G114: Red Sox 10, Blue Jays 7 (10)

Red Sox   - 000 100 040 5 - 10  9  2
Blue Jays - 002 000 111 2 -  7 13  1

The final three innings saw a flurry of home runs (and 13 runs scored!). The Red Sox hit three of the long-balls and grabbed their second straight come-from-behind, extra-inning victory. Boston was four outs away from a 4-1 loss but ended up winning its 80th game of the season by a much different score.

J.D. Martinez's three-run homer in the eighth gave the Red Sox a 5-3 lead. Matt Barnes allowed a run in the eighth and Craig Kimbrel gave up a game-tying homer to Justin Smoak on a 3-0 pitch with one out in the bottom of the ninth.

Mookie Betts tripled off Ken Giles with one out in the tenth. Kevin Pillar sprinted to his right and dove for the line drive in left-center, but the ball only slightly grazed the tip of his glove and rolled to the wall. Andrew Benintendi walked and Mitch Moreland his his 14th home run. After Martinez grounded out, Xander Bogaerts singled and stole second and Jackie Bradley followed with his ninth dong, a fly to right-center that bounced off the top of the wall.

Tyler Thornburg came in to nail down the win, but Yangervis Solarte led off with a single. Bogaerts made a great play on a popup to short center for the first out. Pillar lined a two-run shot to the second deck in left. With two outs, Randal Grichuk singled to left. Devon Travis, who had homered back in the third inning, came to the plate as the potential tying run. He hit Thornburg's first pitch to left and Benintendi made the catch.

Drew Pomeranz (4.2-4-2-5-1, 84) struggled on the mound. He walked one batter in every inning, with a pass to Grichuk coming before Travis's dong. Pomeranz was helped out by two double plays.

On the other hand, Marcus Stroman (7-2-1-3-4, 92) had little trouble with the Red Sox. Travis committed an error on a routine ground ball with one out in the fourth. Moreland walked and Martinez lined a run-scoring single to right.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, the part of Houdini was played by Brandon Workman. Two singles and a walk loaded the bases for the Blue Jays with no outs. Pillar flied to right. Betts came in a bit, but Kendrys Morales had no intentions of tagging. Louis Maile grounded a slow roller along the third base line. Sandy Leon chased it and before the ball went foul, he gloved it and tagged Morales as he tried to sneak past. Grichuk hit a soft tapper in front of the mound. Workman tossed the ball to Leon for the force out.

The Red Sox are 11-3 against the Blue Jays this season.

AL East: The Yankees beat the White Sox 4-3 in thirteen innings. (The MFY nearly won in ten, but Jose Abreu hit a two-out, two-run homer off Zach Britton to keep the game going.)

Drew Pomeranz / Marcus Stroman

Betts, RF
Benintendi, LF
Moreland, 1B
Martinez, DH
Bogaerts, SS
Bradley, CF
Nunez, 3B
Holt, 2B
Leon, C

Update: NESN planned on continuing the three-man booth of Dave O'Brien, Jerry Remy, and Dennis Eckersley, but those plans have been pushed aside by the terrible news that Remy "has been diagnosed once again with cancer" and has taken a leave of absence. ... Steve Lyons will be in the both with O'Brien for the games in Toronto and Baltimore.

Matthew Kory writes that, with 49 games left in the regular season, the Red Sox's only foe is history.

[Y]es, the Red Sox have blown big leads before. The question becomes, could this happen again?

Of course it could. The Yankees could go 51-0 the rest of the way. ...

[I]t's pretty difficult to make a scenario work where the Yankees seriously challenge the Red Sox. The Yankees would have to play better than any team in baseball has played for their remaining 51 games while the Red Sox would have to plummet from their current .699 winning percentage and play like an also-ran. ...

These Sox are within striking distance of the best regular season in franchise history, chasing the 105 wins and the .691 winning percentage of the 1912 team. On pace now for 113 wins, they are even within striking distance of the best regular season any modern baseball team has ever had (chasing the 116 wins of the 2001 Seattle Mariners).

To win 106 games and set a new franchise record, the Red Sox have to win at least 27 of their remaining 49 games. That's a .551 winning percentage; so far, their percentage is .699.

Could the Red Sox win 117 games? They would have to go 38-11 (.776). If you believe that pace is unlikely - and it probably is - please note that over their last 49 games, the Red Sox are 36-13 (.735). That's only two games off the torrid pace necessary to have the best record in modern baseball history.

Also: The Red Sox are 23-5 since July 2 and have lost more than two consecutive games only once all season (April 21-24 (and the third loss came in extra innings)).

Mookie Betts, on Sunday's win: "At no point did we think we were going to lose."

He also said the team had read Brian Cashman's comments - "when we go head to head, we do some damage against them" - and that made the four-game sweep even sweeter.

Mookie has an 184 OPS+ right now. Only six Red Sox players in history have had a season with an OPS+ of 184 or higher.

Tris Speaker - 1912
Babe Ruth - 1918, 1919
Jimmie Foxx - 1939
Ted Williams - 1941, 1942, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1954, 1957
Carl Yastrzemski - 1967
Manny Ramirez - 2002

More numbers, courtesy of Jen McCaffrey:

4 — Walk-off, extra-inning wins for the Red Sox in their past 13 home games. It's happened once in each of their past four series at Fenway. Xander Bogaerts hit a walk-off grand slam in the 10th against Toronto on July 14. Mookie Betts hit a walk-off home run in the 10th on July 27 against Minnesota. Blake Swihart hit a walk-off double in the 13th on July 30 against Philadelphia. Then Andrew Benintendi hit the walk-off single against the Yankees in the 10th on Sunday night. ...

1.74 — ERA of the Sox starting rotation since the All-Star break, which leads the majors. ...

0 — Runs allowed by Nathan Eovaldi in two starts since joining the Red Sox. The last starter to begin a Red Sox career with a scoreless streak that long was Billy Rohr in 1967 (16 innings).