Boston Red Sox at Athletics

WEST SACRAMENTO – After all the madness of a wild, 4-2, 10-inning win by the Red Sox over the Athletics on Wednesday night, all Andruw Monasterio wanted to say (yet again) was that he was sorry. What was the home run hero sorry for? Monasterio had just powered his red-hot team to get another key win – their 19th in the last 22 games. Why in the world was he sorry? It all went back to an error he made from shortstop on what would have been an inning-ending groundout by Jacob Wilson in the seventh. The error by Monasterio made reliever Justin Slaten have to work a bit harder to get out of what would have been a 1-2-3 frame, but all seemed right in the world when the power righty blew a 97.8 mph sinker by Tommy White. “He's come up to me, like, seven times, like, ‘I'm sorry.’” said Slaten. “I’m like, ‘Dude, it's OK. Errors happen. There's nothing bad about it.’ But it felt really good to make that pitch in that situation and get out of it, and just let them go and swing the bat.” Just to clarify, Monasterio said sorry again after his Statcast-projected 428-foot homer to left-center to lead off the top of the 10th? “He came in as soon as the game was over. He apologized once in the handshake line and, like, three more times since I’ve been sitting here,” Slaten said. “I just keep telling him, ‘It doesn't matter. We won the game. I was able to pick you up. That feels good. And then you picked us up in the last inning.’ That's what it's about. That’s why we've been winning games, because we just continue to pick each other up.” And Monasterio picked everyone up with his sixth home run of the season. With the automatic runner on second, Monasterio was told in no uncertain terms by interim manager Chad Tracy and bench coach José Flores not to bunt. The general rule of thumb for the road team in extra-inning games is to play for two runs, not one. Monasterio got the two with one mighty cut.