SEATTLE -- For Red Sox slugger Kyle Schwarber, redemption didn’t take long to find.
Just over 24 hours after committing a crucial error in Monday’s 5-4 loss, Schwarber atoned for his mistake Tuesday night against the Mariners, hitting a pinch-hit, three-run, go-ahead double in the eighth inning to help Boston to an 8-4 win. For Schwarber, the hit was a long time coming. The veteran had been hitless in his last 16 at-bats dating back to Sept. 7.
On Monday, Schwarber took the blame for Boston’s defeat after he booted a Jake Bauers grounder to extend the seventh inning and Mitch Haniger hit a go-ahead homer two batters later. A day later, with the bases loaded, Schwarber worked a seven-pitch at-bat against Mariners reliever Joe Smith and came up big.
“I’m a big believer that it was the past and you have to be able to turn the page,” Schwarber said. “I can’t be reliving that moment over and over again. I have to be able to look back at it, learn from it and then move on. Today was a whole, brand new day. It was definitely a spot that, me as a baseball player, I definitely want to be in every time.”
With the game tied, 2-2, Xander Bogaerts led off the eighth with a wall-scraping triple and Rafael Devers walked before J.D. Martinez grounded out for the first out of the inning. At that point, manager Alex Cora decided to pinch-hit Travis Shaw for the scorching-hot Bobby Dalbec -- a decision that “wasn’t tough at all,” according to the manager -- and was rewarded when Shaw worked a walk that loaded the bases. Schwarber then hit for Kevin Plawecki and battled with Smith, working a 3-1 count before fouling a 3-2 pitch off and slapping the seventh pitch he saw into the right-field gap.
“He showed up early today, hit outside and hit inside off the machine trying to get back to himself,” Cora said. “He has been scuffling the last few days but he did a good job laying off some pitches. He got to a good hitter’s count and put a good swing on it.”
Bogaerts and Devers scored easily on the play, with Shaw narrowly beating out a throw home to join them and make the score 5-2. One batter later, after Smith was lifted for reliever Yohan Ramirez, Alex Verdugo would tack on some insurance with a two-run homer to right field. Boston would score again in the ninth on a Martinez RBI single and went on to win by four runs.
After losing three one-run games in a five-day span, the Red Sox were happy to come out on top of a close game. The win pushed them into a virtual tie with the Blue Jays and Yankees in the American League wild-card race.
“That was a great win,” Cora said. “One that we needed. Obviously, we know where we’re at and where they’re at and everybody else. It was a good win overall.”
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