At 3:05 p.m. ET on Sunday, Main League Baseball’s 30 groups performed their 162nd and closing video games of the 2025 common season.
In Boston, the Crimson Sox and Detroit Tigers duked it out for seeding, each groups having clinched playoff berths within the first two video games of the collection.
The Crimson Sox scored first and sufficient to win 4-3, take the collection, and clinch the No. 5 seed within the AL playoff bracket.
A supervisor couldn’t have requested for far more from a pitcher known as up that day from Triple-A than what José De León gave Alex Cora on Sunday: size, and thereby, relaxation for the common pitching workers because the Crimson Sox put together for his or her first playoff run in 4 years.
“Innings. Hopefully he can go — I talked to him yesterday, I mentioned you bought 100 (pitches)? He’s like ‘I’ve acquired 120,’” Cora mentioned pregame. “So we’ll see. Avoid sure guys, it’s necessary, after which hopefully he can go deep into the sport.”
De León threw 101 pitches over 6.2 innings, each new career-highs, in his Crimson Sox debut. He allowed three earned runs on eight hits, walked three, and struck out eight.
When Cora walked out to the mound within the prime of the seventh, the standing ovation started for De León. It grew louder nonetheless when, because the 33-year-old righty neared the sting of the grass, he gently tipped his cap in appreciation.
“That was loud, it was enjoyable,” Cora mentioned. Having managed him in winter ball and tracked his tumultuous profession, the Crimson Sox supervisor how a lot Sunday meant to the right-hander and had inspired him to bask within the glow.
“When he walked on the market, he instructed me, ‘Take pleasure in this second,’” mentioned De León, “and actually, I used to be attempting to carry the tears, as a result of I’ve been by way of so much. So with the ability to go on the market and carry out in entrance of… I don’t understand how many individuals have been on the market, however packed home on the final sport of the yr, sort of a significant sport, it’s particular. And each time you may get an ovation like that, I imply, you probably did your job.”
De León debuted with the ‘16 Dodgers, however Sunday was his 57th main league sport. The Crimson Sox are his fifth big-league crew. It’s unlikely he’ll even sniff the postseason roster, however the membership is best ready to enter October due to what he did on Sunday.
Boston tallied seven hits, starting with Masataka Yoshida’s solo homer within the backside of the primary, to Detroit’s 9. The Crimson Sox misplaced and reclaimed the lead within the third, and the sport remained unchanged thereafter. Javy Báez’s twelfth house run of the yr, following back-to-back singles by Justyn-Henry Malloy and Kerry Carpenter, sailed into the Monster seats to get the Tigers on the board and on prime 3-1.
The house crew answered within the backside of the inning with a one-out stroll by Connor Wong and two-run game-tying homer by David Hamilton. Nick Sogard and Jarren Duran adopted with back-to-back doubles to get in entrance 4-3.
The Crimson Sox couldn’t let the common season finish with out doing one thing not seen in Boston in over a century. Breaking for second within the backside of the primary, Ceddanne Rafaela grew to become the fourth participant on this yr’s membership to steal at the least 20 bases. The final time a Crimson Sox crew had as many as 4 gamers attain that mark was 1912. The Crimson Sox are additionally the eleventh crew in main league historical past to have three gamers attain the 15-homer and 20-steal marks in the identical season.
On the finish of the sixth inning, Cora gave Story a hug. Nate Eaton headed out to man third, and Sogard moved to shortstop.
If not the American League Comeback Participant of the Yr, Story is actually this crew’s. He entered Sunday as one among three main leaguers with at the least 25 house runs, 30 stolen bases and 90 RBI this season; the one different Crimson Sox to succeed in all three benchmarks in the identical season was Jacoby Ellsbury in 2011. Story started the season with a franchise record-breaking 31-for-31 stolen base report, additionally the second-longest streak in MLB because the Enlargement Period started in 1961.
Within the eighth, as if predicting the Wild Card matchup nonetheless to be decided, the Fenway Devoted started chanting, “Yankees suck!”
Steven Matz recorded the ultimate out of the seventh, and Zack Kelly completed off the common season with a pair of scoreless innings.
Because the solar set and the skies grew darkish over Fenway, the recently-vacated diamond and seats have been lit by the glow of two phrases not seen on the ballpark video boards since 2021:
“Postseason Certain”
A dream come true
Rising up in Puerto Rico, De León grew to become a Crimson Sox fan at a younger age.
“After I began taking part in baseball, they gave me No. 5 and I used to be, you understand, like each child I used to be the shortstop,” De León recalled, “and the supervisor began calling me Nomar. I didn’t know who Nomar was, I acquired very upset. I instructed him that my identify wasn’t Nomar. After I discovered that it was Nomar (Garciaparra), that was my crew.”
Attending to Fenway in time to make the beginning within the first place was a harrowing journey. De León flew from San Juan at midnight, touchdown in Philadelphia round 4:30 a.m. He slept on the gate throughout the two and a half hour layover, then landed in Boston round 8:30 a.m. After about an hour of sleep on the resort, he reported to the ballpark.
De León’s solely different journey to Fenway was with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019. That, too, concerned a irritating journey expertise. Resulting from a delayed flight, he arrived throughout the seventh inning and didn’t pitch. Simply one among many “bumps within the highway” of his profession, De León mentioned. Additionally on that listing are Tommy John surgical procedure, a number of accidents, trades, and minor league contracts; the one he signed with the Crimson Sox again in March is definitely his second with the group, who first inked him in August ’21.
“So with the ability to like, pitch right here with the Crimson Sox whites (uniforms),” De León mentioned, “was one thing that I’ve all the time dreamed of.”
Info and figures
The Crimson Sox end their a hundred and twenty fifth season 89-73. Their 34 collection wins (34-12-7) are their most since 2018. Their 12 walk-off wins tie their 1961 season for the second-most in franchise historical past (they’d 13 in 1940).
After a three-year drought, they’ll return to the postseason for the twenty sixth time.
The Wild Card spherical begins at Yankee Stadium Tuesday at 6:08 p.m. ET.
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