LOS ANGELES _ No Red Sox team had ever won as many regular-season games as the 2018 team did. However, as nice as that achievement was for an iconic franchise, their players knew the deal as the 114th World Series started.
"Once we won 100 games, we wanted to win the 106th game so we could say we were the team that has won the most games in the regular season," Brock Holt said. "To be where we're at now I think proves just how special we can be. Hopefully we can finish this thing off and we can call ourselves one of the best Red Sox teams ever."
No doubt about it now.
With David Price exorcising his October demons in a third straight sterling postseason start and the Red Sox tagging Clayton Kershaw for three of their four home runs, Boston won its fourth World Series in 15 seasons with a 5-1 victory over the Dodgers in Game 5 in front of 54,367 at Dodger Stadium.
Steve Pearce hit two home runs _ including a two-run shot in the top of the first inning that gave the Red Sox the lead for good _ and Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez also homered for Boston.
David Freese homered for the Dodgers in the bottom of the first, but the Dodgers would not score again. Their final six batters struck out against Joe Kelly and Chris Sale.
The Red Sox went 11-3 against the Yankees, the defending champion Astros and the Dodgers in the postseason _ even better than their 108-54 record in the regular season. They went 7-1 on the road in this postseason, outscoring the opposition 56-23.
Price, winless as a starter in his postseason career before a brilliant outing in the ALCS Game 5 clincher over the Astros, allowed one run and three hits in seven innings-plus. Price, whom Red Sox manager Alex Cora named as his Game 5 starter in place of Sale minutes after the conclusion of Game 4, also won Game 2 of this series when he allowed two runs and three hits in six innings.
Price, signed to a seven-year, $217-million contract in December 2015, retired 14 straight batters before walking Chris Taylor to start the eighth. Kelly replaced him and struck out pinch hitters Matt Kemp, Joc Pederson and Cody Bellinger. Then Sale struck out Justin Turner, Kike Hernandez and Manny Machado in the ninth to end it, giving the Red Sox pitchers 11 strikeouts in the game.
Kershaw suffered his second loss of the series after allowing four runs and seven hits in seven innings. He allowed five runs and seven hits in four innings in Game 1 at Fenway Park.
A Red Sox offense that entered the night a remarkable 39-for-105 (.371) with runners in scoring position in this postseason _ with 15 of those extra-base hits _ took care of matters strictly with the long ball Sunday night.
Pearce, who hit a tying homer off Kenley Jansen in the eighth inning and added a three-run double off Kenta Maeda in the ninth inning in Boston's 9-6 Game 4 victory on Saturday night, hit two more homers in Game 5. His second homer came against Pedro Baez in the eighth and gave the Red Sox a 5-1 lead.
The Red Sox quieted the crowd early. After Betts flied to left, Andrew Benintendi singled to center. Pearce then crushed a first-pitch fastball to left-center.
Freese got one of the runs back immediately, launching Price's first pitch, a 92-mph fastball, to right for a homer that improved him to 4-for-10 in the series. Justin Turner walked, but Price got Hernandez to ground into a 5-4-3 double play.
Price faced his only jam in the third. With one out, Freese lifted a fly ball to right that Martinez lost in the stadium lights. The ball landed on the grass behind him and Freese had a triple. But Turner grounded sharply to short, with Freese holding at third, and Hernandez fouled out to Martinez for the third out.
After the Freese "triple," Price started his string of 14 straight retired.
Kershaw dominated after Pearce's homer, retiring eight straight and 14 of the next 15. But Betts loudly interrupted that stretch with one out in the sixth, ripping a 2-and-2 slider to left for a 3-1 lead. Martinez homered in the seventh and Pearce hit his second homer with two outs in the eighth.
