Andrew Benintendi on his record-setting, 4-hit night: 'I don't really care, honestly'

It's a fairly significant accomplishment when you do something that only two other Red Sox players have done in the franchise's 12 previous World Series' appearances and 74 games in the Fall Classic.

But leave it to Andrew Benintendi, the most unassuming player in the clubhouse, to throw water on the fact that he joined Wally Moses (Game 4, 1946) and Jacoby Ellsbury (Game 3, 2007) as the only players in franchise history to get four hits in a World Series.

Oh, and Benintendi also became the first player in league history to tally at least four hits and three runs scored in his first career World Series game.

"I don't really care, honestly," said Benintendi, when he was informed of the feat. "I'm just glad we won. It starts with guys around you, Mookie (Betts) getting on base, putting more pressure on the pitcher, and you've got guys like Steve Pearce and J.D. (Martinez) behind me. It makes my job a little more easy."



Benintendi was also the first to admit all four of his hits, which came in his first four at-bats on this stage, weren't exactly barreled. But his first — a hard groundball to right field that scored Betts with the first run – and third hits were hit well for singles. His other two hits — a single in the third and a ground-rule double in the seventh — were almost carbon-copy, helicopter swings to left. The latter one likely should have been caught by Joc Pederson, but it bounced into the stands.

"Benny put a good at-bat, stayed on it, pulled the ball with a man at second and gets the RBI, was able to stay with pitches," said Alex Cora. "He got lucky, too, twice, probably. But he's a good hitter.

"He hangs in there with lefties. I know the numbers don't back that up, but we do feel that he's a good hitter against them. When he's using the whole field, he becomes very dangerous. I know he hasn't driven the ball in a while, he hasn't hit homers in a while, but I like that guy tonight, just to hit the ball all over the place, put pressure on the defense and running the bases and playing good defense."

Benintendi entered the game with a .237 average in the postseason. And with left-hander Clayton Kershaw on the mound for the Dodgers, you wouldn't think that would improve for the lefthanded-hitting Benintendi. But his first three hits came against Kershaw, and his 4-for-5 night leaves him with a .320 postseason average. He also leads the team in hits (13) and runs scored (12).

"Yeah, I mean, obviously we're facing a guy who's one of the best of all time," Benintendi said of Kershaw. "And a lot of guys didn't have a lot of experience off of him; (it was) the first time a lot of us have faced him. Didn't really know what to expect. We had a good game plan. We stuck to it. It started with Mookie. And just trying to tack on runs one at a time. And we tried not to give away at-bats. And it seemed like for most of the year up until now we've had good at-bats the entire game, and don't give any away."