The Red Sox were unable to punch their own ticket to the postseason Sunday, as they fell to the Tampa Bay Rays, 5-1, at Tropicana Field.
Fortunately, one of their former pitchers, the grandson of one of the greatest players to ever don a Red Sox uniform and Boston’s original major league team did it for them.
With a 4-2 defeat of the Houston Astros late Sunday afternoon, the Atlanta Braves propelled the Red Sox to October.
Left-hander Martin Pérez, who pitched for the 2020-21 Red Sox, started for the Braves and held the Astros to one run, a solo homer by Jose Altuve, over 4 1/3 innings.
But the biggest Boston-connected contribution came from Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Red Sox icon Carl Yastrzemski and a former Red Sox late-round draft pick out of St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Ma. The younger Yaz’s three-run homer in the sixth gave the Braves an enduring lead, and the Red Sox an in.
His momentous home run also coincided with the 59th anniversary of his grandfather hitting his 41st home run and scoring the go-ahead run to keep the 1967 “Impossible Dream” Red Sox in a first-place tie with the Minnesota Twins in a tight American League pennant race.
Atlanta Braves’ Mike Yastrzemski (18) reacts after hitting a three-run home run off Houston Astros relief pitcher Bryan King during the sixth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
The final piece of this New England-centric puzzle was a game-ending strikeout of Astros shortstop Jeremy Pena. The Braves originally drafted him in the 39th round of the 2015 MLB Draft out of Providence’s Classic High School, before the Astros took him in the third round in 2018, out of the University of Maine.
The Red Sox watched the Braves from the visitors’ clubhouse at Tropicana Field, then donned “Clinched” t-shirts and goggles, and went back out to the field to celebrate and give the attendants time to seal the clubhouse in plastic wrap and wheel in the champagne and beer.
Long before the Red Sox played their inaugural season as one of the American League’s eight charter clubs in 1901, Boston had the Braves. The Braves were originally the Red Stockings, their name from their 1871 inception until 1876, when they were renamed the Red Caps until 1882.
The 1914 Boston Braves were the first team in MLB history to reach the postseason after being 14 games under .500 at some point in the season. It was a feat only matched by the 1974 Pittsburgh Pirates and 2005 Astros.
Until Sunday, when the Braves helped the Red Sox become the fourth team to do so.