Renda lands in middle of storied rivalry

Now, as part of his fifth professional organization, Renda was called up to the major leagues Saturday by the Boston Red Sox in the midst of one of the greatest rivalries in all of professional sports. And the Hillsborough native made his Red Sox debut in style Sunday night against the New York Yankees at Fenway Park.

“It’s electric,” Renda said. “It’s incredible. Impossible to describe. You’ve got to experience it. A baseball fan needs to go to a Red Sox-Yankees game. There’s nothing like it.”

After the Red Sox overcame a three-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth against Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman, Renda entered as a pinch-runner in the 10th inning and ultimately scored the game-winning run from second base on Andrew Benintendi’s RBI single to center, giving Boston its MLB-best 79th victory.

“It was a special moment and it’s a special team,” Renda said. “Down three runs in the ninth against Chapman, most teams fold … and there was never a sense of we were out of it, in the dugout or on the field, because we weren’t.”

That sentiment pretty much sums up Renda’s baseball career in recent years. While the former second-round draft pick out of Cal by the Washington Nationals has enjoyed plenty of scrapbook moments, his roller coaster journey through the professional ranks has been more grit than glory.

Renda has twice been traded — including as part of a four-player package from the Yankees to the Cincinnati Reds after the 2015 season that sent Chapman to the Bronx — and more recently was released at the end of spring training this year by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It wasn’t until six weeks later, after Renda had returned to his home in Half Moon Bay, that he found a free-agent offer that suited him from the Red Sox.

“I waited it out and I’m glad I did,” Renda said. “I signed with the right team.”

Renda said he had other offers during the hiatus, but needed to find one that allowed him to prove himself as an everyday player. The Red Sox started him at Double-A Portland, a level at which he last played in 2016.

“Double-A, Triple-A, it didn’t matter to me at the time,” Renda said. “I didn’t care. I wanted a chance to play and I wanted a chance to prove myself. That’s all I need.”

After his first major league call-up with Cincinnati in 2016, he returned to the minors in 2017 and only played in 59 games at Triple-A, scuffling through a wrist fracture for most of the year, until he was traded to the Diamondbacks and ultimately went on the disabled list at the start of August to undergo season-ending surgery.

Through 2017, between Triple-A Louisville and Reno, the second baseman carried a career-low .250 batting average. This season, through 47 minor league games, he posted a .353 batting average — and this despite getting hit in the hand by a Franklyn Kilome fastball May 26, causing a break of the third metacarpal, which cost him six weeks on the DL.

Renda’s return from the DL was marked by one of the best hot streaks of his career. He hit safely in 15 straight games, the last 11 of which came with Triple-A Pawtucket after he earned a prompt promotion.

“I’m healthy and it makes all the difference,” Renda said.

With Pawtucket, he also slugged two home runs, giving him five on the season, a new season-high. And that’s no fluke. During the six weeks he was out of baseball after the spring, Renda retooled his swing on the fly, changing the hitting mechanics — built for contact — he has known his entire life to add a big leg kick.

“I got released, and going through that kind of changed things for me,” Renda said. “I changed my approach. I changed everything. I really don’t know what else to say. Where the game is at now, you have to drive the baseball. You have to drive the ball out of the park. … They’re not looking for contact.”

With a Monday off-day as the Red Sox travelled to Toronto, Renda has yet to take his first at-bat for Boston. But he already got a great taste of Fenway Park on the final play Sunday, and used the infamous Fenway crowd after Benintendi shot a single through the shift to plate Renda with the style points of a headfirst slide.

“I took off running and thought to myself, ‘that’s got a chance to get through,’” Renda said. “And I got a couple feet from third base and the crowd erupted. That’s when I knew it got through.”