The Boston Red Sox kept finding the big swing with two outs Sunday afternoon, and that was enough to turn a one-run hole into a 5-4 win over the San Francisco Giants.
Boston strung together three straight two-out hits in the fourth inning, a burst that flipped the game and set up a three-game series sweep. Mickey Gasper delivered the biggest blow in that rally with a pinch-hit double that brought in the go-ahead run. Ceddanne Rafaela added two RBI and finished 3-for-4, while Nick Sogard doubled and homered as one of four Red Sox with multiple hits.
Jake Bennett steadied himself after a 23-pitch first inning and got through seven innings for the third time this season. He gave up four runs, three earned, and struck out six. Tyron Guerrero and Aroldis Chapman then handled the final two innings with scoreless work to close it out.
San Francisco had jumped on Bennett right away for the second straight day. The Giants put together three consecutive singles in the first inning to grab a 2-0 lead, with Jonah Cox and Bryce Eldridge both finishing 2-for-4.
Cox also homered, and Eldridge drove in a run as part of the opening frame. The Giants later added another solo blast from Cox in the second.
Boston’s answer started with Sogard, who opened the second with a double. Connor Wong followed with a fly ball that looked like a routine end to the inning when Victor Bericoto appeared to make the catch near the Green Monster, but Boston challenged and the call changed to a wall-grazing RBI double.
That scored Sogard and cut into the lead. Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson was done after that, finishing his second career start at 0-1.
JT Brubaker came on and got the next two runs to cross in the same inning. Gasper lined a go-ahead RBI double down the first-base line, and Rafaela followed with another RBI hit, this one a soft dunk into center.
Boston kept chipping away in the third. Jahmai Jones led off with a triple into the center-field triangle and scored on Rafaela’s single, pulling the Red Sox within 3-2.
The Giants briefly got back in front of Bennett in the seventh. Christian Koss turned an infield single into a Little League home run after back-to-back overthrows by shortstop Andruw Monasterio and right fielder Wilyer Abreu allowed him to race all the way around. That made it 5-4, but San Francisco could not push any further.
Bennett had rolled through five straight scoreless innings after that rough start, needing 10 or fewer pitches in each of those frames. Guerrero worked around Buddy Kennedy’s infield single in the eighth and got Drew Gilbert to ground into a 4-6-3 double play, leaving the Giants empty.
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