Boston Difference Maker

The Red Sox have rolled to easy victories in this weekend's mid-summer showdown with the Yankees. The last two nights, the biggest Boston bat has belonged to Steve Pearce. A righty power bat off the bench, he often tormented the Yankees -- for whom he briefly played in 2012 -- in his time with the Orioles, Rays and Blue Jays. And he's really been on a tear this weekend. Three home runs in Thursday night's series opener; and last night, his two-run blast off Luis Severino jump-started the Sox toward their 4 - 1 win.
Pearce's talents seem tailor-made to playing at Fenway Park -- since the trade from Toronto, he's hit over .350 in a Boston uniform with an OPS of 1.162. That's impressive. And between the Blue Jays and Red Sox, in 10 games against the Yankees in 2018, he's batting .414 -- after hitting .406 vs New York a year ago and .447 in 2016. So this is a pattern, a consistent pattern of success.
In a lineup with feared hitters such Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinex and Andrew Benintendi, the 35 year old, who has only played 100 games in a season once in his career, has cleared the fences and made the difference as the Sox try and pull away from the Yankees in the American League East.
(My images of Steve Pearce are from the April 21st Yankees-Blue Jays game -- before his mid-season trade to Boston.)

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