Red Sox hit nine doubles in 18-7 rout of Cardinals, sweep doubleheader

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on Apr 6, 2025

Published in Baseball

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BOSTON — The Red Sox needed to come from behind to win the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader in extra innings.

They needed no such theatrics in the evening rematch.

Boston blitzed the St. Louis Cardinals in Sunday night’s series finale, jumping all over the red birds en route to a dominant 18-7 win. The Red Sox scored five runs in the second inning, four in the third and five more in the sixth to blow the game wide open, providing more than enough run support for rookie right-hander Hunter Dobbins, who got the win in his MLB debut.

In doing so the Red Sox swept both the doubleheader and the three-game series and have now won five straight games.

St. Louis broke the ice after Willson Contreras and Brendan Donovan hit back-to-back doubles in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead, but from that point on it was all Boston. Wilyer Abreu had an RBI single to tie the game in the bottom of the first, and then in the second the dam broke after the Red Sox had six of the first seven batters reach base safely.

Ceddanne Rafaela started the scoring with an RBI single, Alex Bregman hit a two-run double and Abreu followed with an RBI double of his own. Then in the third inning Jarren Duran extended the lead with an RBI single and Bregman smoked a three-run home run, putting him a triple shy of the cycle.

The Cardinals got a run back in the fourth on a Masyn Winn RBI single, but the Red Sox kept their foot on the gas when Duran and Rafael Devers hit consecutive doubles to drive in another run in the fifth. Devers’ double was a moonshot off the deepest part of the Green Monster, and his next time up in the sixth he hit another two-run double to almost the exact same spot as part of a five-run pile-on.

It’s safe to say at this point whatever issues he was having with his swing on Opening Weekend have been ironed out.

While the offense went to work, Dobbins enjoyed a memorable MLB debut, allowing just two runs over five innings with eight hits, two walks and five strikeouts. Beyond earning the win, he also gave the Red Sox enough length to preserve the bullpen, which was short after using five relievers in the earlier game, including most of the club’s top arms.

By the time it was over the Red Sox had a season-high 22 hits and nine doubles, the most doubles in one game for the team since Sept. 18, 2022.

St. Louis wound up scoring four runs in the top of the ninth, with Thomas Saggese hitting a three-run home run off Cooper Criswell.

Devers finished 4 for 4 with a walk, two doubles, three RBI and four runs scored, improving his batting average to .263 and his OPS to .825 after originally starting the season 0 for 19 through the first five games. Bregman finished 4 for 5 with a home run, two doubles and six RBI, Carlos Narvaez went 2 for 4 with two doubles, a walk and an RBI, and Kristian Campbell went 1 for 4 with a walk.

According to the Red Sox, Campbell is just the third player in franchise history to reach base in his first 10 MLB games in the live ball era, with the others being George Scott and Ted Williams.

The Red Sox are now a half-game behind the Yankees for first place in the AL East. Boston (6-4) will look to keep its momentum going when it welcomes the Toronto Blue Jays for a four-game series at Fenway Park starting Monday night.

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