Walk it off: Red Sox eliminate Rays 6-5 with late sac fly

BOSTON (AP) — Kiké Hernandez delivered Boston's second straight walk-off win, scoring pinch-runner Danny Santana with a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning to send the Red Sox to the AL Championship Series with a 6-5 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night.

After winning Game 3 of their best-of-five AL Division Series on Sunday with Christian Vázquez's two-run homer in the 13th, Boston took Game 4 for its first set of back-to-back walk-off postseason wins since 2004 ALCS Games 4 and 5, both courtesy of David Ortiz against the Yankees.

Rafael Devers had a three-run home run off rookie Shane McClanahan to ignite a five-run third inning that put Boston in front 5-0. Tampa Bay battled back and tied it in the eighth.

The wild-card Red Sox will await the winner of the other ALDS matchup between the Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox. Houston leads 2-1 going into Game 4 in Chicago on Tuesday, a makeup of Monday’s rainout.

“Since day one, you guys believed in this group," manager Alex Cora told his players before setting off a bubbly clubhouse celebration.

He said their belief is what got them to this point.

"We always said we had a good baseball team that had some holes, and we still have some holes, but at the end, for how bad it looked sometimes, we’re still here. We’re still in the dance,” Cora said.

Boston improved to 15-3 in potential clinching postseason games and have won each of their last eight. It brings an abrupt end to the season for the Rays, who’d been eyeing back-to-back trips to the World Series after winning 100 games during the regular season and rolling to the AL East title.

“There’s no doubt there’s disappointment,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. “We had high aspirations to get deep into this thing. We ran into a Red Sox team that they just beat...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Walk-it-off-Red-Sox-eliminate-Rays-6-5-with-late-16525994.php