10 biggest hits of Red Sox's championship run

October 29th, 2018

A team that wins 119 games -- as the Red Sox just did through the regular season and postseason, on their run to a World Series title -- is bound to have plenty of big hits along the way.
Here are Boston's biggest postseason hits that contributed the most to the Red Sox winning their fourth championship since 2004.
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To rank those plays, we're using a stat called "Championship Win Probability Added." First created by Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times, it takes Win Probability Added -- which quantifies the change in the likelihood of victory from one plate appearance to the next -- and adds in a multiplier based on postseason importance. A game-tying homer in Game 7 of the World Series, for example, is much more important than a game-tying homer in Game 2 of the Division Series. That's factored into Championship Win Probability Added.
These are the 10 most clutch hits, by cWPA, that the Red Sox had during the 2018 postseason.

1. : Go-ahead single
World Series Game 4, Top 9

11.0 percent Championship Win Probability Added
Devers stepped to the plate with the Red Sox and Dodgers deadlocked in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium. Boston had just rallied to tie the game in the eighth, on Steve Pearce's homer off Dodgers closer . In the ninth, Devers put Boston ahead to stay.
Pinch-hitting for catcher with the go-ahead run on second base, the 22-year-old knocked the tiebreaking single into center field off reliever . That huge hit put the Red Sox in position to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the Fall Classic.

2. Pearce: Game-tying home run
World Series Game 4, Top 8

8.9 percent Championship Win Probability Added
What a shot. Pearce came up in the eighth with his team trailing, 4-3, the Dodgers only four outs away from tying the World Series at two games apiece. He was facing one of the best closers in the game in Jansen, pitching in his home park at Chavez Ravine. And Pearce crushed the game-tying home run to left-center field.
That was just the first of Pearce's slate of huge hits in the Fall Classic -- an inning later, after Devers' go-ahead hit, he would break open Game 4 with a bases-clearing double. And in the Red Sox's clinching Game 5, he crushed two more home runs. He won the World Series' Most Valuable Player Award.

3 (tie). : Game-tying home run
World Series Game 3, Top 8

6.2 percent Championship Win Probability Added
The day before Pearce's game-tying, eighth-inning shot against Jansen, Bradley did the same thing. The American League Championship Series MVP Award winner came up with another big hit in the Fall Classic when he launched a game-tying solo shot off Jansen in the eighth inning of Game 3 in Los Angeles.
If the Red Sox had gone on to win Game 3, they would have held a 3-0 lead in the series. They instead fell in an 18-inning affair -- the longest game in MLB postseason history -- but that didn't change the magnitude of Bradley's long ball at the time he hit it.

3 (tie). J.D. Martinez: Go-ahead single
World Series Game 2, Bottom 5

6.2 percent Championship Win Probability Added
One of baseball's best hitters all year, Martinez showed why he's so dangerous in Game 2 of the World Series at Fenway Park. The Red Sox had won the Fall Classic opener the previous day, but they entered the fifth inning of Game 2 trailing, 2-1. With two outs, Pearce's bases-loaded walk pulled them even, and that brought Martinez to the plate with the bases still full.
Facing Dodgers reliever , Martinez lined a two-out, two-run single into right field to put Boston ahead, 4-2. That proved to be the decisive margin -- neither team scored the rest of the game. The Red Sox went to Los Angeles with a two-games-to-none advantage.

5. Bradley: Go-ahead home run
ALCS Game 4, Top 6

6.1 percent Championship Win Probability Added
Bradley had several of the biggest hits of the ALCS, including this one. Facing Astros rookie fireballer Josh James, Bradley turned the Red Sox's 5-4 deficit into a 6-5 lead with one big swing of the bat, launching the go-ahead two-run homer down the right-field line at Minute Maid Park.
The Sox never relinquished that lead, adding a couple of insurance runs and holding on for the win to beat the defending champion Astros on their home turf for a second straight game. The Sox clinched the series in Houston in Game 5, ending the Astros' shot at a World Series repeat.

6. Mitch Moreland: Three-run homer
World Series Game 4, Top 7

5.9 percent Championship Win Probability Added
Rich Hill had stymied the Red Sox for the first six innings of Game 4 of the Fall Classic. He was throwing a one-hit shutout, and Los Angeles held a 4-0 lead. The Dodgers looked like they would even the series at two games apiece. But after a walk and a strikeout to start the seventh, Hill was taken out of the game by manager Dave Roberts. And that's when Boston's rally began.
With two on and two out, Moreland pinch-hit for relief pitcher Matt Barnes. Facing Madson, he crushed a three-run homer 437 feet to deep right field at Dodger Stadium. Suddenly, the Red Sox were within one. Moreland's big swing set the stage for Pearce and Devers' heroics in the eighth and ninth.

7. : Three-run homer
World Series Game 1, Bottom 7

5.5 percent Championship Win Probability Added
Game 1 of the World Series looked like it would be all about the pitching matchup: Chris Sale vs. . But there was no pitchers' duel, and both starters were out of the game long before Nunez pinch-hit with two on and two out in the bottom of the seventh inning at Fenway Park, with the Red Sox holding a 5-4 lead.
Nunez broke open the game with one swing, launching a line drive over the Green Monster for a three-run homer that pushed Boston's lead to four runs. That's the way the score stayed, and the Sox took Game 1 at home to start the Fall Classic off on the right foot.

8. Pearce: Bases-clearing double
World Series Game 4, Top 9

5.2 percent Championship Win Probability Added
Unsurprisingly, the World Series MVP Award winner makes this list more than once -- and both hits were in the same game. While Pearce's game-tying homer off Jansen an inning earlier struck the bigger blow to the Dodgers, his double in the ninth was a critical hit, too.
Pearce's double came with the bases loaded and two outs, with Boston holding a one-run lead thanks to Devers' huge knock earlier in the inning. Pearce's line drive into the right-center-field gap at Dodger Stadium brought home all three runs and gave the Red Sox some much-needed breathing room after their taxing, tightly contested loss in the previous night's 18-inning affair.

9. : Single
World Series Game 3, Top 10

5.0 percent Championship Win Probability Added
You might have forgotten this one -- the Red Sox and Dodgers would go on to play eight more innings of baseball after the Dodgers escaped this jam in the 10th inning, when Holt's single sent to third to put runners on the corners with one out in a tie game. If the Red Sox could have pushed that go-ahead run across, just 90 feet away, they'd have had an excellent chance to win Game 3 on the road and go up 3-0 in the series.
They would have done it, too -- if not for 's game-saving throw to cut down Kinsler at the plate on Nunez's fly ball to center field, which turned a tiebreaking sacrifice fly into an inning-ending double play.

10 (tie). Nunez: Go-ahead single
World Series Game 3, Top 13

4.5 percent Championship Win Probability Added
Three innings after Kinsler was thrown out at home -- and five innings before the actual end of the game -- the Red Sox again had a great chance to take Game 3 at Chavez Ravine. This time, they actually got their go-ahead run, thanks to Nunez's all-out effort to beat out an infield single on a tapper past the pitcher's mound.
Nunez's hustle, capped by a headlong dive into first base, forced a rushed throw from Dodgers reliever , which got away from covering first. Holt scampered home to give the Red Sox a 2-1 lead. That would have held up as the margin of victory, if not for Kinsler's throwing error with two outs in the bottom of the 13th that allowed the Dodgers to tie the game again, before 's walk-off homer in the 18th ultimately won it.

10 (tie). Holt: Double
World Series Game 4, Top 9

4.5 percent Championship Win Probability Added
The Red Sox's huge ninth inning in their Game 4 win was all ignited by Holt, who slapped a one-out double just fair inside the third-base bag and down the line, putting the go-ahead run in scoring position. Devers singled him home a batter later, Pearce hit his backbreaking bases-clearing double after that, and the rest is history.