Red Sox coach wills Jackie Bradley Jr. to game-tying homer with positive thinking
Jackie Bradley Jr. caught a lot of people by surprise when he launched a game-tying home run against Los Angeles Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen during Game 3 of the World Series.
We wouldn’t count Boston Red Sox first-base coach Tom Goodwin among them, though. In fact, based on the audio played during the Fox Sports broadcast, Goodwin may have willed the baseball over the fence with his positive thinking.
Goodwin was mic’ed up for the Red Sox’s eventual heart-breaking 3-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 18 innings. More times than not that exercise during a sporting event is a flop, but it caught a genuinely cool moment here right before and then immediately after Bradley’s game-changing swing in the eighth inning.
“We didn’t fly 3,000 miles to get shut out, y’all,” Goodwin tells anyone who would listen.
Indeed they did not.
"DO IT JACKIE! DO IT JACKIE!"@RedSox first-base coach Tom Goodwin's reaction to Jackie Bradley Jr's game-tying home run is perfection pic.twitter.com/DkIQSerHT2
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 27, 2018
After Bradley connected, Goodwin then went into celebration mode.
The Red Sox were only shut out seven times during the regular season. They were getting dangerously close to getting shut out in Game 3. Dodgers starter Walker Buehler posted seven scoreless innings, and there didn’t figure to be much letup with Jansen coming in. However, thanks to Rick Porcello and the Red Sox bullpen, they remained one swing away from tying it up.
As he’s done frequently this October, Bradley provided that one swing.
The ALCS MVP has three homers in October, to go along with 10 RBIs.
Little did we know what chaos would follow Bradley’s home run. The Red Sox and Dodgers would play 10 more innings in what became the longest postseason game in MLB history. The Red Sox still hold a 2-1 series lead, but how they bounce in Game 4 could determine this series.
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Brown: Muncy’s heroics end longest postseason game ever
• Passan: Dodgers may have won more than just wildest World Series game in recent memory
• Kinsler feels ‘terrible’ for error that cost Red Sox dearly in Game 3 loss
• Six key moments that defined the Dodgers’ 3-2 win
