His absence left the Red Sox with a hole in the order that they felt. In the two weeks following his injury, Boston scored 58 runs and only hit 11 home runs, 23rd and 26th in baseball, respectively.
Entering Tuesday’s series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox’s grasp on a Wild Card spot was tenuous. They led the Houston Astros and Cleveland Guardians by one game each. In the second inning on Tuesday, Masataka Yoshida led off the game with a double and scored the Red Sox’s first run. Boston went on to win the game, with Yoshida going 2-4.
On Wednesday against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox didn’t need much offense behind Garrett Crochet, but Yoshida once again stepped up to blow the game wide open. He doubled and scored a run in the first inning, and homered in the fifth. It was his first home run since August 8.
With a 2-5 performance on Wednesday, Yoshida is hitting .333 with five doubles and 11 runs batted in since the start of September. He hasn’t shown incredible power, but he’s put the ball in play and driven runners in during a stretch where Boston needs every run they can get. In 61 plate appearances, he’s only struck out four times dating back to September 1.
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“The guy can hit. That’s the reason we signed him a while ago,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He was banged up. That’s the reason he wasn’t hitting the ball in the air. Last year, he had major surgery. It took him a while to get going. He was getting at-bats, and now he’s hitting in the middle of the lineup. This guy has done it before, right? He did it in Japan. He won championships. He carried the offense over there, and right now he’s doing an amazing job for us.”
Garrett Crochet threw eight shutout innings on Wednesday. The Red Sox didn’t need to put up a big total to win the game, but it allowed them to keep the bullpen rested outside of Payton Tolle, who pitched the ninth inning. With the 7-1 victory, the Red Sox’s magic number over the Houston Astros for a Wild Card spot is just two.
If the Red Sox are going to make a run in October, they’ll need contributions from everyone. If Yoshida can continue to put the ball in play and drive in runners, the lineup gets a little bit longer and more difficult for opponents to navigate.
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