Sometimes in the playoffs little moments can make all the difference, and Nick Sogard’s aggressive baserunning played a huge role in helping the Red Sox pull out their Game 1 win.
When Masataka Yoshida stepped up in the top of the seventh and lined Luke Weaver’s first pitch fastball into center field, Ceddanne Rafaela and Nick Sogard both came around to score, flipping a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.
But if not for some aggressive baserunning by Sogard, the Red Sox may not have had a chance to pull ahead on the play.
In the pressure cooker of a playoff game little moments like that can make all the difference, and Sogard’s teammates took notice.
“That’s why he’s here. He knows how to play baseball the right way,” Rafaela said. “He plays the right way and we saw it today in a playoff game.”
“He’s been awesome, he does so many things really well on the baseball field, defensively, offensively, runs the bases, plays multiple positions, prepares his tail off and it showed tonight,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “(Alex Cora) said at the beginning of Spring Training, he said it is going to take every single person in the room if we want to get to where we want to get to, and Sogey was so big tonight.
