Another extra-inning win provides big shift in momentum for Sox

BALTIMORE – With less than two weeks remaining in the season and 150 games already played, it gets difficult to assign more importance to one game over the next. By this point, frankly, a lot of them start to run together.

But certainly a case could be made that Monday’s 11-inning 10-8 win over the Baltimore Orioles represents the biggest win of the season.

Or, at the very minimum, the most significant.

Consider: by the third inning, the Red Sox knee-deep in a 5-0 hole. Meanwhile, in the Bronx, the Yankees were holding off the Minnesota Twins and threatening to close to within two games of the Red Sox in the A.L. East standings with just 12 games left.

Some perspective: that two-game lead would have been the Red Sox’ smallest lead since Aug. 3.

Instead, the Sox clawed back, went ahead, fell behind again, tied it up, and ultimately, won it in their favorite setting: extra innings, where they are now 14-3.

It took more than a village — it nearly took emptying the bloated dugout dotted with September additions. When it was over, Chris Young and the injured Eduardo Nunez were the only two position players who didn't see duty.

This was, quite simply, a huge momentum swing. Instead of watching the lead shaved down to two, with the Yankees gaining confidence and enjoying a home-heavy schedule, the Sox took another day off the calendar and preserved their three-game cushion.

“It’s definitely a big win,’’ said Andrew Benintendi, who slapped a ground ball single through the right side of the infield to deliver two runs in the top of the 11th. “I mean, the Yankees won, and with 12 games left, this is a big one. Getting down early and coming back, it’s kind of a character win.’’

“It’s huge,’’ agreed Addison Reed, who bailed out of an eighth-inning jam that saw the Orioles put the potential go-ahead run on third with one out. “Any win at this point in the season is huge. We’re not looking at the Yankees and watch what they’re doing. We’re going to try to win every ballgame, no matter if they win or lose. They won tonight and we won tonight, so, nothing gained, nothing lost.’’

There were heroes everywhere for the Red Sox, because they were all needed.

There was Mookie Betts drilling a bases-clearing double in the fifth to key the comeback from the deficit that resulted in Doug Fister’s second-straight stinker. There was Xander Bogaerts, belting his first homer in September, to pull the Sox even again after they had watched a 7-6 lead slip away. There was Jackie Bradley Jr., firing a 95 mph pea from the warning track to second to cut down Pedro Alvarez attempting to stretch a single into a double in the seventh.

And there was the bullpen, which managed, after some rough going early, to string together six straight shutout innings, culminating in the first save in two years for Carson Smith.

“Our group has got such grit, such determination, the competitiveness….there’s no quit in them,’’ enthused John Farrell. “There’s a laundry list (of big contributors), but the common thread is just the competitiveness and their grit.’’

There’s a sense that the Sox are almost comfortable in extra innings, having had so much success there – both at home and on the road.

They’re 11 games over .500, which just so happens to account for half the margin of games the team is over .500 (22).
“It’s probably one of the main reasons we sit here today (in first place),’’ said Farrell.

But before the Red Sox could pull their extra-inning magic, they first had a lot of ground to make up in the early innings.

That belief never wavered, either.

“Absolutely,’’ insisted Bradley, when asked if the Sox thought they could come back. “That’s just confidence and the faith that we have in our team. We showed a lot of grit, just being able to grind, put together some good at-bats in order to put together some good innings and we are able to get back in the game.

“No matter how late it is, how deep in the game we are, we’re going to continue to plug away.’’