A Fenway first for Refsnyder as Sox walk off

BOSTON -- Trailing by three runs and down to their final at-bats, the Red Sox mounted one last salvo and came up big, scoring four runs in the ninth with Rob Refsnyder choosing the right time to deliver the first walk-off hit of his career to cap a 9-8 victory over the Rangers on Thursday night at Fenway Park.

“That’s his first one of his career?” inquired Alex Verdugo, who went 3-for-4 with a home run. “Sick. I didn’t know it was his first career [walk-off]. It was awesome. Any time you see any of the guys come up big, come up clutch and walk off in the end, it’s huge.

“It’s a big uplifting sigh of relief for all the guys. Somebody’s got to do it and we’re really happy that he did it.”

“Good at-bats, walks, worked the counts, used the whole field,” said manager Alex Cora of the ninth-inning rally. “We haven’t done that in a while. When we actually got hot, we were using the whole field.”

After the Rangers put up two runs in each of the seventh and eighth innings, things looked bleak for Boston, which trailed, 8-3.

The Sox managed to slip a little closer in the bottom of the eighth -- tacking on two runs behind a Rafael Devers double, which broke an 0-for-24 slump, and a Christian Arroyo RBI single.

“They added on a little bit, it could have been deflating,” Verdugo said. “But I feel like getting up there, getting that run, makes it that much closer. And we know how explosive our offense can be. Any little thing helps.”

“It was fun to watch him locked in,” Cora said of Devers.

Red Sox pitching didn’t show its best face on the day, walking a total of seven batters as starter Rich Hill was only able to get through four innings, plus three batters, after yielding four runs on 93 pitches.

But when Boston needed an arm the most, reliever Jeurys Familia came through by keeping the club within arms reach after making quick work of Texas in the ninth. He needed only nine pitches to retire the side in order.

“Familia was good, really good,” Cora said. “He’s trending in the right direction.”

“I pitched like crap,” Hill said with a slight chuckle. “But the way we fought back, the bullpen came in and did a nice job. And we got in a position in the eighth and obviously in the ninth, they were able to make it a really exciting comeback.”

Tommy Pham and Verdugo worked back-to-back walks to open the ninth against Texas reliever Jonathan Hernández, and Xander Bogaerts singled to load the bases. Seemingly fully out of his slump, Devers struck once more, scoring two runs on a double to left field and pulling the Sox within one.

The Rangers were able to get one out, but an intentional walk to Arroyo allowed Kiké Hernández to come up and plate the tying run with an opposite-field single before Refsnyder sliced a single of his own into left field to put the exclamation point on the comeback and send the Fenway faithful home happy.

“I figured [Jonathan Hernández] had to be aggressive there with the bases loaded,” said Refsnyder, who was unable to recall the last time he had a walk-off hit, though he did recall those when he didn’t come through.

“Obviously, he’s got great stuff, 100 mph sinker, 90 mph changeup, and he was throwing a lot of sliders. I was fortunate enough to get a ball kind of up and out.”