It’s not often a three-game sweep of the Yankees is the second-biggest story of the day for the Red Sox.
The Sox beat their rivals, 2-0, on Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park. About two hours later, they traded Rafael Devers to the Giants for righthander Jordan Hicks, lefthander Kyle Harrison, and two minor leaguers.
Devers hit a home run in the fifth inning of the game. Nobody in the sellout crowd knew it was his last hit after nine seasons with the team.
The 37-36 Red Sox have won four straight, seven of eight, and 10 of their last 15 games. Now they’re back in the mix for a postseason berth.
“This is what we should be doing,” said first baseman Romy Gonzalez, who plowed face-first into third base for a tone-setting triple in the first inning, dusted himself off and scored on a single by Trevor Story.
Brayan Bello, who went nearly a month without seeing the fifth inning earlier this season, pitched seven innings and threw a career-high 114 pitches. His eight strikeouts were a season high.
“It feels great because the team is getting into a rhythm,” Bello said via a translator.
Bello outdueled Yankees ace Max Fried (9-2). The lefthander allowed two runs over seven innings and struck out nine. His only other loss this season was against the Dodgers.
Bello left runners stranded in four of the first five innings then retired the final seven batters he faced, four by strikeout.
By any measure, it was his most impressive performance of the season.
“I felt like all my pitches were working,” he said. “Changeup, four-seamer, two-seamer, and the cutter.”
Bello threw his cutter 38 times, unusual for him. But the Sox had a good game plan against the Yankees hitters, having faced New York six times over a stretch of 10 days.
Bello was at 101 pitches through six innings but Cora stayed with him. Bello rewarded that faith with a perfect inning on 13 pitches.
“His stuff was still good,” the manager said. “We rolled with him and he earned that one. He was outstanding.”
The Sox have asked their starters for more in the last two weeks and they have responded. The rotation is 6-0 with a 2.62 ERA over 51⅔ innings in the last eight games.
Brennan Bernardino inherited a 2-0 lead from Bello in the eighth inning. He allowed singles by Paul Goldschmidt and Trent Grisham before striking out DJ LeMahieu.
Garrett Whitlock replaced Bernardino to face Aaron Judge. With the entire crowd standing, Judge swung and missed at a high fastball then slapped a slider to third base to start an inning-ending double play.
Whitlock finished the game for his first save since 2023. Judge was 1 for 12 in the series and struck out nine times.
As the game went on, Cora couldn’t help but notice the crowd.
“This weekend here, compared to the last few against [the Yankees], it was loud, it was fun. People showed up early, and they were into every pitch,” Cora said.
“They even they stood up with two strikes. I haven’t seen that in a while here. So hopefully we go on the West Coast and play good baseball, and when we come back, we get that winning feeling here around town, and this place gets rocking.”
A short time later, the Red Sox rocked the entire industry by trading their most productive player.
Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him @PeteAbe.
