Tyler O’Neill, Rob Refsnyder Go Back-to-Back Twice, Make Boston Red Sox History

The Boston Red Sox needed a win to stay in the playoff hunt, and they didn’t leave anything up for debate Monday night against the Baltimore Orioles.

With the game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the third inning, right fielder Rob Refsnyder blasted a two-run home run to straightaway center. One batter later, designated hitter Tyler O’Neill lifted a solo homer over the Green Monster.

The back-to-back home runs gave Boston a 4-1 lead, but it didn’t stop there. The Red Sox plated a few more runs thanks to Refsnyder and center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, going up 10-3 through seven innings.

Refsnyder launched his second home run of the night in the eighth, this time sneaking a fly ball inside the right field foul pole. O’Neill matched that, crushing a 422-foot missile to center.

The pair’s second instance of back-to-back home runs cemented a 12-3 victory for Boston, making history in the process.

According to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, O’Neill and Refsnyder became just the second pair of teammates in Red Sox franchise history to hit back-to-back home runs twice in the same game. The other is Mo Vaughn and Tim Naehring, who did so on April 19, 1994.

O’Neill, Refsnyder and Rafaela combined to go 9-for-13 with five runs, 12 RBI and a walk in the win.

Refsnyder emerged as a solid backup outfielder for Boston in 2022, but his numbers took a step back across the board in 2023. He has returned to form here in 2024, racking up a career-high 11 home runs, 40 RBI and 1.0 WAR while batting .285 with an .836 OPS.

O’Neill, meanwhile, has been of the Red Sox’s most dangerous bats all season. The former St. Louis Cardinals standout is batting .260 with 29 home runs, 56 RBI, an .894 OPS and a 2.9 WAR despite hitting the injury list multiple times this year.

Those 29 bombs are good for the fifth-most home runs through a player’s first 100 games with the Red Sox, per director of media relations J.P. Long, and he has only played in 99 games so far. J.D. Martinez and Manny Ramirez had 32 apiece, Jimmie Foxx had 30 and Carl Everett had 29.

Monday also marked O’Neill’s seventh multi-home run game of 2024. As noted by Long, that is tied for the third-most in Red Sox single-season history.

Foxx owns the record, having done so 10 times in 1938, while David Ortiz achieved the feat nine times in 2005. O’Neill joins Manny Ramirez and Jim Rice as the only other Red Sox players with seven multi-home run performances in a year.

The Red Sox improved to 73-71 with the win Monday, leaving them 3.0 games back of the Minnesota Twins for the third and final AL Wild Card spot. FanGraphs is giving Boston an 11.1% chance of making the postseason, which is a step up from the 7.2% chance they had last Thursday.

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