Braves beat Red Sox with Yastrzemski’s extra-inning walk-off single

Mike Yastrzemski led off the bottom of the 10th on Friday at Truist Park.

By rule, Ha-Seong Kim started the inning at second base. Yastrzemski’s job was to sacrifice bunt the Braves’ shortstop to third, increasing the percentage Kim could score from third with less than two outs, thus giving the Braves a win.

Yastrzemski fouled a bunt attempt up the first base line. His second attempt spun in the air before landing inside the chalk and then kicking foul.

Now, Yastrzemski, who came into the game in the seventh as a pinch-hitter, had to swing. He fouled the third pitch into the seats.

“It was one of those moments where walking back to the plate after fouling off a second one, it’s like, ‘Hey, it’s time to buckle up and you got to do something now,’” Yastrzemski said.

And do something he did.

Yastrzemski lined the next offering from Red Sox reliever Tyler Samaniego into left-center field. Kim scored easily. The Braves beat the Red Sox 3-2 in 10 innings for their third walk-off win of the season and 31st victory in 45 games.

Yastrzemski, whose grandfather Carl Yastrzemski was a Red Sox legend and Hall of Famer, seemed genuinely pleased with giving his team the win, yet couldn’t shake the duality that his failure led to triumph.

“Yeah, it’s thrilling. I think the other word you can use for it is embarrassing,” he said bluntly. “Like, not getting two bunts down right there, and something that I pride myself in is getting jobs done like that. Really glad it worked out the way it did, but gotta also look at it realistically and get better at some things, too. Very happy the way it turned out. Thrilling to do it here at home. It was great overall, but I’m a realistic person, so there are some things to work on still.”

The win was the first of the extra-innings variety for the Braves this season, about the only way this club hasn’t found a way to victory a quarter through the season. They also improved to 7-1 in series openers at home despite letting go of a 2-0 lead earlier in the night.

But this particular team, so far anyway, seems to find ways to win no matter what the circumstance.

“I think we can credit it to some early times where that happened. We go back to Dom’s (Smith) walk-off grand slam (March 28). We were down late in that game and came back and won and I think slowly over time that built confidence to have belief that we’re never out of the game, whatever way it turns out.

“Whether we have a lead and lose it, whether we go down big early, whatever it may be, I think that this group of guys doesn’t get fazed by that. We’re going to go in and approach every bat in every situation the best that we can and live with whatever comes with it.”

Before Yastrzemski’s heroics Friday, the Braves (31-14) had mostly run out of any momentum.

In a 2-1 game with two outs in the seventh, Braves reliever Tyler Kinley left a slider over the plate that Red Sox second baseman Marcelo Mayer, hitting .226 at the time, belted 378 feet out to right for his second home run of the season.

Robert Suarez got the final out of the seventh, then three groundouts to second in the eighth to keep the game at 2-2.

Raisel Iglesias, despite allowing a single and a walk with two outs in the ninth, ran his scoreless innings streak to 26 1/3 innings. Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, completing four innings of scoreless, one-hit ball by the Sox bullpen, to send the game to extras.

Didier Fuentes (3-0) stranded runners at the corners in the top of the 10th — Mickey Gasper hit an inning-ending 98-mph line drive to Kim at shortstop — to keep the score at 2-all. That gave the Braves a chance to win it in the bottom half.

“‘Yaz’ is a winning player, man,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “Everyone says they want to win, and for the most part guys they all want to win. But ‘Yaz,’ like, he really wants to win. That’s the ultimate price for him.”

Braves starter Spencer Strider worked into the fifth but allowed a double to start the inning before striking out Caleb Durbin. Weiss popped out of the dugout to signal the end of Strider’s evening and turned the game over to the Braves’ bullpen.

Gasper would hit a two-out RBI single to left off Braves reliever Dylan Lee, a run charged to Strider (and the first inherited runner to score this season against Lee).

Strider gave up three hits and walked three while striking out four. He threw 84 pitches and got 15 whiffs during his third start, and first at home, of the season. The Red Sox mustered only two hard-hit balls against Strider.

“I would have liked to get deeper, put the pen in a better position,” Strider said. “Didn’t command the ball very well with two strikes, got deep into counts. Not going to be spectacular every time out, but felt like made pitches when I needed to.”

The right-hander Strider was staked to an early lead Friday.

As they have done 27 times now this season, the Braves scored first thanks to a first-inning homer by Drake Baldwin. Baldwin took the first offering from Red Sox starter Connelly Early, a knee-high fastball, and hit it 407 feet to straightaway center.

Baldwin needed all 407 of those feet for his 12th home run of the season as Red Sox center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela just missed robbing the hit with a leap at the wall.

In the fourth, Michael Harris II took the sixth pitch of his at-bat and hit it out 419 feet to the deepest part of the park in right center. It was Harris’ eighth home run of the season and first since May 1.