In another disappointing loss in a disappointing Red Sox season, Rafael Devers continues to make history.
Saturday, in the Red Sox' second consecutive 5-4, walk-off loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, Devers added the Sox home run record for third baseman to his resume.
The 22-year-old from the Dominican Republic brought the Sox back from a 3-1 deficit with a two-run homer in the eighth inning with an opposite-field shot to left - his 31st of the season - surpassing Butch Hobson's Red Sox mark of 30 in 1977.
Per the Boston Globe's Peter Abraham, Devers met Hobson, a Sox third baseman from 1975-80 who also managed the team from 1992-94, this past January at the Red Sox Winter Weekend at Foxwoods, but he said he was unaware he had set the record until being told after the game.
“No, this is actually the first time I’m hearing this,” Devers said through his interpreter after the game, “It’s pretty cool, but obviously it’s a record I broke now but there’s more records I want to continue to break. So it’s just about trying to stay healthy and moving forward, try to break as many records as I can.”
Devers (.307, 50 doubles, 112 RBI) is just the second third baseman in Major League Baseball history with a 30-homer, 50-double season (the Astros' Alex Bregman did it last season) and he and Xander Bogaerts are the first teammates to reach the 30-50 mark in the same season.
Bogaerts (.305, 51 doubles) hit his 32nd homer and drove in his 110th run Saturday, putting himself in Devers' in more exclusive company.
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