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The Boston Red Sox Tuesday, September 25, 2018 * The Boston Globe The Red Sox win, again, and they make history in the process Owen Pence Mookie Betts launched his 32nd home run of the season, setting a career high. Nathan Eovaldi was masterful in a brisk environment, fanning 10 Orioles in five innings to match a career high. Oh, and the Red Sox shattered the franchise record for wins, notching their 106th victory by dispensing of Baltimore, 6-2, in front of 35,619 nippy but thankful onlookers at Fenway Park on Monday night. In the process, Boston secured the best record in all of baseball, thus clinching home-field advantage throughout the postseason. The Red Sox have been around for 118 years, their storied legacy buttressed by eight World Series titles, but they’ve never reached heights like these. Led by outfielder Tris Speaker and pitcher Smoky Joe Wood, the Red Sox went 105-47 in 1912 en route to a World Series title. Though Boston’s current winning percentage isn’t as lofty and its postseason fate remains a question mark, the club is cooking at the perfect stage of early autumn. Manager Alex Cora only needed one adjective to describe No. 106. “Unreal,” he said. “You think about the history of the game and the history of this franchise and to be part of this, I can’t even explain it. We should call timeout and enjoy this one.” Betts was the offensive catalyst Monday, going 2 for 5 and mashing a hanging slider over the Monster in the second inning. Betts has homered in three consecutive games and sports a slash line against the Orioles this season of .365/.444/.730. Boston has won 18 of its last 20 against Baltimore, 15 of 17 in 2018. “Home-field advantage, especially with our fans, is pretty important,” said Betts. “We have a great team, man. We’re showing it and we’re enjoying playing the game together for sure.” Injured Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia addressed the team afterward to commemorate setting the wins record. The jubilant scene couldn’t have unfolded without Eovaldi’s mastery. He allowed one run and walked none, lowering his ERA to 2.17 in five outings at Fenway Park since joining the Red Sox in late July. The righthanded flamethrower has been especially effective of late. He’s ceded just three earned runs in his last 18 innings. On Monday, he exhibited full command of an impressive arsenal. Two pitches in particular stood out. “Had a really good feel for my curveball and splitter today,” said Eovaldi. “With those two pitches being able to get [Baltimore] off my fastball and cutter, I feel like it was a success tonight. It’s not too often I have all my pitches working.” Boston hopped out to a sizable advantage in the second inning. Steve Pearce and Brock Holt weaved together a pair of doubles, the former hitting a scalding line drive down the third-base line and the latter poking a high-arching fly off the Green Monster. Christian Vazquez kept the train rolling with a looping single into center, scoring Holt for a 2-0 Red Sox lead. After Jackie Bradley Jr. whiffed for the second out, Betts and Orioles starter Dylan Bundy got reacquainted. In Betts’s fifth career at-bat against the righthander, he doubled Boston’s advantage. Bundy hung a breaking ball on the inner half and Betts pounced, sending the ball on a lofty trajectory into the Monster seats. Betts, who was showered with M-V-P chants, has mashed during the homestretch and went 8 for 11 in Cleveland this weekend. He also notched his 29th stolen base of the season Monday, now one steal shy of joining the 30/30 (HR and SB) club. “I still don’t think I’m really a home run hitter,” he said. “I try to drive the ball in the gap. It goes over sometimes.” Boston added to its tally in the fourth against reliever Donnie Hart. Bradley reached on an infield single. Betts laced a line drive into right. Andrew Benintendi scalded a one- hopper off the glove of second baseman Steve Wilkerson for an RBI single. J.D. Martinez followed with a walk before Xander Bogaerts drove in a run of his own, sending a frozen rope out to left. Hart benefited from a funky 1-2-5 double play on a Rafael Devers dribbler later in the inning and escaped with Baltimore trailing, 6-0. However none of the Orioles pitchers could catch a groove quite like Eovaldi’s. He got designated hitter Tim Beckham looking in the second with a heater on the outside corner that reached 100 miles per hour on the radar gun. Eovaldi is on the fringe of Boston’s playoff rotation and only strengthened his case Monday. Southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez followed Eovaldi, making a rare appearance out of the bullpen — something Cora intimated would happen. Rodriguez, who allowed but a single base runner in two innings of work, is another candidate for the final spot in the rotation. Baltimore managed a run in the fifth inning, Beckham scoring on a wild pitch after back-to-back Baltimore singles with no outs. But Eovaldi quickly rammed the door shut, fanning three in a row and concluding his evening to applause. Baltimore added one more run in the eighth as Ryan Brasier was called upon to bail out the erratic Joe Kelly. Boston held on, improving to an MLB-best 55-21 at home. Eovaldi summed up Boston’s magical season. “I’ve never been a part of this before in my life,” Eovaldi said. “We’re just doing everything right. I definitely feel like we’re the team to beat.” Let’s pause and appreciate what we’ve seen from these magical Red Sox’ Chad Finn How do we know this has been a true marvel of a regular season for the Red Sox? We could cite, oh, at least 106 different ways. Here’s one: As a team, you pull off a feat that hasn’t been achieved since two years before a kid pitcher named Babe Ruth made his debut. Monday night, Nathan Eovaldi pitched five excellent innings, Most Valuable Player-to-be Mookie Betts mashed his 32nd homer and stole his 29th base, and the Red Sox collected their 106th victory of the season, a franchise record. The previous record had been held by the 1912 edition of the Red Sox, who had a pitcher with 34 wins (Smoky Joe Wood), a home-run leader who hit all of 10 (Tris Speaker, who a batted .383), and won the World Series over the New York Giants in eight games (Game 2 ended in a 6-6 tie, while Wood outdueled legendary Christy Mathewson in a 10-inning, 3-2 win in Game 8.) It wasn’t just early in a different century. It was a different world. After all of these seasons and several generations later in the franchise lineage, the 1912 Red Sox have been surpassed in the standings by the ’18 Sox. There have been teams that might have had a fleeting inkling to chase the 1912 squad’s 106 wins (the ’46 Sox won 104) but not many. For all of the superb teams the Red Sox have had through the decades, none had won 100 since ’46 until this one. It seems to me, then, that there is no better time than this immediate aftermath to acknowledge those who turned this Red Sox entry into the winningest in the storied franchise’s 118-year history. There were two fundamental changes to this year’s Red Sox that led to the massive improvement on an excellent if ultimately unfulfilling 93-win season in 2017. Alex Cora took over for the mostly successful but increasingly uninspiring John Farrell in the dugout. And J.D. Martinez arrived via free agency to fill the aching void left in the heart of the lineup by David Ortiz’s retirement following the 2016 season. Cora has been an absolute blessing. He’s open-minded, disarmingly accountable, masterful in his second language, informed and prepared. He doesn’t just get Boston, he thrives under the intense parameters. He’s poised under pressure, but bites back if challenged. He seems to have many of the same attributes as Terry Francona, and Tito is the best and most well-rounded manager the Red Sox have had in my lifetime. Cora was the right hire in every conceivable way. And yet . Martinez’s arrival was more important, because he’s the one who has performed at an extraordinary level on the field, and that’s the more impactful job. He is a genuine Most Valuable Player candidate, if due to Betts an unlikely winner of the award, and for a time he threatened to win the franchise’s first Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in his fabled 1967 season, when he damn near made the impossible a reality. Martinez’s serious dedication to his craft also has had a palpable effect on the other extremely talented hitters in the Sox lineup. This is not a comparison we make casually, but he has been pretty close to what they had for so long in Ortiz, and everything they did not have last year. And yet (again) . as outstanding as Martinez has been, he is not even the most valuable player in the Red Sox lineup. That, as you know, is the claim of Markus Lynn “Mookie” Betts, who at age 25 has surpassed pre-bitterness Nomar Garciaparra and pre-assorted-injuries Fred Lynn as the most exciting young superstar of my lifetime and probably yours since I’m pretty old.

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