WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Trevor Story\u2019s first-inning homer against the Athletics on Monday night provided some instant offense behind Garrett Crochet. It also ensured the team\u2019s celebratory Wally the Green Monster head would be worn for the first time in a while.<\/p>\n
Story\u2019s 109.7 mph, 404 feet laser off A\u2019s starter Luis Morales was the first Red Sox homer since Tuesday, when Ceddanne Rafaela and Nathaniel Lowe both went yard in an 11-7 comeback win over Cleveland. In the four games since, Boston had a bunch of deep fly balls but none went over the wall. Story and catcher Carlos Narv\u00e1ez both hit solo no-doubters behind Crochet on Monday, leading to a 7-0 win at Sutter Health Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel like we\u2019ve come close but it hasn\u2019t been much damage lately,\u201d said Story. \u201cWe feel like Wally was getting lonely. We were feeding him in Arizona and I guess it paid off today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The team introduced the Wally helmet as its new home run celebration on the first homestand and, through 145 games, has used it 171 times, good for the 13th-best mark in the big leagues<\/a>. Story has 24 of those blasts, with the latest coming on a fastball in the zone on a 3-2 count against Morales.<\/p>\n \u201cHe got a heater by me earlier in the at-bat and I laid off a couple sweepers,\u201d Story said. \u201c3-2, I felt like he was gonna come at me and I was able to put a good swing on it. One of my better swings.\u201d<\/p>\n Story\u2019s home runs have very often meant good news for the Red Sox this season. In the 23 games in which he has homered (he had two on April 18 against the White Sox), the Red Sox are now 22-1. The sole loss came in Anaheim on June 23.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it\u2019s good,\u201d said Story, who found it hard to believe. \u201cHome runs are immediate offense. I guess it\u2019s a good thing when I do it, for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n The Red Sox hope to benefit from a good environment for hitters in the A\u2019s\u2019 temporary home in West Sacramento over the next couple of days after a bunch of deep flyouts \u2014 including a couple from Story \u2014 went to the warning track at Chase Field over the weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cArizona\u2019s a big yard and we were hitting it to the big part of the field, which is good, but you like to see them leave the yard when you hit it like that,\u201d Story said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the game and we feel like if we keep hitting the ball hard to the big part of the field, it\u2019s gonna pay out eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Trevor Story\u2019s first-inning homer against the Athletics on Monday night provided some instant offense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[152,5,668,141,48,2542,4,89,2543,669],"class_list":{"0":"post-302801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-american-league","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bestof","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-boston-red-sox","13":"tag-bostonredsox","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-red-sox","16":"tag-redsox","17":"tag-topix"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115173112221474907","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}