Instinctive Betts play crucial to 5th-straight win

The record will show that the Red Sox won their fifth-straight game Saturday night, 4-1 over the White Sox, on the strength of another sterling start from Drew Pomeranz, and a pair of early two-run bombs by Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr.

And they absolutely deserve most of the credit, especially Pomeranz, who won his fifth-straight decision and tied his single-season career high by posting his 11^th victory over the season.

But a play in the seventh inning by Mookie Betts was also crucial, and at least made things a lot more comfortable for the Red Sox and their bullpen down the stretch.

After a single and a strikeout to start the seventh, Alen Hanson stroked a single to right field to give Chicago runners on first and second with one out while trailing 4-1.

That was the end of the end for Pomeranz, who after giving up a lead-off home run to Tim Anderson — “That kind of woke me up a little bit,” said Pomeranz — was basically flawless (seven more hits, one walk and eight strikeouts) thanks to a biting curveball.

Blaine Boyer entered the game and quickly got Anderson down 0-2. Anderson, however, masterfully fought off the two-strike pitch and sent a sinking liner to right field. In that situation and in most games, Anderson would have had a single and the White Sox the bases loaded.

But not last night. Not with Betts in right field.

Betts, who had crept in before the play, got a tremendous jump on the ball, snared the line drive and doubled off Hanson, who evidently thought there was no way Betts would get to that ball, at first base to end the inning.

“Mookie’s one of the premier right fielders in the game,” said John Farrell. “His awareness on the field, knowing the situation … it’s just a real heady play on his part. That’s more just reacting to the game situation.”

It’d be easy to gloss over that play as just a fielder being positioned in the right place thanks to all the micro stats available in today’s major leagues. But first base coach Ruben Amaro, who is in charge of the outfield defense, said that play was mostly Mookie being Mookie, the 2016 Gold Glove winner.

“With both Mookie and Jackie, I typically allow them to do a lot of reading,” said Amaro. “They do a very good job of reading bats and stuff like that. In that particular case, with two strikes, for that particular hitter, we tend to move in a little bit.

“I don’t tend to do depth as much (as alignment). The beauty of the guys like Jackie and Mookie is they have the ability to go back on the ball extremely well, which gives them the opportunity to pay a little bit shallower than some outfielders. They are so athletic that they can do that. That was typical example of that.”

That’s the amazing part about that play: in that situation — ahead by three in the seventh inning with two runners on base and one out — most right fielders would have been deep to prevent an extra-base hit and the tying run moving into scoring position. That goes double for the cavernous right field at Fenway, where you’re looking at a triple and serious trouble if the ball gets past an outfielder playing shallow.

“Most teams would be back,” admitted Amaro. “If it was a different player, different situation, we may have been playing a little bit deeper. But in that instance, we had a pretty good read on what that guy does. And, again, we were trusting (Betts’) athleticism.”

And it paid off, huge.

“I was just trying to make a play,” said Betts. Came in and saw him just inching off and I was able to kind of a get a decent throw in. I know that guy’s fast, so I tried to get it in as fast as possible.

“I’ve been told I play a pretty shallow right field. And those are the reasons why, just trying to take away those types of hits. I feel that if they’re going to hit it over my head, it’s going to have to be struck pretty well in order to get it over.”

It wasn’t, and now the Red Sox have their longest winning streak since winning their sixth straight on July 4.

“We’ve played well,” Betts said. “We can’t ask for much more than what we’re getting. Good pitching performances, bullpen’s doing great, scoring some runs, timely hitting. That’s how you win. It’s just us. I think this is our identity.”