McAdam: Red Sox take a strange path to clinch their first series of the season

It took until the 21st game of their season for the Red Sox to assure themselves of a series win, and even then, it hardly looked like a sure thing until the very last out.

It took, in fact, in no particular order: a grand slam made possible by two walks and a hit batsman; an improbable bullpen savior in the seventh; a rookie, making his major league debut, coming off the bench to smoke a double off a reliever nearly hitting triple-digits on the radar gun; and finally, the final out recorded as part of a pickoff by the catcher.

It was that kind of victory.

Then again, it's been that kind of season -- most of it negative.

The very fact that it took longer than three weeks to notch that first series win tells you everything you need to know about how things have been going.

"If you have told us before the year that it would take this long to win a series, we'd probably laugh,'' conceded Andrew Benintendi.

Or cry.



But when Christian Vazquez fired down to Steve Pearce -- neither player had been in the starting lineup, in yet another example of how unorthodox the night was - to nab Tommy Pham to seal a dramatic 6-5 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, it was finally achieved.

The Sox had scored five runs on a weirdly constructed rally in the second, aided and abetted by Charlie Morton, who momentarily lost the strike zone, and with perhaps some help from home plate umpire Tim Timmons, whose strike zone was hardly the picture of consistency all night.

The game being what it was, Benintendi's grand slam wasn't official until an umpires' crew review determined whether an overzealous fan, seated in the first row of seats in left-center, had interfered with play. He hadn't and the Sox' runs stood up -- all four of them, adding to the first one which had come on a hit batsman.

But after the second inning outburst from Benintendi, the Red Sox offense virtually disappeared. From the third through the eighth, the Sox managed just three more hits. And when Tampa Bay second baseman Mark Lowe leaped to get his glove on a line drive from Xander Bogaerts that seemed ticketed to center, the Rays turned a 4-6-3 double play as  Pearce could only advance from second to third. He was stranded there when Rafael Devers popped to short for the final out of the inning.

It was all trending the wrong way for the Sox, a pattern confirmed in the bottom of the same inning when Matt Barnes allowed a leadoff homer to Yandy Diaz to tie things at 5-5.

No one said it would be easy.

But in the ninth, the Sox showed some resilience. Jackie Bradley Jr. poked the first pitch from fireballing Jose Alvarado into right field and after a failed bunt attempt from Tzu-Wei Lin, the Sox opted to have Michael Chavis make his major league debut, pinch-hitting for Sandy Leon.

Sit for eight innings, then go face one of the game's hardest-throwing relievers.

Good luck, kid.

But Chavis wasn't intimidated.

"There's no lack of confidence,'' Alex Cora told reporters about Chavis. "You see him walking around; he belongs. We saw that in spring training as far as the offensive upside and the way he controls the strike zone.''

And how. Chavis put a hellacious swing on a strike from Alvarado and turned it around at 109 mph, hitting it so hard that it managed to confound center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, who turned around as the ball zipped over his head for a double, sending Bradley to third.

"What a way to start your big league career,'' gushed Cora. "That ball was hammered. That was pretty impressive.''

Next up came Benintendi, who had supplied the last runs some seven innings earlier. This time, he was less spectacular but no less efficient, getting a ball in the air deep enough to right to deliver Bradley with the go-ahead run.

And still, the drama wasn't over. The Rays put two on against Ryan Brasier before Vazquez caught Pham napping with too big of a lead off first for the game's final out.

How many games end with a pickoff at first base?

Then again, how many seasons have begun like this one?

Perhaps, then, that's why such a modest accomplishment - the first series one -- was hardly routine for the Red Sox.

It's been that kind of year.