Red Sox At Athletics: Game 105 Lineups And Notes

Red Sox at Athletics Game 105 Lineups and Notes 2026 The schedule makers didn't do Boston any favors. Coming off a three-city, ten-day road trip that saw the Red Sox drop series in Houston and Seattle, they landed in Sacramento for a four-game set against an Athletics team that's been playing spoiler all summer. Game 105. The unofficial halfway pole of the second half.

And the lineups Alex Cora and Mark Kotsay trotted out told you everything about where these franchises sit right now. What the Lineups Revealed Before First Pitch Boston's card looked familiar in the wrong ways. Duran leading off. Devers at third.

Bregman at second — still searching for the stroke that made him a star in Houston. The bottom third was a rotating cast of platoon bats and defensive replacements. Nothing scary. Nothing that made an opposing starter lose sleep.

Oakland's lineup, though. That's where the story lived. Kotsay stacked lefties against Lucas Giolito. Noda.

Gelof. Butler. Langeliers hitting cleanup behind them. The A's entered the night top-five in baseball against right-handed pitching since the All-Star break.

Not top-five in the AL. Top-five in baseball. A lineup built on patience, contact, and the kind of situational hitting that wins games in September. Giolito's line through 104 games: 4.32 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, a strikeout rate that's dipped below 22% for the first time since his rookie year.

The velocity is still there — touching 96 in his last start — but the command comes and goes. Oakland's approach was always going to be: make him throw strikes, don't chase, force the bullpen to cover innings. How the First Three Innings Set the Tone Giolito needed 28 pitches to escape the first. Noda worked a seven-pitch walk.

Gelof fouled off four straight two-strike offerings before lining a single to right. Butler drove a 2-1 fastball to the warning track in center — Wilyer Abreu made the catch look routine, but the exit velocity was 104 mph. Langeliers struck out swinging on a slider in the dirt, but the at-bat lasted nine pitches. Twenty-eight pitches.

Zero runs. But the template was established. Boston's offense against Joey Estes? Quiet.

Three up, three down in the first. A Duran groundout, a Devers flyout, a Bregman strikeout on a changeup that dropped off a table. Estes, a 24-year-old lefty making his 14th career start, looked like a veteran. He pounded the zone early, mixed speeds, and kept the Red Sox off balance without overpowering anyone.

Second inning: same story. Rafael Devers crushed a double off the wall in left-center — 112 mph off the bat, the hardest hit ball of the night for either side — but got stranded when Masataka Yoshida rolled over a first-pitch cutter to shortstop. Third inning: Triston Casas drew a two-out walk, stole second on a delayed steal that caught Langeliers napping, and scored on a Ceddanne Rafaela single up the middle. One run.

Forty-seven pitches for Estes. The Red Sox led, but it felt fragile. The Turning Point Nobody Saw Coming Top of the fifth. Giolito at 89 pitches.

One out. Noda at the plate. The broadcast crew spent the between-innings break talking about Giolito's pitch count, his history of fading in the fifth and sixth, the Red Sox bullpen's workload over the previous week. Standard filler.

Then Noda stepped in and did something that doesn't show up in a box score. He took four straight balls. All borderline. All called strikes by the TrackMan system.

All called balls by home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott. The count went 3-0. Giolito, visibly frustrated, stepped off. Wandered toward first base.

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Took a deep breath. The Sacramento crowd — announced at 11,847 but sounding like half that — started a low murmur that wasn't quite booing but wasn't support either. Next pitch: fastball, middle-in. Noda didn't swing.

Strike one. Next pitch: same location. Noda fouled it straight back. Next pitch: slider away.

Noda watched it go by for ball four. Walk. Nine pitches. Giolito at 98.

Gelof followed with a groundball to short. Double play depth. But Rafaela — playing shallow, cheating toward the hole — ranged to his left, barehanded it on the run, and threw across his body to beat Gelof by a half-step. Inning over.

Giolito slammed his glove against his thigh walking off the mound. That play. That specific play. Rafaela's range, the barehand, the throw across the body — that's the difference between a two-run inning and a zero.

That's the difference between a win and a loss in a game like this. Why the Middle Innings Mattered More Than the Score Boston added a run in the sixth on a Devers sacrifice fly — his 95th RBI of the season, tying him for the AL lead. Oakland answered in the bottom half when Lawrence Butler turned on a 97-mph fastball from Isaiah Campbell and deposited it into the left-field berm. Solo shot.

2-1. But the story wasn't the runs. It was the at-bats. Oakland's hitters saw 4.2 pitches per plate appearance through six innings.

They fouled off 18 pitches total. They made Boston's pitchers work every single out. Meanwhile, the Red Sox swung at first-pitch strikes seven times in the first six innings — putting four in play, grounding into two double plays, popping up twice. The approach gap was stark.

And it wasn't new. Since the All-Star break, Boston ranks 26th in pitches per plate appearance. Oakland ranks 3rd. The A's lead baseball in walk rate over that span.

The Red Sox are 28th. Two organizations, two philosophies, playing out in real time over nine innings in a minor-league ballpark 90 miles from San Francisco. The Bullpen Chess Match That Decided It Cora went to his bridge guys in the seventh: Justin Slaten, then Cam Booser. Slaten struck out the side on 14 pitches — two sliders, a fastball, a changeup, all nasty.

Booser walked the leadoff man but induced a tailor-made double play grounder to Bregman at second. Kotsay countered with his own bridge: Michel Otañez, then Tyler Ferguson. Otañez gave up a leadoff double to Wilyer Abreu but struck out Rafaela and got Duran to chase a high fastball. Ferguson walked Devers intentionally — the third intentional walk of Devers' career against Oakland this season — and Bregman grounded to short.

Eighth inning. Chris Martin for Boston. Mason Miller for Oakland. Martin, 38 years old, throwing 91-92 with a cutter that still breaks bats.

He retired the side in order on nine pitches. Miller, 24, touching 100 with a slider that looks like a Wiffle ball. He struck out Yoshida and Casas swinging, got Rafaela to ground out weakly. Two elite relievers.

Two different eras. Both doing the same job. The Ninth Inning Drama That Felt Inevitable Kenley Jansen. 39 saves.

1.84 ERA. The closer who doesn't close like closers used to — no 98-mph heat, no fist pumps, no drama. Just soft contact and strike throwing. Leadoff: Noda.

Seven-pitch at-bat. Walk. Gelof: First-pitch sacrifice bunt. Successful.

Noda to second. Butler: Intentional walk.