Chris Sale’s final pitch for this Boston juggernaut triggered a celebration on the Dodger Stadium infield, among thousands of fans who made their way to California — and even outside Fenway Park back home.
The quest is complete. Yes, these 2018 Red Sox really are that great.
A team to remember from top to bottom. A season to savor from start to finish.
David Price proved his postseason mettle, Steve Pearce homered twice and Boston beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 on Sunday to finish off a one-sided World Series in five games.
BOX SCORE: RED SOX 5, DODGERS 1
A tormented franchise during decades of frustration and despair before ending an 86-year championship drought in 2004, the Red Sox have become baseball’s team of the century with four titles in 15 seasons.
“Seeing all these grown men over there, just acting like kids, that’s what it’s all about,” Price said. “This is why I came to Boston.”
Pearce, the Series MVP, hit a two-run homer on Clayton Kershaw’s sixth pitch. Solo homers by Mookie Betts in the sixth inning and J.D. Martinez in the seventh quieted the crowd, and Pearce added a solo drive off Pedro Baez in the eighth.
“We are a bunch of grinders,” Pearce said, “and this is exactly where we knew we were going to be.”
Pearce, a June acquisition from Toronto, had three homers and seven RBIs in the final two games of the Series.
After losing to Houston in Game 7 last year by the same 5-1 score, the Dodgers became the first team ousted on its home field in consecutive World Series since the New York Giants by the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds in 1936 and `37.
Los Angeles is still looking for its first championship since 1988.
“I didn’t say anything that that anyone didn’t know,” Sale said. “Just rallying the troops and letting them know — we’re the best team on the planet, and to start playing like it.”
The 33-year-old Price, a Cy Young Award winner in 2012, long pitched under an October shadow cast by his regular-season success. He had been 0-9 in 11 postseason starts before defeating Astros ace Justin Verlander in the clinching Game 5 of the AL Championship Series. He won his third straight start Sunday and became the first pitcher to beat Cy Young winners in the finale of an LCS and the World Series in the same year.
“It just hurts worse when you make it all the way and get second place,” Kershaw said.
He began aggressively, throwing strikes on his first six pitches, and the Red Sox were ready.
Betts homered on a slider that stayed in the strike zone after going 0 for 13 in Los Angeles this weekend, the first postseason home run of his career coming in his 87th at-bat. Martinez homered in the seventh, driving a fastball to straightway center.