Looking to snap a 4-game losing streak, Red Sox clubhouse manager Tommy McLaughlin decided an extreme makeover was in order.
So, it was the Yellow Sox who greeted and defeated the Kansas City Royals 6-2 at Fenway Park on Monday evening.
“In case of emergency, wear yellow,” Alex Cora joked pregame.
Since debuting their City Connect uniforms in April 2021, the Yellow Sox are 21-4 in their banana-and-blue outfits, which pay homage to the Boston Marathon and Patriots Day. The squad entered Monday with a 9-game winning streak in the unorthodox ensemble, dating back to July 28 of last year.
Make that 22-4, thanks to Pablo Reyes.
It was a solid night for Brayan Bello, too, though he had to get himself in and out of several jams.
“Kind of grinding through it early,” his manager said.
For the first time since the All-Star break, he recorded an out in the seventh inning. He walked off the mound with two outs in the seventh, having allowed six hits, two walks, and striking out two. The runner he left behind would score when Josh Winckowski took over, but it was a strong start nonetheless.
Notably, for the first time since his June 29 start, Bello didn’t give up a home run. Keeping the ball in the yard signaled a return to form for the young right-hander, who’d shown impressive restraint in that regard during his rookie season last year; over the first 44 1/3 innings of his MLB career, he didn’t allow a single home run, the longest such streak by a Red Sox rookie since Rick Jones in 1976.
But from start to finish, the night belonged to Reyes. The 29-year-old infielder, who’d only collected one single in his last five games, went 3-for-4 and scored or drove in every one of his team’s runs, capping off the performance by hitting his first major league home run since September 2021: a walk-off grand slam.
Even the news of Trevor Story’s impending return on Tuesday couldn’t fire up the Boston bats. Aside from Reyes, who scored both of his team’s only runs in the first eight innings, the rest of the lineup had only collected two hits and one walk when they reached the bottom of the ninth.
Royals starter Cole Ragans had Boston’s number from the start, inducing nine swings and misses in the first four innings. When he exited after 6 2/3, he’d struck out 11 batters, and only one of the two runs scored during his outing were earned.
“That kid’s really, really good,” Cora lauded. “That’s A-plus. That’s a lot of good pitching the whole season, and the ability to throw 98, 99 mph, the good changeup, cutter, stuff-wise, one of the best that we’ve seen.”
The Red Sox couldn’t get to the Royals bullpen, either. When Cora went to Jarren Duran and Alex Verdugo to pinch-hit as the first and second batters in the bottom of the eighth, they immediately ground out and flew out. Masataka Yoshida, whose first-inning single was one of Boston’s only four hits in the first eight innings, became the third and final batter of the penultimate frame.
For the tenth time this year, Cora went to his closer in a tied game; Kenley Jansen took the mound in the ninth, looking to leave it the same way. In those previous nine outings, opposing batters were 7-for-24 against the veteran hurler, with three extra base hits, two stolen bases, six strikeouts, and zero walks.
This time, no mercy. Jansen got the Royals 1-2-3, capping off the frame with a swinging strikeout and strikeout looking.
With that, Dropkick Murphy’s “Shipping Up To Boston” blasting to the new accompanying light show, and a passionate Fenway Faithful urging them on, the moment was ripe for the picking.
After Justin Turner lead off and flew out, Rafael Devers got an approving roar from the crowd when he ripped a 1-out ground-rule double over the right-field wall. Adam Duvall struck out for the fourth time, and Triston Casas took an intentional walk to join Devers on the bases.
From there, the game went off the rails, but for the first time this homestand, the chaos was in Boston’s favor. After a mound visit to Carlos Hernandez, the Royals righty walked Luis Urías, and his skipper, Matt Quatraro, got himself ejected, arguing that Urías hadn’t checked his swing.
With two outs and the bases loaded, who else, but Reyes? The night was his from the start, and so he’d be the one to finish it, in the grandest fashion. He squared up to bunt on the first pitch, but let it go past for a ball. The second pitch, he sent caroming off left-field’s Fisk Pole for a walk-off grand slam.
It was his first major league home run since September 2021, but postgame, he said he’d closed out a more recent contest the same way in the minor leagues last year.
“It was a great game for Pablo, I’m very proud of him,” his manager said.
“He’s a good kid, and there’s a reason he’s here,” Cora added. “We like his versatility, we like his at-bats against lefties… he’s a good player, he is a really good player, a good kid.”
According to Bello, Reyes was primed for a big night. Standing in the clubhouse after the win, he smiled as he explained that his teammate lived up to his word.
“I’m very happy for him,” Bello said through translator Carlos Villoria Benitez. “He’s been telling me that he was going to hit a home run the whole week.”
Minutes later, Reyes smiled as he explained Bello’s revelation.
“Everybody was like, Devers, like my teammates, everyone was talking like, ‘Pablo, when are you going to hit a homer?’ I say, I’m gonna try this week when I have an opportunity, when they give me the opportunity, I’m gonna go there, and I’m gonna try.”
When the moment came, he said he realized, “Well, I got to try to go for the big swing.”
Cora didn’t shy away from how big that swing truly was.
“Sometimes, games like that kind of like, get you going,” the manager said. “And we needed to get going.”
