Favorite Red Sox moments of 2018

Sox 4-game sweep of the Yankees in August. That was an incredible series.

Game 1 the Sox trailed early, then exploded for 8 runs in the 4th and ultimately won 15-7. Pearce hit three home runs in that game.

Game 2 was Porcello’s complete game 1-hitter.

Eovaldi followed in Game 3 with 8 shutout innings.

Game 4 was especially satisfying. The Sox trailed 4-1 in the bottom of the 9th, scored three off of Chapman to tie it, then one more off of Jonathan Holder in the 10th to win the game. The Red Sox went from 5.5 games up to 9.5 up in the span of four days and all but had the AL East race wrapped up in early August.

The comback against Atlanta had me giggling.
After the Red Sox beat NY in the playoffs, a reporter asked Porcello, if clinching twice in NY had any added significance and Porcello yelling his response "WHAT DO YOU THINK?"
Sale's entrance into the game last night was as cool as anything I have seen in a baseball game.
Brasier telling Sanchez to get in the "F...ing box"

How in the world do you pick just one favorite moment in a season full of them?

I supposed you can go with any and every moment that thoroughly humiliated the Yankees, so you're talking the 4 game sweep which featured the Sox running at will against NY in Game 1 which also had Steve Pearce's 3 HR game and the Sox scoring 8 runs in the 4th inning. There were the Porcello and Eovaldi 4-1 masterpieces that followed and then the dagger comeback when they scored 3 with 2 outs to tie the score and then Benni sent them hold totally demoralized. Even YES network referred to it as The Boston Massacre which is kind of a sacred term for them.

Or was it simply more fun to bash them 16-1 in ALDS Game 3? Or how about Mookie's HR in the division clincher and subsequent Bronx champagne party #1 or how about a moment I couldn't bear to watch - Kimbrel's escape in ALDS Game 4 when Sanchez's long fly falls short and then Nunez makes that strong throw that Pearce stretches out to get and all the Yankees fans expecting the Red Sox to lose have to go home? Meanwhile the Sox players sing "New York, New York", which apparently they brought back after they won the World Series.

And those are just Yankee moments. It ignores the amazing Brandon Phillips moment which was amazing. Or the 11 run outburst against the Marlins or the 6 run bottom of the 8th comeback against Tampa early in the season, or Mookie's 13 pitch grand slam.

In another big Kimbrel misadventure the catch Benni made to in essence save the ALCS. Couldn't stomach watching that one but the catch he made was unreal.

Too many damn awesome moments to choose from, so I'll go with the last for best and that's loathsome Manny Machado helplessly flailing at a nasty Chris Sale slider for the final pitch of the season that crowned the Red Sox World Champions. I'll go with THAT as my favorite moment of 2018 and it followed that walk where Sale looks like a cold blooded executioner coming in to flip the switch on the Dodgers - and they knew it.

That AB came to mind as soon as I saw the thread title.

Do not forget that Bernie Carbo was the only player in baseball history to hit a PH 3 run HR until both Nunez and Moreland did it in games 1 and 4.

How about the Red Sox hitting six grand slams...in April! This after not hitting a single grand slam in all of 2017. That’s when I started to get the feeling that maybe this team was going to be pretty special. I wasn’t thinking World Series at that point, but I was feeling pretty good about being able to go toe-to-toe with the Yankees.

After watching them come together as a group and dance in the OF after so many Red Sox wins watching Mookie, JBJ and Benintendi come together as a group in the OF and then run towards the celebratory pile after the final out in game 5 was my best moment...

How about this duo -

Nunie's defensive gem to end the Yankees series
Devers gem to save game 5 against the Dodgers

I couldn't have been the only one who watched Steve Pearce hit that third HR against the Yankees and thought "this guy is going to come up huge for us when it counts". Pearce had that vibe the whole second half for me.

As a follower of all our prospects I sometimes overreact when one is traded, even when they aren't the brightest star out there. This year has taught me once and for all to stop complaining about trades like that, because Pearce and Eovaldi are two players that I will love for the rest of my life, even if they only spend a half year in Boston. And even though the Kinsler one didn't work out as smoothly, overall the juice was worth the squeeze at the trade deadline.

Yeah its crazy to me (and will be increasingly weirder in a few years), than Brandon Phillips of all people will have one of the most memorable non-postseason Red Sox moments of 2018.