Red Sox clinch 1st playoff spot since 2021 on Rafaela’s walk-off hit

The Boston Red Sox are returning to October, as they clinched a playoff spot Friday with a 4-3 win over the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park.

Ceddanne Rafaela sent Boston into the postseason by ripping a walk-off double in the bottom of the ninth off Tommy Kahnle.

The playoff berth is the Red Sox first since 2021, when they advanced to the ALCS as a wild-card team.

“This is all what we’ve been working for,” shortstop Trevor Story said, according to Mac Cerullo of the Boston Herald. “The past three years felt really bad. Obviously we haven’t played the way we wanted to, but we feel like this is the start of something special.”

Boston will open its postseason Sept. 30 in the wild-card series. The Red Sox currently occupy the AL’s No. 5 seed; if that holds, the team will face either the Toronto Blue Jays or New York Yankees on the road in the best-of-three series.

It looked like the Red Sox might have to wait for their clinching party after the Tigers took an early 3-0 lead. But the home side clawed back, tying the game in the eighth inning on Jarren Duran’s RBI single. Aroldis Chapman then tossed a scoreless top of the ninth to set the stage for Rafaela’s heroics.

The Tigers, meanwhile, remain tied with Cleveland atop the AL Central following the Guardians’ loss to Texas, although Cleveland owns the tiebreaker. At 86-74, they’re now two games back of Boston and a half-game up on Houston (pending the Astros’ result in Anaheim) in the wild-card standings.

The Tigers’ and Guardians’ losses mean that Houston can’t be eliminated Friday.

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