The ultimate hero proved to be Travis Shaw. When you hit a walk-off grand slam - as the first baseman did in handing the Red Sox an 8-4, 11-inning win over the Rangers - that's a well-deserved title.
But make no mistake about, the Red Sox don't sniff the huge hit from Shaw without Nathan Eovaldi, Rafael Devers and Garrett Whitlock ... otherwise known as three of the four most valuable players on this year's Sox club. (Xander Bogaerts would round out the group.)
Starting with Eovaldi, he continues to be the much-needed go-to guy on the Sox' starting staff. This time the righty didn't allow an earned run over seven innings, striking out seven without walking a batter.
Eovaldi continues to be almost a sure-thing at Fenway Park where the Red Sox have won five of the hurler's last six outings. During that stretch he has given up just four earned runs while issuing only two walks.
The starter would have been the story, no questions asked, if not for Matt Barnes letting yet another save slip away. This time it was a two run lead Texas wiped out in the ninth inning.
But, fortunately or the Red Sox, along came Garrett Whitlock ... again.
The rookie got out of Barnes' ninth-inning jam, stranding runners at second and third with one out. And while he did give up a run on a weak ground ball in the 10th - allowing the extra-inning, extra runner to score - ultimately the righty saved the day.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora rode Whitlock as long as he possibly could, asking for more than six outs from the reliever for the first time since May 13. The Rule 5 pick obliged, helping set the stage for the offense's extra-inning heroics.
And while Shaw's blast offered the kind of celebration the Red Sox have been starved for of late, it was only made possible thanks to Devers' two-out, two-strike, 414-foot double off the center field wall in the 10th-inning.
Simply put, the trio saved the Red Sox at a time they desperately needed to be saved.