BOSTON - It was undoubtedly an emotional day and night for the Boston Red Sox.
Their leader and manager John Farrell had revealed that he had Stage 1 lymphoma. The treatments will begin Monday, and he'll be away from the team while he battles and recovers.
The players were then expected to play the game of baseball hours later.
News like that puts things in perspective. No longer do wins and losses mean much. Ditto for batting averages and home run records.
But one thing that will keep Farrell's spirits up is being able to see his Sox team succeed. If his players can't be with him over these coming weeks and months, they can at least play their best for him.
And on Friday night, they did more than enough.
The Sox had their best offensive output in years as they beat up the Seattle Mariners, 15-1. The 15 runs were the most since Sept. 25, 2013 at Colorado, while the 21 hits were the most since Aug. 2, 2009 at Baltimore.
Nine different Red Sox players recorded multiple hits for the first time since May 28, 2005.
It was an offensive explosion from literally top to bottom.
Rookie Travis Shaw, Brock Holt, and Pablo Sandoval each led the Sox with three RBI, but it was Shaw who blasted two home runs - his second multi-home run game of his career.
The message was simple.
"We definitely wanted to win this for John," Shaw said. "Getting that news earlier in the day, it was hard. It puts everything in perspective. You realize there's so much more to life than baseball. Like I said, we just want to go out there and put on a strong showing for him and support for him and everybody played well tonight from Joe [Kelly] to the whole offense up and down the lineup it was a good night."
Shaw's average is now up to .326. He's batting .571 with a 1.190 slugging percentage at Fenway Park, too. It's been a bit of a battle for Shaw to get to this point in his career, but he looks pretty comfortable at the plate in the big leagues. Shaw admitted that his confidence is up and getting more opportunities to play since Mike Napoli was traded is helping him "settle in to a little bit of a groove."
"Just trying to stick with everything I've done throughout my career. Not try to do too much, not get ahead of myself, just try to help the team in whatever way I can when I'm in the lineup and just keep going about it the right way."
David Ortiz scored a season-high three runs, Rusney Castillo had a home run, and Mookie Betts hit his team-leading 7th triple of the season. Interim manager Torey Lovullo specifically mentioned Shaw's night in his postgame press conference, along with Jackie Bradley Jr.'s, who went 3-for-5 with an RBI and run.
"These young players come up here prepared," Lovullo said, "they work hard for those moments and they deserve these moments . . . It was a very contagious day and a very exciting one. You put up those types of days, it gives you a lot of hope for what tomorrow brings and we have to make sure that we put this one aside and execute the same type of game plan."
It would be easy for the Sox to take Friday's news and throw in the towel completely. But they didn't. Instead, they banded together. They fought. And they beat the crap out of the opponent.
That's one way to inspire their leader.