The Red Sox didn't just beat the Dodgers on Saturday night, they beat Yoshinobu Yamamoto with basically one bat. Rafaela took the Cy Young contender deep in the first inning and again in the third, and those two solo shots ended up being the only hits Yamamoto allowed through 7 innings. Boston hung on for a 3-2 win, and Rafaela's night got the internet's attention fast.
Ceddanne is a sicko at dodger stadium. Guy is a machine
Barstool Baseball framed it as 3 home runs in Rafaela's last 3 at-bats, stitching together his homer from Friday night's 9-4 series-opening win with the two he hit off Yamamoto on Saturday. However you want to slice the sample, the guy has been unconscious against Los Angeles this weekend.
One of Rafaela's solo home runs against the Dodgers, with the scoreboard showing a 2-2 game and an on-screen graphic confirming the blast.
This isn't a one-series hot streak, either. The win over the Dodgers marked Boston's 8th straight series win, reportedly their longest such run since 2013, and it comes on the back of a stretch where they've won 22 of their last 25 games to climb back into the thick of the AL playoff race. A team that looked buried in the AL East basement a couple months ago now has one of the best records in baseball, and the vibes on Twitter are catching up to the standings.
Bad Yankees loss, Rays win their 100th home game of the year, Sox will find a way late vs Dodgers when scumbag Freddie Freeman kicks a ball away TRADE FOR BATS
The Freddie Freeman jab is trash talk, not a scouting report, but the underlying prediction landed anyway: Boston did find a way late against LA, riding Rafaela's power and a shutdown pitching performance to steal a game most people probably had circled for the Dodgers. That's been the story of this Red Sox run all summer, close games, clutch homers, and a roster that keeps finding new ways to win.
Whaddya know. Red Sox win again. Another series win and this team is just crushing everyone. What a wagon #dirtywater
The bigger question now is whether this is sustainable heading into the trade deadline. A team riding this kind of heat has leverage to either buy for a real postseason push or just ride out the wave with what's already working. Either way, Rafaela's turned himself from a glove-first utility guy into a legitimate middle-of-the-order weapon, and Dodger Stadium just got a very loud reminder of it.