BOSTON _ Allow Friday night to serve as your reminder, folks.
Mookie Betts still reigns as the American League Most Valuable Player, and a full demonstration of his considerable abilities took place at Fenway Park.
The Red Sox right fielder homered in each of his first three at-bats, taking his place alongside some baseball royalty in the record books. Boston spent a second straight evening hammering the Yankees and continuing its chase for a playoff berth.
Betts went over the Green Monster on all three occasions, sparking the Red Sox to a strong 10-5 victory. The sellout crowd of 37,095 fans loosed chants of 'Mooookie' deep into the dark sky, and the beleaguered New York pitching staff continued to set the wrong kind of new franchise marks.
Betts led off the bottom of the first inning with a solo homer down the line in left, blasted another solo shot to left-center in the third and went inside the foul pole again with a two-run homer in the fourth. He added a run-scoring double to the corner in left in the sixth and grounded to third in the eighth, missing out on two chances to become just the 19th man in baseball history with four home runs in a game.
Betts is now one of just seven players with as many as five three-homer games. Johnny Mize and Sammy Sosa still lead the way with six apiece, and Betts pulled even with Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Joe Carter and Dave Kingman in a rather exclusive fraternity. Rodriguez was the most recent player on that list to notch his fifth such game, doing so on July 25, 2015.
Betts also owns five of the 33 three-homer games in Boston's franchise history. Steve Pearce was the last Red Sox player to turn the trick, also roughing up the Yankees in a 15-7 win on Aug. 2, 2018. Betts has done his damage against five different teams, with his first such game coming May 31, 2016 at Baltimore.
This performance from Betts came on the second straight night where Boston pounded another Yankees starting pitcher. James Paxton surrendered seven extra-base hits in just four innings, and the 56 runs allowed by New York are the most in any five-game span in franchise history. Paxton was charged with seven earned runs and reliever David Hale absorbed the final three.
J.D. Martinez _ the last man to record a four-homer game, doing so in September 2017 _ crushed a two-run shot to left against Paxton in the first, giving the Red Sox a 3-0 lead. It was 5-0 after Xander Bogaerts and Martinez cracked back-to-back doubles in the fourth and 9-1 after Betts knocked home Michael Chavis in the sixth. Andrew Benintendi and Sam Travis added two more doubles in the seventh to finish off the slugging.
Andrew Cashner made it six straight times Boston starters have completed at least six innings. He recorded the first two outs of the seventh before departing to a standing ovation and in line for his first red Sox victory. Cashner allowed six of his 10 hits over his final 1 2/3 frames and held the Yankees scoreless through his first five.
Luke Voit's long single to left put New York on the board in the sixth. Austin Romine's infield single in the seventh plated a second run, and the third came at a steep price. D.J. LeMahieu grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, taking most of the steam out of what could have been a late rally.
Romine's RBI double to center in the ninth forced Boston's bullpen to work harder than expected. Brandon Workman was eventually summoned and Didi Gregorius managed a sacrifice fly to left with the bases loaded. Workman induced Voit to ground into a fielder's choice as the Red Sox moved 11 games over .500 for the first time this season.
