Vazquez walks it off in Red Sox comeback win over Jays

June 22, 2019

The Boston Red Sox rallied from a four run deficit and defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 7-5 in 10 innings on Friday night at Fenway Park.

Christian Vazquez capped the comeback with a two run walkoff homer in the bottom of the 10th inning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OaJzNRfZka4

The Red Sox fell behind early as Chris Sale struggled from the start. Sale gave up two runs in the first inning. Blue Jays went ahead 4-0 with two more runs in the third inning.

The Red Sox cut the deficit to 4-1 on a Brock Holt sacrifice fly in the bottom of the third inning. The Blue Jays took what looked like a comfortable 5-1 lead in the top of the seventh inning.

Boston responded quickly when with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning Mookie Betts ripped a triple and scored on an Andrew Benintendi single. Xander Bogaerts followed with a double to score Benintendi. JD Martinez followed with a single up the middle to score Bogaerts and cut the deficit to 5-4.

The Red Sox had another one out triple in the eighth inning when Jackie Bradley JR set up the tying score. Rafael Devers didn’t start the game because of a bad hamstring. Devers came off the bench and hit a single to score Bradley.

Josh Taylor, Matt Barnes, and Brandon Workman were outstanding out of the bullpen for the Red Sox. The trio combined to not allow a baserunner in 3.1 innings. They combined to strike out six. Workman (6-1) picked up the win with a perfect 10th inning.

It looked like the game would go to the 11th but Marco Hernandez got hit by a pitch on an 0-2 count with two outs. That set up the dramatics from Vazquez. The Red Sox have now won eight of their last nine games. The teams will play game two of the three game series on Saturday afternoon at 4:05 with Brian Johnson on the mound for the Red Sox.

Christian Vazquez (shown here in a game earlier this season) hit a walk off two run homer to lift the Red Sox to a 7-5 win over the Blue Jays on Friday night. Photo courtesy of Delaney Gardner