LOS ANGELES — Fresh off a red-hot 21-4 month of July, the Red Sox opened August right where they left off, securing their eighth consecutive series win.
Despite managing just four hits on the night against Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the bullpen, Boston capitalized when it mattered most, using Ceddanne Rafaela’s two-homer performance and an eighth-inning break to secure a 3-2 victory at Dodger Stadium.
“I feel happy to help the team,” Rafaela said of his performance. “[It’s] good to win the series and then go for the sweep tomorrow. I think right now I do feel good at the plate. I’m making the right decisions on the right pitches, and I think that’s what I need to keep doing to have these results.”
Rafaela provided all of Boston’s early offense against Yamamoto, who otherwise kept the Red Sox completely in check. In the top of the first, Rafaela launched a 389-foot solo shot to left-center field, giving Boston a quick 1-0 lead.
After Los Angeles took a 2-1 lead in the second, Rafaela struck again in the top of the third — crushing a 402-foot solo blast off Yamamoto to tie the game at 2-2.
“I think I was hunting something hard out over the plate because his fastball is really good,” Rafaela said of facing Yamamoto for the first time. “I was ready to hit a fastball, and then always knowing that I’m good at hitting offspeed. I was just ready.”
The performance marked Rafaela’s first multihomer game in over two years — his first since May 31, 2024, against Detroit, and only the second of his career. In fact, until the eighth inning, Rafaela held all of Boston’s hits off Yamamoto.
“Two big swings from him, obviously, to keep the game where it’s at,” interim manager Chad Tracy said of Rafaela. “He’s been otherworldly right now. … He’s been, I think it’s safe to say, probably the most key contributor to some of these wins.”
Complementing Rafaela’s power, rookie left-hander Payton Tolle delivered the composure needed to hold his ground against Yamamoto.
Facing the Dodgers’ lineup, Tolle grinded through six innings, allowing nine hits and two runs while striking out seven. Tolle’s biggest moment came in the bottom of the second after Teoscar Hernández’s two-run homer gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead. With two outs and runners on second and third, Tolle intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani to load the bases before digging in to force an inning-ending groundout from Andy Pages to limit the damage.
“[I was] just trying to slow the moment down,” Tolle said of escaping the second-inning jam. “It could have gotten hairier real quick. So just taking a moment, reset, and then like, ‘OK, attack this guy. What am I doing to attack this guy?’ … It’s a good lineup, and to compete and kind of battle through it, you’ve got to be proud of that.”
Tolle’s battle kept Boston tied until the top of the eighth inning. With the game deadlocked since the third, Andruw Monasterio led off the frame with a ground-rule double to left — Boston’s first non-Rafaela hit of the night.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s early or late in the game, a little double is a clutch moment,” Monasterio said. “I’m glad I got that hanging pitch and executed my swing.”
Jarren Duran followed with a perfectly placed soft bunt single to put runners on the corners. Though Connor Wong grounded into a double play in the next at-bat, Monasterio crossed the plate to score the go-ahead run, giving the Red Sox a late 3-2 lead securing back-to-back wins over the Dodgers and locking up the series victory.
“I mean, that’s obviously a good formula,” Tracy said of stacking series wins. “You want to do that all the time. It’s not going to happen all the time like that, but to stack wins in this way and keep playing this way and keep momentum that we built and keep pushing — we have to do that again. We have to come out with the mindset tomorrow, winning another game.”
