Hunter Renfroe, Bobby Dalbec hit back-to-back homers as Red Sox hold on for big win

With the Red Sox’ season hanging in the balance and playing in a National League park, Alex Cora had to get a little bold. The manager put the game in the hands of his struggling offense, prioritizing it over defense with a radical outfield alignment of Kyle Schwarber, Hunter Renfroe and J.D. Martinez from left to right.

The hope was that it would create instant offense and wake the lineup up.

It wasn’t exactly instant, but they eventually — and finally — came alive.

With their backs against the wall after losing two of three to the Orioles, the Red Sox answered the call on Friday night. With two swings in the matter of moments, the nature of their do-or-die weekend in Washington, D.C., suddenly looked promising as Hunter Renfroe and Bobby Dalbec went back-to-back in the sixth, enough for the Red Sox to earn a critical 4-2 victory over the Nationals.

“We came back out with some hunger in us and got the win,” Renfroe said.

What a difference a day made for the Red Sox, whose playoff chances looked a bit bleak after an embarrassing series loss to the O’s. With the win, their 90th of the season, the Red Sox pulled within one game of the Yankees, who lost to the Rays, for the top Wild Card spot, and moved ahead of the Mariners by one game for the second Wild Card spot after their loss to the Angels. The Blue Jays remained one game back of the Sox with their win over the O’s.

“These are big situations that we really need to win,” Renfroe said. “We’re not necessarily putting a ton of pressure on ourselves, but we do know the urgency of we do need to win and we have to come out here and prepare every day. … We can see the finish line. We just have to keep going strong and finish strong and get back into October baseball.”

In what could have been his last start with the Red Sox, Eduardo Rodriguez produced five shutout innings — including an escape of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the fourth — but the Red Sox’ offense once again didn’t look up to the task against another middling lefty in Josh Rogers.

But in the sixth, as they faced Rogers a third time through the order, it was as if the Red Sox finally remembered who they were. After scuffling for five innings, the heart of the order and their best lefty mashers finally put an end to the nonsense.

Singles from Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez set up Renfroe, who saw a 91-mph fastball located on a tee and smashed it to left for a three-run homer. The very next pitch, Dalbec made it back-to-back as he sent a hanging slider into orbit. After six games of major struggles — with Wednesday in Baltimore being a rare exception — the Red Sox could finally breathe.

“It’s been a grind offensively,” Cora said. “There were some good at-bats today. We were getting beaten by the fastball but there were some walks, some mishit balls. … Better than yesterday.”

Matt Barnes and Adam Ottavino each gave up solo homers in the seventh and eighth, respectively, to put a scare into the lead. But Ottavino, with a man on, struck out Ryan Zimmerman to end the eighth, and Hansel Robles tip-toed around a pair of two-out walks to save it in the ninth.

Though Cora didn’t prioritize his defense Friday, it still played a major part in the win.

It looked like the game would turn in the fourth one way or another. Rodriguez had pitched himself into extreme danger, issuing a leadoff walk to Juan Soto and back-to-back singles to Josh Bell and Keibert Ruiz to load the bases with no outs. But the lefty battled back with a strikeout of Jordy Mercer and inducing a pop out to Carter Kieboom.

Rodriguez was one strike away from escaping the inning when Andrew Stevenson hit a soft grounder to the right side. But Kiké Hernandez, playing second after Cora went with his bigs to play the outfield, made one of the Red Sox’ best defensive plays of the season. From the edge of the grass, he chased after the grounder, bare-handed it and rolled it to first as he made a forward dive. Dalbec scooped it to beat Stevenson and complete a game-changing play.

“That’s a Gold Glove play right there,” Rodriguez said. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

The Red Sox were unable to carry that momentum to the plate in the fifth, but needed another big escape from Rodriguez after allowing a two-out single to Alcides Escobar to bring up Soto. The lefty ultimately beat the Nationals superstar in a playoff-like eight-pitch battle, striking him out swinging on an elevated fastball, leaving Soto in the batter’s box slamming his helmet to the ground.

The Sox finally started their offensive engine after that, and carried that to the finish, even if got a little stressful.

“Not too many teams can say they’re still in the hunt,” Cora said. “So you just try to enjoy as much as possible but you’ve got to get locked in for (Saturday).”