BOSTON — Rafael Devers made the plays Eduardo Nunez didn't, Craig Kimbrel got the save and the Red Sox evened the series with a 7-4 win over the Astros in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday night at Fenway Park.
A loss for the Sox would have meant huge trouble, because no team has lost the first two games at home in this round of the playoffs and come back to advance. Of course, the Red Sox are living proof that such a comeback is possible, what after 2004 and all. Luckily, they don't have to worry about it, because we're in a best-of-five series now with the Astros and Sox both holding a win apiece.
Here are three takeaways from Game 2, heading into an off-day on Monday before the series restarts again Tuesday at the Astros’ Minute Maid Park:
1. Jackie Bradley Jr. and the bottom of the Red Sox order are beyond essential. Mookie Betts’ production as the leadoff hitter is maximized only when there are runners on in front of him. Betts’ double in the eighth inning on Sunday was helped by Mitch Moreland’s pinch-hit single. Credit goes to manager Alex Cora for not letting Christian Vazquez bat and using Moreland. But the biggest blow was from Bradley in the No. 8 spot. In the third inning, Bradley went the other way with the bags full for a bases-clearing double. The three-run hit off the Green Monster turned a 4-2 deficit into a 5-4 lead, and the Sox never relinquished the lead.
2. Matt Barnes is developing into the postseason force the Sox needed to find in their bullpen. He blossomed during the regular season this year, but whether his walk problems would crop up again in October was an unknown. His ability to use his curveball both high and low in addition to an upper-90s fastball has garnered the swings and misses needed in a playoff setting. He threw 1 1/3 perfect innings, giving Barnes 4 2/3 innings without a hit allowed this October. Mix in Ryan Brasier’s 4 1/3 innings of one-hit ball this postseason, and there’s a bullpen standing its ground at Fenway Park. That’s nine innings of one-hit ball between Brasier and Barnes.
3. He was better, with plenty of room to grow. David Price lasted well beyond the second inning this time. He almost made it through the fifth, in fact, coming close to the point that he would have qualified for a win. Price’s 4 2/3 innings of four-run ball qualifies as an improvement, but not a good outing. He struck out as many as he walked, four, and allowed one home run, a two-run shot to Marwin Gonzalez in the third inning that gave the Astros a 4-2 lead. Price was staked to a 2-0 lead after one inning, but that disappeared in the second, before Houston took its own two-run lead in the third. Cora pulled Price with a pair of runners on and two out in the fifth inning forBarnes, who fanned Gonzalez. Going to Barnes was the right move either way. One thing that was interesting: Price was quite animated talking to Christian Vazquez as Cora approached the mound to pull Price.