are the Red Sox’ best odds in the first four games of the All-Star Break (all of which were losses):

Game 1 vs. Dodgers: 77 percent

Game 2 vs. Dodgers: 89 percent

Game 3 vs. Dodgers (after Duran’s early HR): 70 percent

Game 1 vs. Rockies (after an early comeback from four points down to take a late-game lead): 88 percent

Tonight, the Sox had a 78 percent chance of winning in the fourth inning, but three frames later that chance dropped to 12 percent.

While this mess started with Brayan Bello blowing a couple of early leads, the deficiencies in the bullpen really became apparent once the next five guys took the mound. Cam Booser, Josh Winckowski, Brennan Bernardino, Zack Kelly and Bailey Horn combined to face 17 batters and strike out none!

As an added bonus, Kelly gave this bomb to Aaron Judge, who I’m pretty sure was shot into space!

Obviously some of the issues will be alleviated by guys coming off the IL. Chris Martin, Justin Slaten, and even Liam Hendriks could all throw meaningful innings down the stretch, but the front office needs to do more to restore depth. The rest of this team deserves it!

Five studs

A five-star offense deserves five stars! They go to the five guys in the lineup who all posted a WPA of at least .120 (and added at least a 12 percent winning chance with their bat).

Rob Refsnyder: 3-4 with a .228 WPA

Connor Wong: 2-4 with a huge walk, good for a .140 WPA

Wilyer Abreu: 1-1 with the big pinch hit double that gave him a .354 WPA

Masataka Yoshida: 1-3 with a .128 WPA

Ceddanne Rafaela: 1-4 with a .122 WPA, and this two-run HR in the seventh inning that started the rally:

Speaking of Rafaela, I also loved the play he made from short range to stop a run in the sixth inning.

Three Duds

To stay on theme, we’ll choose the three bullpen players with the worst WPA.

Zack Kelly: Only got two outs, gave up three hits, including the Judge moonball, and finished with a -.468 WPA. To quote the great Dennis Eckersley: “YUCK!”

Camshaft booster: Created a mess for Winckowski and Rafaela’s defense to clean up, -.134 WPA

Brennan Bernardino: Faced three batters, but struck out only one, -.070 WPA

Finally, a few fun facts:

1) There were 28 combined hits in this game. Juan Soto came to the plate five times and had none. Baseball is funny!

2) After Alex Verdugo’s revenge game on June 14th, the Yankees were up 14 games on the Red Sox. If Boston can win the last two games of this series, they will be even in the loss column! Do it!