August 7, 2023: Red Sox beat Royals on Pablo Reyes’ walk-off grand slam in ninth

The 2023 Boston Red Sox were losing hope as August got underway. From July 29 through August 6, they had lost seven of eight games. The seventh loss was a blowout at Fenway Park, 13-1, as the Toronto Blue Jays completed a sweep. The Red Sox were in last place in the American League East Division, 12½ games behind the first-place Baltimore Orioles, despite having a winning record of 57-54.

Arriving in Boston were the Kansas City Royals. Last-place dwellers, too, they were a full 23 games behind the AL Central Division-leading Minnesota Twins with an abysmal record of 36-77. 

On Monday night, August 7, the Red Sox still drew a large crowd – 32,732. They got to see a tight game, 2-2 after eight innings.

Starting for the Red Sox was Brayan Bello. As a rookie in 2022, he had pitched in 13 games and won just twice while losing eight (with a 4.71 ERA). In 2023 he’d been a regular in the rotation; he was 8-6 (3.79). The 24-year-old Dominican-born right-hander got an out on the very first pitch of the game, then doled out a walk to shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. on the next four pitches. Witt took third on MJ Melendez’s two-out single but was stranded.

For the Royals and first-year manager Matt Quatraro, the starter was 25-year-old left-hander Cole Ragans. It was Ragans’ first full year in the majors, too. He’d come to Kansas City in a June 30 trade with the Texas Rangers for Aroldis Chapman. He had been 0-3 in 2022 (4.95). He was pitching mostly in relief in 2023, and this was just his third start. He was 3-3 (4.33). Ragans earned a win in his previous outing against the New York Mets, working six scoreless innings.  The only baserunner he allowed in the first two innings of this game was a first-inning single by left fielder Masataka Yoshida, at the time fourth in the AL with a .306 batting average.1

In the third, the Red Sox scored once. Shortstop Pablo Reyes grounded a single past the shortstop and into left field. He stole second and went to third on an errant throw from catcher Freddy Fermin that sailed into right-center. Yoshida hit a one-out sacrifice fly almost to the warning track in left; Reyes scored easily.

Though the first two Royals reached base in the fourth, a strikeout and 4-6-3 double play stopped that threat. It was still 1-0, Boston, after four.

In the top of the fifth, right fielder Drew Waters led off with a double that skipped right by a diving Triston Casas at first base. Waters then stole third. After a walk, the Royals had two on and nobody out. But Bello induced a foul popup to the catcher and a ground-ball double play – notably kicked off by Reyes.

The Red Sox added another run in their half of the fifth. Reyes smacked an opposite-field double to right-center that went over Waters and one-hopped the bullpen fence. He then scored when catcher Connor Wong doubled down the right-field line.  

The 2-0 lead held until the seventh when the Royals tied it. Bello got the first two batters out, but after he gave up a double to center fielder Kyle Isbel, Boston manager Alex Cora made a move. Bello was at 99 pitches. Cora called on Josh Winckowski, a right-hander in his first full major-league season.2 Royals third baseman Maikel García slapped a single to right field, scoring Isbel. Witt doubled to the triangle in right-center, scoring García. Second baseman Michael Massey hit a deep fly ball, but it was caught for the third out.

After the seventh inning stretch, all three Red Sox struck out – Reyes the last of the three, on a called third strike thrown by righty Nick Wittgren, in his eighth big-league season and first with the Royals, just in from the bullpen. Ragans had struck out 11 Red Sox in his 6⅔ innings and he’d been touched for only four hits. One of the two runs he was charged was unearned. The K.C. press felt he had “exceeded expectations in recent starts…The only thing he didn’t get? The win.”3

Righty Chris Martin came on in relief, faced three batters, and retired all three without the ball leaving the infield. In the bottom of the eighth, Wittgren set down the Red Sox in order, too.

Still tied, 2-2, the game entered the ninth inning. Cora summoned Kenley Jansen to try and hold the line. There was some defensive shifting as well and every outfield position was manned by a different defender than in the eighth. Drew Waters flied out to right. The next two Royals struck out.

Bottom of the ninth. Right-hander Carlos Hernández took the mound for Kansas City. He’d been a very active late-inning reliever and had 48 appearances already in 2023, with an earned run average of 3.60 but an unfortunate 1-6 record. The one win had come against the Mets on August 1 – despite giving up a two-run homer in the top of the 10th.      

First up for the Red Sox was Justin Turner and he flied out to right field. Rafael Devers then pulled a ball into the right-field corner, which hopped the fence for a ground-rule double. Hernández struck out Adam Duvall for the second out. Triston Casas was walked intentionally, to set up more opportunities for securing the third out.

Second baseman Luis Urias stepped into the batter’s box. He came into the game batting .182, with six RBIs on the season. He worked the count full and then took a walk, loading the bases, checking his swing just enough (according to umpire Vic Carapazza) to earn ball four. Quatraro disagreed and was ejected. “It’s a tough job,” Cora said of Carapazza’s call. “I’ll leave it at that.”4

Reyes was up. He already had a couple of hits and had scored both of Boston’s runs.  Reyes took the first pitch for a ball, but the second one was right over the plate and he hit it hard, pulling it down the left-field line. The only question was whether it would stay fair. It did, striking the foul pole, the Fisk Pole – and Reyes had a game-winning grand slam. The Red Sox won, 6-2.

“We needed that so much,” Devers said afterward. “Everybody is smiling again.”5

Reyes may have been an unlikely hero, but he was a hero nonetheless. He’d figured in all six Red Sox runs. Though he only had six career home runs, and none to this point in 2023, he’d been having his best season to date, batting .288 in 32 games. Standing just 5-foot-8 and weighing in at 175 pounds, he’d been suspended for the entire 2020 season due to performance-enhancing drugs.6 It was his first year with Boston; he’d been purchased from the Oakland Athletics in mid-May. Normally he played shortstop, but just the day before (August 6) he had thrown a scoreless top of the ninth in the 13-1 loss to Toronto—scoreless despite giving up a walk, a single, throwing a wild pitch, and then giving up another walk. 

Reyes said that before the game, “Devers and all my teammates were like, ‘Pablo, when are you going to hit a homer?’ I said, ‘I’m going to try this week when I have an opportunity.’ I started the game with two base hits and I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to try to come up with a big swing.’”7

The 2023 season ended with both teams in last place. The Royals finished 31 games behind the first-place Twins in the AL Central and the Red Sox (8-19 in September) 23 games behind first-place Baltimore in the AL East.

Reyes finished 2023 with just two home runs (his second coming in a loss nine days later), and with 20 RBIs. He began 2024 with the Red Sox but his contract was purchased by the New York Mets in May. He appeared in just one game for the Mets, as a pinch-runner. The Yankees signed him for 2025, but he hit .194 in 31 plate appearances.

Interestingly, he pitched very briefly in four consecutive seasons – for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2022, the Red Sox in 2023 and 2024, and for the Yankees in 2025 for a total of five major-league innings.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Photo credit: Pablo Reyes, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball Reference, Retrosheet.org, and highlights of the game on YouTube.com

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS202308070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2023/B08070BOS2023.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydp60pJLT48

Thanks to Roger Erickson for providing Kansas City newspaper coverage.

Notes

1 This was Yoshida’s first year playing baseball in the United States, having been signed to a $90 million contract in the prior offseason.

2 Winckowski entered the game with a 2.82 earned run average. He had 12 holds to his credit.

3 Jaylon Thompson, “Red Sox’s walk-off grand slam spoils another strong start for Royals’ Ragans,” Kansas City Star, August 8, 2023: 10.

4 Alex Speier, “Grand Time,” Boston Globe, August 8, 2023: C1. 

5 Speier.

6 He had broken into the majors with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2018 and hit .293 in 18 games but hit just.203 in 71 games the following year. After his 2020 suspension, he hit .256 in 53 games for Milwaukee in 2021 but only had 16 plate appearances in 2022.

7 Speier.