Duvall plays hero again, delivers go-ahead 3-run HR

BOSTON -- At the point on Saturday at Fenway Park when the Red Sox needed a game-changing hit, they turned to the man who had provided them all week.

And Adam Duvall delivered again, bashing a three-run homer into the front row of the Monster Seats that turned a two-run deficit into a Boston lead.

Behind Duvall’s fourth homer in his last six games, three of which have been three-run blasts, the Red Sox pulled out a tense 8-5 victory over the Dodgers in front of a crowd of 35,986.

“Yeah, [Duvall] is big for us,” said Alex Verdugo, who belted a leadoff homer for the third straight game, a first in Red Sox history. “He's somebody who can hit righties and lefties, and obviously play great defense. And he's a guy who, when there's runners on, he knows how to get them in.”

At this point in the season, every game is crucial for the Red Sox, particularly on days such as Saturday when they were coming off a loss.

“It was loud and it felt like from the sixth inning on, every pitch mattered,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “And they were into it. So, it’s been great. It’s a great venue. Fenway. The afternoon. White unis. Grey unis. Kind of old-school stuff. I’m glad we got the ‘W.'”

With 32 games left, the Sox (69-61) trail the Astros by 3 1/2 games for the third American League Wild Card spot. The Blue Jays, also on the outside looking in at this point, lead Boston by two games.

“We’re considering this like playoff baseball,” said Verdugo. “Every game matters right now, especially down the stretch, and we know we’ve got some games to catch up to put us in a spot to get to [the] playoffs. It's just easy when you think of it that way. Every game is a must win. We’ve just got to handle our business.”

It was Duvall who really took care of business. On the fifth pitch of his at-bat in the bottom of the sixth, he turned on an 0-2 cutter on the inside corner from Dodgers lefty Julio Urías.

“He had been throwing me that pitch in the earlier at-bats and he had some success with it but I felt like I was getting closer,” Duvall said. “I left a guy out there on third [with one out] the at-bat before, which I wasn't very happy about. Being able to come through there [felt] huge in the moment, as important as these games are.”

The Fenway special was hit at an exit velocity of 103.2 mph, a launch angle of 41 degrees and a projected distance of 353 feet. Per Statcast, it would have been a homer at just one other MLB venue -- Minute Maid Park in Houston.

“Adam hitting in the air to the pull side, we’ve been talking about that, and he made some adjustments the last homestand and it’s been working,” Cora said. “I don’t know how hard or high or whatever it was, but it’s a homer here.”

Duvall’s well-timed homer, and the three insurance runs the Red Sox added in the following frames, were necessary because the Dodgers kept threatening to the very end -- never more than when Los Angeles loaded the bases in the eighth and again in the ninth.

The eighth-inning drama was snuffed out by Chris Martin, who came on with two outs and got Garrett Whitlock out of trouble, striking out Max Muncy looking on a nasty 0-2 pitch that was a borderline strike at best.

Muncy was infuriated by the call and was swiftly ejected, as was Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

“I might have gotten a little help there, but that’s OK,” said Martin. “That’s the way it goes. It’s a long season, 162 games. You get some calls and you don’t get some calls.”

With Kenley Jansen (right hamstring) unavailable, John Schreiber got the call in the ninth and it all came down to the bases loaded and two outs with Mookie Betts at the plate with the chance to put the ultimate exclamation point on his return to Fenway.

Set up for a Hollywood ending, Betts clubbed one to deep center that fell into Duvall’s glove on the warning track.

“I thought that I was going to be able to get under it because that's a big part of the park right there,” Duvall said. “I can imagine in the stands, that probably everybody wasn't so sure. But you know, he hit it well. I just had a beat on it.”