Was Aaron Judge about to do it again?
Clinging to a two-run lead with two on in the top of the eighth, the Red Sox watched as the New York Yankees superstar stepped to the plate with a chance to change the game with one swing of the bat.
The moment echoed the ninth inning of Friday’s game, but while that night Judge got the last laugh, this time the Red Sox made sure the two-time MVP couldn’t spoil the best series of the season.
Garrett Whitlock came on and forced Judge into an inning-ending double play, helping the Red Sox finish off a 2-0 victory to complete the three-game series sweep. Brayan Bello outdueled Yankees ace Max Fried with seven scoreless innings, and Rafael Devers homered to give the Red Sox a bit of breathing room.
The Red Sox (37-36) have now won five straight and seven of their last eight, moving back over .500 for the first time since May 24.
“We were talking about how bad we were playing going into New York last week and now we’re going to Seattle on a high note,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said afterwards.
The Red Sox scored first for the fifth straight game, jumping in front on a two-out RBI single by Trevor Story to drive in Romy Gonzalez. Moments earlier Gonzalez had reached on a triple down the right field line, but the infielder paid for it when he face-planted while sliding into third.
Gonzalez was briefly checked by the trainer but remained in the game.
The offense had plenty of opportunities to extend the lead against Fried, but the Yankees left-hander did an excellent job of drawing key double plays to stamp out the rallies before they could get out of hand. He drew three within the first four innings, two coming off the bat of Rafael Devers and the third courtesy of Connor Wong to end the fourth.
Devers bounced back his third time up in the bottom of the fifth, however, taking Fried deep to the Green Monster seats for a solo home run. That made it 2-0 Red Sox and was both Devers’ 15th home run of the season and the 500th extra-base hit of his career.
“We know he’s one of the best pitchers in the league and we had a plan against him as far as attacking him in the zone,” Devers said via interpreter Carlos Villoria Benítez. “That at-bat from Trevor in the first inning got us going and we were able to score a couple off him.”
Fried finished with two runs allowed over seven innings with nine strikeouts, but Bello held his own and continued Boston’s recent stretch of strong starting pitching.
The Red Sox right-hander tossed seven scoreless innings, giving him his third straight quality start after going five straight starts with fewer than five innings. Dating back to June 9 the Red Sox have now strung together six straight games with six or more innings pitched by their starters, and eight straight games with at least five innings.
Bello allowed three hits and three walks while striking out eight, and after coming off with 101 pitches in the sixth, Bello returned for the seventh and posted another scoreless inning to finish with a career-high 114 pitches.
“He earned that one,” Cora said. “He was outstanding.”
Bello also struck out Judge three times, giving the slugger nine strikeouts on the weekend and three in each game. According to the Red Sox this is the first three-game span in which Judge has struck out nine times this season, and the first time the Red Sox have struck him out nine or more times in a three-game span.
Following the game Bello said he felt like all of his pitches were working, and that the cutter in particular was a difference-maker. Prior to Sunday Bello typically threw his cutter only 3% of the time, but this time he threw it more than any other pitch, throwing 38 for 33% of his total on the afternoon.
“That was the plan for today,” Bello said via interpreter Benítez. “We saw that the cutter was a good pitch against them and I was able to get a feel for the pitch to locate it and I feel like it was a very good pitch for me today.”
Things got tense in the top of the eighth when Brennan Bernardino came on for Bello and immediately allowed back-to-back singles to lead off the inning. Bernardino was able to strike out DJ LeMahieu for the first out, at which point Alex Cora went to Whitlock to face Judge.
Whitlock only needed two pitches to draw the inning-ending double play, and from there and polished off a perfect ninth for his first save of the season.
How excited was Whitlock to beat Judge and escape the jam?
“I gave a fist pump, so that tells you how much I was excited,” said the normally stoic Whitlock. “It was really cool to see.”
The Red Sox finish this week’s homestand 5-1 and will now hit the road for a nine-game West Coast road trip. First up will be the Seattle Mariners, who the Red Sox will face Monday at 9:40 p.m. ET.
Chapman gets extended rest
In each of Boston’s last two wins, Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman was not used in a save situation in the top of the ninth, with Cora instead going to Greg Weissert and Whitlock. Following Sunday’s win Cora said nothing is wrong with Chapman but they made a decision earlier in the weekend to give him some extra rest.
“We decided after Friday we were going to give him two days off because his usage had been way up there,” Cora said. “So he’ll be back tomorrow.”
Chapman has appeared in 32 games so far this season, which is tied for seventh-most in the American League. The Red Sox have leaned particularly hard on the 37-year-old recently, with Chapman pitching five games in seven days between June 7-13.
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