With a magic number of three entering play on Wednesday night, the Red Sox seemed like a sure bet to reach the postseason. Yet once the first pitch was thrown by Max Scherzer in Toronto, they didn’t look like a group intent on waiting around to see what happens.
Instead, the Red Sox pounced, aggressively putting together a three-run first inning against the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer. That offensive burst, paired with an ace-level outing from Garrett Crochet, propelled the Red Sox to a 7-1, series-clinching victory in Toronto.
After losing two of three at home to the A’s last week and going 2-4 on the homestand, Alex Cora’s team hit the road and won back-to-back series in Tampa Bay and Toronto, with the chance to go for the sweep over the Blue Jays on Thursday night.
In this one, there was no waiting around. With one out in the first, Trevor Story singled on an 0-2 pitch. Alex Bregman then fell behind 1-2, worked the count full, then singled to put two men on base for Boston’s unlikely hottest hitter, Masataka Yoshida.
Yoshida, who entered the game hitting .407 with an .881 OPS over his last seven games, wasted no time, pouncing on a hanging curveball on the first pitch of his at-bat and ripping a double deep down the right-field line.
Story scored on the extra-base hit, and three pitches later, Romy Gonzalez sent a bloop into left field that brought home Bregman and Yoshida.
Just like that, the Red Sox had a 3-0 lead before their ace had even thrown a pitch.
It proved to be more than enough support for Crochet, who buzzed through the Blue Jays’ bats with ease. Crochet went over 200 innings for the season and recorded his 250th strikeout of the season while allowing just three hits over eight scoreless innings to finish the season at 18-5 with a 2.59 ERA.
Crochet ended his outing by retiring 10 straight Blue Jays, and he recorded his final out by way of the K — his sixth punch-out of the night.
Only one Blue Jays hitter — Ernie Clement in the first inning — even reached second base against Crochet.
Crochet had such command over the Blue Jays that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and hitting coach David Popkins got ejected over a picture-perfect called strike three on the inside edge.
The offense was boosted with a solo homer from Yoshida in the fifth and a three-run shot by Carlos Narvaez in the seventh, and the defense showed up with a spectacular play from Romy Gonzalez:
Payton Tolle came on to record the final three outs, allowing a leadoff homer to Isiah Kiner-Filefa. The damage, though, was merely cosmetic, as the Red Sox had done more than enough by that point to have won the game. Seemingly for good measure, Wilyer Abreu ended the game with a rare 9-3 putout by retiring Alejandro Kirk at first base on what looked to have been a clean single to right field.
With that win, the Red Sox took a massive stride toward reaching the postseason for the first time since 2021. The victory lowered that magic number to two. It’s possible for the Red Sox to reach the postseason without having to win any of their remaining four games.
Yet if Wednesday night’s performance was any indication, the Red Sox don’t look like they’ll be comfortable letting anybody else take care of their business for them.