With Thursday’s off-day coinciding with the MLB trade deadline (6 p.m. ET) and the Boston Red Sox expected to be serious buyers, this team could look significantly different when they open up the home stand on Friday.

Wednesday was their last opportunity to show the front office that they’re ‘full throttle’-worthy, and they made the most of it.

After dropping Monday’s opener to the Twins — following a nasty delay between the top and bottom of the ninth — the Red Sox got right back on the horse. They won 8-5 on Tuesday, then wrapped up the season series with a runaway train of a victory on Wednesday: 13-1.

While Brayan Bello and Chris Murphy held the Twins to a mere five hits, the Boston bats tallied 16, including four doubles and four home runs.

“The guys did an amazing job offensively,” manager Alex Cora told reporters.

After homering and doubling on Tuesday night, Trevor Story and Jarren Duran both homered and doubled again in the finale.

“Excellent,” said Cora said of Duran, who now seems unlikely to be traded before the deadline. “He’s been good the whole month … One of the most dynamic players in the big leagues, and I’m glad that he’s playing for us.”

While Duran outdid his teammates with a 3 for 5, 4-RBI performance, but it was Story who got the party started. The veteran shortstop led off the second with a home run for a 1-0 Red Sox advantage. Story’s 17th homer not only set a new single-season high for him since joining the club in ‘22, but made franchise history. He is the only Red Sox player — and just the sixth major leaguer ever — to hit at least 17 homers and have a perfect stolen-base record through as many as 17 attempts in a season.

Roman Anthony may be Boston’s youngest leadoff man since Luis Alvarado in 1968, but the 21-year-old rookie continues to prove age is just a number. Anthony extended his hitting streak to five games, with his third multi-hit performance in that span. He’s reached base safely in 32 of his last 35 games, and of his 42 hits, 26 have exit velocities of at least 100 mph, including both of his knocks on Wednesday.

“He controls the strike zone, hits the ball hard, he’s a quality at-bat,” Cora said of Anthony. “I think Jarren hitting third is gonna work, it’s working right now, it’s giving him the freedom to do whatever he wants in that spot.”

There were also encouraging signs of life from two of Boston’s coldest bats. In Connor Wong’s first multi-hit game of the season, he went 2 for 4 with a walk and two runs scored. Without an extra-base hit through his first 101 plate appearances of the year, the catcher now has a double in back-to-back games.

“Swinging the bat well, we’ll keep him with Bello,” said Cora, who made it known last weekend that they prefer Wong catching the righty.

Masataka Yoshida contributed two big hits. With the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth, the designated hitter rocketed a ball through the right side of the infield to extend Boston’s lead to 6-1 and pick up his second and third RBI of the season.

Twins starter Zebby Matthews pitched 4 1/3 innings before manager Rocco Baldelli made his first of five pitching changes. He struck out four and didn’t issue a walk, but he yielded five earned runs on eight hits with just 74 pitches (52 for strikes) thrown.

Bello’s day continued long after his rival starter got the hook.

For the first three seasons of Bello’s big-league career, day games were akin to kryptonite. He came into the 2025 season with a 5.48 ERA in 23 such contests (22 starts).

Marked improvement in daytime outings is among the many encouraging signs of improvement for the Red Sox right-hander this season. He entered Wednesday’s rubber match in Minnesota bearing a 3.19 ERA through nine day games (eight starts), and gave his team seven innings with Matt Wallner’s solo home run as the only blemish.

“Early on, erratic, and then he found his groove,” Cora assessed.

There were tight moments, such as the third inning wherein Bello issued a one-out walk to Trevor Larnach and a two-out walk to Roger Clemens’ son Kody before stranding both. Yet it was another sign of how far the Red Sox righty has come that he didn’t let the outing spiral. He returned for the fourth and needed just eight pitches to retire the Twins in order. His pitch count sat at 70 after the sixth, thanks in part to perfect defense from his teammates.

“The defense was outstanding,” Cora lauded, adding that Ceddanne Rafaela is an “elite defender at second, short, and center field.”

Thursday’s trade deadline loomed large in the top of the ninth when Willi Castro ran out to play second base only to be abruptly called back to the dugout. It turned out to be unrelated,

The final inning took an even wilder turn when righty Griffin Jax allowed a Duran leadoff double, David Hamilton single and Wilyer Abreu RBI single. Then, with the Twins officially trailing by the requisite eight-run minimum, Jax found himself pulled for a position player: Kody Clemens.

Romy Gonzalez and Yoshida greeted Kody with back-to-back homers, Gonzalez’s for three runs. Clemens allowed a single to Rafaela, the sixth consecutive hit, before finally recording an out.

Murphy’s perfect eighth and ninth innings not only put a bow on the series, but ensured the Red Sox relief core will be well-rested heading into this key home stand with the Houston Astros and Kansas Royals.

The Red Sox are 59-51, have won back-to-back series and four of their last five games.

“We came here and we played good baseball,” Cora said.

Crochet pushes back

The Astros won’t have to face the formidable Garrett Crochet when they come to Fenway Park this weekend for a three-game set. The southpaw’s start has been pushed back to either Monday or Tuesday when the Royals come to town.

The decision is based, not on a health issue, but rather a predetermined plan to manage his workload.

“This is something we’ve been talking about for a while here,” manager Alex Cora told reporters before Wednesday’s finale in Minnesota, “kind of give him a breather.”

Crochet entered Thursday leading the majors with 141 1/3 innings pitched, just 4 2/3 shy of the career-high he set with the Chicago White Sox last season. Crochet told reporters he prefers a five-day schedule, but echoed his skipper’s terminology, saying it’s “a good time to catch my breath a little bit.”

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