The Red Sox are World Series champions.
On Sunday, Oct. 28, they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5–1 in game 5 of the 7-game series to claim the title. For the 4th time in 15 years, Boston has reached the top of the baseball world, romping past all challengers on their path to an 11–3 postseason record to cap off a 108-win regular season. The team’s 119 total wins are second only to the 1998 Yankees’ 125 wins for the most in baseball history.
The Red Sox featured 2 Cy Young-winning pitchers in Chris Sale and David Price, the likely American League MVP in Mookie Betts, an equally-deserving candidate in JD Martinez (acquired in the offseason), a potential Hall of Fame closer in Craig Kimbrel, and a slew of other young stars like Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, and Jackie Bradley Jr., the American League Championship Series (ALCS) MVP. From top-to-bottom, the Red Sox were the best team in baseball, and they showed it when “it” mattered most.
Leading the way was rookie manager Alex Cora, who played for the Sox from 2005–2008 and won the World Series with the team in 2007. Cora also won the World Series in 2017 as the Houston Astros’ bench coach, and was named as the new Red Sox manager on Oct. 22, 2017, while still coaching in the postseason with the Astros. In his opening press conference as manager, he said that the Red Sox were going to “do damage”, a phrase that became the calling card for the team and has now morphed into #DamageDone following the World Series victory.
The championship campaign started on a dull note, then got going in a hurry. After blowing a 4–0 lead in the 8th inning of a season-opening loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, the Sox won 9 straight and 17 of the next 18 games, including series sweeps of the Miami Marlins, the Rays, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Los Angeles Angels. They ascended to first place in the American League East Division by the third game of the season and remained there for all but 10 games the rest of the way.
On Aug. 2, they hosted the New York Yankees (themselves 100-game winners) for a pivotal 4-game series with playoff implications. The surging Yankees looked to narrow the Sox division lead and assert supremacy over their historic rivals in a season where both teams were vying for a championship. Instead, the Sox swept, blowing out New York 15–7 in game 1 and crushing their spirits with a 5–4 extra innings victory in game 4 that the Yankees led 4–1 going into the bottom of the 9th inning.
It’s easy to forget the hopelessness and misfortune that characterized the Red Sox prior to 2004. Winning 4 titles in 15 years will do that. But from 1918 to that fateful ’04 season, the team was defined by the Curse of the Bambino, permanently relegated to the depths of the baseball world as punishment for trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919. Despite names like Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, and Nomar Garciaparra all lending hope to the dream of a title over that 86-year stretch, the names of Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, and Aaron Boone — the Yankees’ own rookie manager in 2018, who hit a walk-off home run in game 7 of the 2003 ALCS to beat the Red Sox — loomed larger.
This postseason was full of Boone-like connections. The Sox matched up with the Boone’s Yankees in the American League Division Series (ALDS) and promptly dispatched them in 4 games (in a best of 5 series), including a historic 16–1 beatdown in game 3 in the Bronx. Boston and New York have frequently traded and acquired each other’s players over their long, embattled history, but never before has a player-turned-manager singularly responsible for so much Bostonian misery led the Yankees against their foes. Unfortunately for Boone, his first playoff appearance as skipper would be a short one.
In the ALCS, the Red Sox took on the Astros — defending champions and Cora’s previous squad, as well as the team that drafted JD Martinez. The Sox beat the Astros in 5 games (best of 7), but every game came down to one or two clutch plays, three of which were off the bat of Jackie Bradley Jr.
In game 2, he hit a 2-out 3-RBI double to give the Sox the lead and potentially save them from losing the first two games of the series at home. In game 3, he blew open the game with a monster grand slam in the 8th inning. In game 5, he hit a 2-run homer to give them a decisive 6–5 lead in a game they won 8–6. Those were his only three hits of the ALCS, but were more than enough to make him MVP. Other notable moments included David Price’s dominant performance on the mound in the game 5 clincher, Rafael Devers’ 3-run blast to make it 4–0 in that same game, and Andrew Benintendi’s heroic diving catch in left field to win game 4.
The World Series brought perhaps the greatest historical connection of all, as Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts is one of a few Boston athletes who never has to buy himself a drink in New England. In 2004, facing a series sweep at the hands of the Yankees in the ALCS, the Red Sox batted in the bottom of the 9th down 1 against Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in baseball history. After Kevin Millar drew a leadoff walk, Roberts — known for his speed — entered the game as a pinch runner.
Following a tense standoff with Rivera, Roberts stole second, barely beating the throw from catcher Jorge Posada. Third baseman Bill Mueller slapped one of Rivera’s infamous cutters back up the middle and Roberts came around to score. In the bottom of the 12th, David Ortiz (who also needn’t bring his wallet to any East Coast bars) hit a walk-off home run and the Red Sox would not lose again, becoming the only team to ever come back down 0–3 in a series and sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series to break the Curse. To this day, Roberts’ name conjures warm memories of beating the Yankees and the incredible 2004 season.
It was not without a touch of remorse, then, that the Red Sox launched a relentless attack on Roberts’ Dodgers in the World Series. In game 1, after some back-and-forth scoring in the early innings, pinch-hitter Eduardo Nunez took an offspeed pitch at his ankles and golfed it over the Green Monster to give the Sox the decisive edge in an 8–4 victory.
In game 2, the Dodgers took a 2–1 lead in the 4th inning, but lost it in the 5th as first baseman Steve Pearce drew a bases-loaded walk and JD Martinez delivered a 2-out, 2-RBI single to right field. Joe Kelly and Nathan Eovaldi came out of the bullpen to shut down the Dodgers lineup and Craig Kimbrel slammed the door shut with a quick, 3-out save to give Boston the 2–0 series lead.
Game 3, played in Los Angeles, was to become one of the most famous in World Series history. Left fielder Joc Pederson got the Dodgers on the board in the bottom of the 3rd with a solo shot off Rick Porcello, and it looked like Dodgers rookie pitcher Walker Buehler was going to completely erase Boston’s prolific offense, allowing no runs, no walks, 3 hits, and recording 7 strikeouts in 7 innings of work. Then, in the 8th, with Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen attempting to record a 6-out save, Jackie Bradley Jr. came through again, launching a no-doubter into right field to tie the game at 1.
Neither team would score again until the 13th inning, when utilityman Brock Holt made it home on a throwing error by Dodgers pitcher Scott Alexander. The Sox looked to have the game in hand until the bottom of the inning, when, with 2 outs, second baseman Ian Kinsler fielded a hard hit ground ball by Yasiel Puig and inexplicably rushed the throw to first, misfiring badly and allowing the tying run to score on the error. At this point, both teams dug in their heels and emptied their benches in pursuit of victory. Finally, in the 18th inning, after 7 hours and 20 minutes of play — a World Series record — Max Muncy hit a walk-off homerun of Eovaldi who took the loss despite pitching 6 frames of extra-inning relief, striking out 5, and allowing just 3 hits.
Game 4 looked to be the one that tipped the series momentum all the way back towards the Dodgers. Boston starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez was solid in nearly 6 innings of work, but the team collapsed in the 6th after catcher Christian Vasquez was wild on a throw to first that would have ended the inning. One run scored on the error, but the real damage came one batter later, when Puig annihilated a 3–1 pitch from Rodriguez to make it 4–0. The Dodgers were 9 outs away from evening the series.
The Red Sox refused to go away. The next inning, after putting 2 runners on base, Mitch Moreland walked to the plate as a pinch hitter and put his whole body into a first-pitch moonshot to bring the team within a run. In the top of the 8th, with Jansen once again trying for a 6-out save, Pearce crushed one over the fence in left field to tie the game. Dodger Stadium went from rollicking to silent in a matter of outs.
In the top of the 9th, Holt doubled, setting up Devers as the pinch hitter. The 22-year-old plated Holt on a single up the middle, giving the Sox their first lead. They weren’t done yet. Devers made it to second on a fielder’s choice, Mookie Betts was intentionally walked, and Benintendi beat out the throw to first on a chopper to third base. That set up Pearce to deliver once again, and the opportunity was not wasted. A bases-clearing double made it 8–4 and Xander Bogaerts tacked on another in his subsequent at-bat. Although Kimbrel struggled in the bottom of the 9th, giving up a 2-run homer, the lead was too large, and the Sox grabbed the 3–1 series lead.
Game 5 was a coronation ceremony. Pearce continued his heroics with a 2-run shot off Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw in the 1st, and although Los Angeles answered with a solo home run by David Freese in the bottom of the inning, it would be their last run of the season. Betts broke out of his postseason slump with a solo blast in the 6th, then Martinez got involved with one of his own in the 7th. Pearce, acquired in a midseason trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, hit yet another home run in the 8th, and 5–1 would be the final score, with Chris Sale striking out the Dodgers’ much-maligned shortstop Manny Machado to win the Series.
Pearce was named MVP. Fans and analysts alike pointed to the narrative-bucking performance of David Price, who won both his starts and appeared in relief in other games, as being worthy of MVP, but it was hard to argue against Pearce, a lifelong Red Sox fan who had played for every team in the AL East except Boston before this season.
The World Series victory cements the 2018 Red Sox as the best baseball team of the 21st century. Between the largest payroll in Major League Baseball (MLB), multiple MVP-caliber players, smothering defense, a crop of homegrown stars, and a bullpen that found its way when it needed to, the team epitomized excellence. Their season wavered just twice. The first, a 6–2 home loss to the Yankees in game 2 of the ALDS; the second, a series-opening loss to the Astros in the ALCS. Both times, Boston responded. Both times, they didn’t allow their opponent to win again.
As the championship “duck boats” made their way down Boylston Street during Wednesday’s parade in Boston, the 2018 MLB season officially came to a close. For Red Sox fans, this year’s title is just as special as the previous 3 (except maybe 2004), but carries its own distinct feeling relative to the others. A popular sentiment expressed across New England has been that 2004 was for the team, 2007 was for the players, and 2013 was for the city.
2018 was for history.
