HOUSTON --- There were some corners of Red Sox Nation left disappointed at the July trade deadline by the failure to pick up an extra piece for the bullpen.
Steve Pearce and Nathan Eovaldi were brought in to somewhat lukewarm fanfare, a journeyman first baseman and rather nondescript starting pitcher bolstering the club with the best record in baseball. Pearce and Eovaldi were solid major leaguers, certainly, but their impact was perceived to be less immediate or required than [...]
HOUSTON --- There were some corners of Red Sox Nation left disappointed at the July trade deadline by the failure to pick up an extra piece for the bullpen.
Steve Pearce and Nathan Eovaldi were brought in to somewhat lukewarm fanfare, a journeyman first baseman and rather nondescript starting pitcher bolstering the club with the best record in baseball. Pearce and Eovaldi were solid major leaguers, certainly, but their impact was perceived to be less immediate or required than another setup man for closer Craig Kimbrel.
Where would Boston be this October without those two players? Certainly not sitting with the lead after three games in the American League Championship Series, as the Red Sox reclaimed home field advantage deep in the heart of Texas on Tuesday evening.
Pearce crushed the go-ahead home run in the top of the sixth inning, Eovaldi was strong again on the mound and Jackie Bradley Jr. added the killer blow with a grand slam in the eighth as Boston pulled away for an 8-2 victory at Minute Maid Park.
The Red Sox guaranteed at least one more game will be played at Fenway Park this season – Game 6 of this series on Saturday night or Game 1 of the World Series exactly one week from Tuesday. That was the primary goal Boston carried on its charter flight here late Sunday, and now the Red Sox can afford to be somewhat greedy while attempting to strengthen their hold over the defending world champions.
“These guys have been great to me from Day One,” Pearce said. “They make it enjoyable for me to show up at the park every day.”
“It just shows that we can play at any park and with any crowd,” Eovaldi said. “We were able to come in and stay focused.”
Pearce put Boston on top to stay by snapping a 2-2 tie. He ran into fastball from Joe Smith tailing back toward the inner half and annihilated it 456 feet down the line in left. The ball crashed into the train tracks high above the wall and came down inside the Crawford Boxes, stunning the sellout crowd of 43,102 fans on hand into silence.
“I’m just glad it stayed fair,” Pearce said. “It was really close and timely.”
There was much more to come from the Red Sox in the eighth, as Boston punished one of the headlining acquisitions of the deadline. Houston controversially moved for Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna despite his domestic violence arrest and subsequent administrative suspension imposed by Major League Baseball. Osuna retired just two of the seven men he faced, with Bradley notching only the sixth playoff grand slam in Boston history on a majestic drive to the boxes in right field.
“Runs are at a premium,” Bradley said. “We never feel like enough runs are going to be enough. So it was very, very special for us.”
Two pinch hitters had previously extended the inning for the Red Sox. Both Brock Holt and Mitch Moreland were hit by pitches with two strikes, as Holt asked for and was granted a video review after being caught off the left shoe. Moreland took a fastball off the right shoulder to set up Bradley, and he cleared out another fastball that Osuna left up and in.
“Coming through in that situation and getting the run across felt a lot better than the pitch,” Moreland said. “That was a good one.”
Eovaldi picked up his second playoff victory in as many starts, following up the seven strong innings he turned in against the Yankees in the A.L. Division Series with six more. The Texas native scattered six hits and struck out four in front of childhood idol Nolan Ryan, who hails from the same town of Alvin just south of the Houston area.
“The first game, I feel like, is always the biggest win of the series when you’re on the road,” Eovaldi said. “We were able to come in tonight and perform and win the ballgame.”
Ryan Brasier, Matt Barnes, Joe Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez combined on the last nine outs, as the Boston bullpen continues to acquit itself well in October. Brasier got Alex Bregman on a liner to center that stranded a man in the seventh and Kelly wrapped up for Barnes by inducing Carlos Correa’s bouncer to short in the eighth.
“They’re very comfortable here offensively,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “To show up today and play the way we did, I’m very proud of them.”
The Red Sox couldn’t have asked for a better start. Mookie Betts singled to center, Andrew Benintendi singled to left and J.D. Martinez grounded an RBI double inside the bag at first base, making it 1-0. The Astros elected to keep the infield back and Xander Bogaerts added to the lead with a routine RBI grounder to shortstop.
The Astros steadily chipped away at the deficit, applying pressure to Eovaldi in the first, third and fifth. Marwin Gonzalez sawed off an RBI single to right center in the first, making it 2-1, and Eovaldi only escaped the third when Gonzalez lined sharply to left with two men on. Jose Altuve’s two-out walk and Bregman’s chopper to the left side tied the game, with Rafael Devers failing to make a backhanded play on what was generously scored an RBI double.
bkoch@providencejournal.com
On Twitter: @BillKoch25