The Red Sox were down 4-0 on Monday night and the crowd at Fenway Park was booing as Eduardo Rodriguez slogged through a 37-pitch second inning.
It was a here-we-go-again moment in what has been a wildly inconsistent season.
Then the Sox punched back.
More accurately, they jabbed.
A walk and two errors loaded the bases for Mookie Betts. He lined a high fastball into right field for a single that produced the first of six runs in that inning. It led to a 9-4 victory.
It would be a mistake to write that this was the kind of victory that will turn the season around for the Red Sox. The three-game sweep at Tampa Bay was supposed to do that and it didn’t, so the Red Sox will have to actually prove it in the standings before anybody believes it.
What is undeniably true is that Betts is playing like an All-Star again and that’s something required for the Sox to catch the Rays and Yankees and get back in the postseason for the fourth consecutive year.
No player on the roster is more important over the long term.
Betts finished 3 for 4 with a walk. He has reached base in 25 of his last 46 plate appearances and in the last 10 games has hit .287 with an .891 OPS. The Sox have won six of those games.
“Mookie is heating up. That’s huge for us,” Andrew Benintendi said. “It’s good timing.”
Benintendi has hit first and Betts second the last 10 games and it’s starting to work the way manager Alex Cora thought it would when he decided to construct his lineup that way over the winter. The idea was to prod Benintendi into being more aggressive and give Betts more opportunities to drive in runs.
Whether it works over the course of the season isn’t certain. Betts had a .438 on-base percentage last season, second in the majors to Mike Trout. That he should hit leadoff seems obvious.
Benintendi didn’t think much of being switched in the order when Cora told him about it before the season and he still doesn’t see what the big deal is.
“I think both of us take the same approach,” he said. “I know I do. I’m going to hit the way I hit whether it’s first or second or anywhere else.”
But Betts fully bought into hitting leadoff last season. It was one of the first things Cora said he would do after he was named manager and he instilled in Betts the idea that he would be the sparkplug for the offense. Being a leadoff hitter became part of Betts’s identity as a player and an MVP season followed.
Only in the last two weeks has Betts adjusted to the new spot.
“It took a little time,” he said. “I had to understand what [Benintendi] was going to do and how he would go about his at-bats. I was seeing the game from a different point of view than when he was behind me.
“Now he’s in front of me and I’m behind him. It was one of those things that took a little time. But the biggest thing for me has been putting in the work before games. That’s why I’m hitting better.”
Betts had a .676 OPS 12 days ago and admitted at the time he was searching for some rhythm with his mechanics and approach. He was taking pitches over the plate and swinging through ones that were too high.
Now Betts is more selective and starting to drive the ball.
“A lot of work,” he said. “Every day hitting early; kind of grinding in the cage. Trying to be consistent; focusing on competing.”
Betts helped produce another run in the eighth inning, his single pushing Benintendi into scoring position. It helped the Sox to a series-opening victory against an Oakland team that has given them trouble over the last three seasons.
The offense bailed out Rodriguez, who allowed four runs in the second inning. But after the Sox took the lead back, he retired six batters in a row and got the game under control.
The shutdown third inning was important.
“After I saw they scored all those runs. I went out there thinking I had to get three outs and get back to the dugout,” Rodriguez said. “I felt pretty good. After we scored some runs, as a pitcher you have to go out there and get three outs and get the other starter back on the mound.”
For the Sox, it felt like a reprieve.
“Now we need to run off a few more like it,” Betts said.
Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeteAbe.