Red Sox hit deadline with a flourish, as four solo homers help complete sweep of MLB-best Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — Eighteen hours before MLB’s trade deadline, the sweatpants-clad Red Sox departed Dodger Stadium for another overnight transcontinental flight, back to Boston and into one of the biggest days of their year.

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They had just finished an 8-4, sweep-completing, statement-making win over the Dodgers on Sunday night, extending what has become less a mere hot streak and more a transformational six weeks.

By 6 p.m. Monday, the deadline to acquire major league players via trade, they will learn what chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and the front office do to supplement this group for the postseason push.

“We’re in a good spot right now, so we’ll see what happens [Monday],” said Wilyer Abreu, who hit a go-ahead home run in the third inning. “But I think whatever happens is going to be the best for the team.”

Ceddanne Rafaela said: “I don’t hope for [anything]. I’m just enjoying winning baseball and I’m not really paying attention to that. I’m really enjoying playing with my boys and whatever happens. If somebody comes, we will welcome them with open arms. But if not, we will keep winning baseball games with this team. That’s what we’re doing.”

The Red Sox are 60-51. They have won five games in a row, six of seven on this now-completed West Coast trip, 23 of 26, and, going back to June 19, 31 of 39.

Because of that, they are sitting pretty in the second American League wild-card spot, having built a five-game cushion over the first team on the outside.

In the AL East, they are hanging around, five games behind the first-place Rays.

Along the way, with a sometimes piecemeal array of players amid injuries and turnover, they have formed an identity, developed chemistry, and learned how to come back — from deficits in games and in the standings.

“Universally, in a locker room in the big leagues, if you add something impactful [via trade at this time of year], that’s usually going to be pretty well received by players because . . . that’s going to help us,” interim manager Chad Tracy said. “But you also are sensitive to, as a manager, how does that affect the rest of our roster? How does it fit? Who does it affect?

“There’s still a lot of our identity that doesn’t go away with an addition of a player. So we’ll figure it out as we go.”

In the finale with the Dodgers (69-43), the Red Sox had an almost formulaic approach: a strong outing from Jake Bennett, who tossed 5 innings and allowed three runs; a bunch of sound defensive plays, including from shortstop Andruw Monasterio, second baseman Nick Sogard, and right fielder Abreu; and big hits in key moments.

The biggest: three home runs in a span of seven pitches off righthander Emmet Sheehan, a Boston College alumnus.

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Los Angeles had just struck for three runs in the bottom of the second. In the top of the third, Rafaela, Abreu, and Masataka Yoshida each went deep.

Rafaela’s was the tying blast, and his fourth in the three-game series. Abreu’s came on Sheehan’s next pitch and produced a lead. Yoshida added another one out later.

“Willson [Contreras] said this a couple weeks ago, that we can beat anybody right now, and we showed that today and the whole series,” Abreu said. “We showed what we need to show.”

Sheehan was tagged for five runs in 2 innings. He has a 5.29 ERA and is not guaranteed to keep his rotation spot as the Dodgers add multiple starters in the coming days.

Bennett rebounded from his rocky second — highlighted by Andy Pages’s two-out, two-run single after the Sox intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani to load the bases — to retire 11 of 12 batters, into the sixth inning.

“They swing, we swing back,” Bennett said. “It really fired me up, and I feel like it really allowed me to keep going out there, just giving it my all.”

Los Angeles let Wyatt Mills, a former Red Sox farmhand, wear it in the late innings.

Without closer Aroldis Chapman — who had pitched three of the previous four days — the Sox added two critical runs in the eighth, one on a wild pitch by Mills and the other on a passed ball by catcher Eliezer Alfonzo.

Jarren Duran homered in the sixth inning, his first long ball since July 5. He is batting .200, his first time finishing the day with an average that high since July 7.

“It’s definitely a huge series for us,” Bennett said. “These guys are a really good ball club, and for us to come in and take care of business like we did is awesome. It really shows what kind of team we are.”

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