Game of the Year for the Red Sox

After fans watched Craig Kimbrel throw a wild pitch to allow the Indians to score and take a 10-9 lead in the top of the 9th on Tuesday night, there was a collective frustration among the Fenway Faithful.

“Well that’s the game,” we all thought.

The Sox had come back all night long, but it felt like they were going to lose a heartbreaker after a grind of a game.

We were dead wrong.

With runners on second and third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Indians closer Cody Allen had one last batter to get out in Christian Vasquez.

With Mookie Betts on deck, Allen surely did not want to walk Vasquez. Vasquez, who had been swinging a hot bat, got ahead of the count 3-1.

Allen grooved a fastball right down the middle, and Vasquez made him pay.

Right off the bat, everyone knew the game was over. In the best moment in Vasquez’s young career, the ball went over the wall in left-center field.

Vasquez knew it right away as well. With a little bat flip and a pound of the chest as he ran past first base, the whole place erupted.

Unreal.

On a day where the Sox’s all-star starter Chris Sale gave up 7 runs, where their all-star closer blew a save and allowed the Indians to take the lead, and on a day where the Sox had to come back three different times, they managed to come out with the win.

As Vasquez threw his helmet in the air while rounding third, and then jumped onto home plate in “Big Papi” style, there was a sense that this could be a special moment in the season for the Red Sox.

This game was reminiscent of the Jason Varitek and Arod game where Bill Mueller hit a walk-off homer against Mariano Rivera.

That game seemed like a big moment in the season for the Red Sox in their World Series Quest.

It is unclear if this game will give the Sox any momentum the rest of the season. It’s a long season, and one regular season win doesn’t win it for you in October.

But for one of the first times all year, this team showed that maybe they do have a winning mentality in the clubhouse after all.


We will find out come October.


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