As I wrote Monday evening, this week’s series in Sacramento is a must-win for the Red Sox (80-65).

With time running out in the regular season and a brutal stretch of games to end the month of September, Boston needs to come away from their final west coast trip of 2025 (for now) with at least two wins heading into their weekend series with the Yankees (80-63) at Fenway.

The Athletics (66-79) might have some fun young players, but they’re in last place in the AL West for a reason - they’re not a very good baseball team.

If the Red Sox are who we think they are, this is the type of team they should be fattening up on late in the year.

While you were sleeping, Boston ate well at Sutter Health Park, winning game one of their three-game series with Oakland 7-0.

Here’s nine takeaways from Monday’s win for Boston:

1. Trevor Bleeping Story, man

I said it my debut column for Roundtable and I’ll say it again here:

I refuse to take what Trevor Story is doing offensively for granted.

We know how injured he’s been since arriving in Boston, and we know how bad he was to start the season. Heck, I had a colleague at WEEI ranking Story’s contract as one of the most regrettable deals in all of Boston sports since the start of the 2020s.

But since the start of Boston’s series with the Brewers in late May, Story has been absolute nails at the plate.

That continued on Monday, with Story hitting a solo shot in the first inning that was an absolute no-doubter coming off the bat, giving Boston a 1-0 lead and setting the tone for the night. The ball went 404 feet, and was clocked at 109.7 miles per hour off the bat.

In the past 90 games, Story has 18 home runs with 69 RBI (nice). Coming into Monday, his OPS over those 90 games was .836.

On the night, Story was 2 for 4 with a home run, an RBI and a run scored, with a bloop double to short right in the top of the eighth that showed off some baserunning that was almost as impressive as his homer.

Alex Cora has continually said that this team goes as Story goes. And with Roman Anthony likely gone for the season, his bat is even more important heading down the stretch.

Fingers crossed that whatever inevitable regression is coming for Story holds off until early next season.

2. In case you forgot, Garrett Crochet is still really good

After what was almost certainly his worst start of the year last Tuesday against Cleveland, allowing 7 runs on 9 hits in only 6 innings of work, the conversation across the Boston airwaves has been about Garrett Crochet’s ability to hold up down the stretch run of the season.

At 26 years old, Crochet has never thrown over 150 innings in his career. Last season was his previous high at 146, and heading into Monday he was already 32 innings past that number.

Can this horse hold up?

Looked studly as ever on Monday, striking out 10 across 7.0 innings of work on 101 pitches without allowing a single walk.

Monday’s win for Crochet brings his record to 15-5 on the season, and keeps him squarely in the conversation for the AL Cy Young Award.

3. Congrats on 500 hits, Jarren Duran!

Apologies for being redundant, but I cannot stress enough how much of a blow losing Anthony is for this offense moving forward.

He had become Boston’s most reliable bat, hence why Cora had him hitting in the leadoff spot up until straining his oblique against Cleveland.

So with Cora in search of a new man for the top spot in his batting order, he decided to give Jarren Duran another crack at the job.

After struggling in that role early in the season, Duran had been bumped down in the order, which served him well. But with the 29-year-old speedster’s ability to make waves on the base path and Anthony no longer an option, giving Duran another chance made a ton of sense.

And on Monday, Duran showed out in the role.

At the top of the second with two men on, Duran singled for his 500th career hit, driving in a run to give the Red Sox a 3-0 lead.

In his next at bat, Duran followed a solo shot from Carlos Narvaez up with an extra base hit of his own, legging out an impressive double to left field.

One pitch later, Alex Bregman took a strike-one sweeper as Duran stole third base with ease, his 23rd bag of the season. On the ninth pitch of the at bat, Duran was scoring from third on an RBI-single for Bregman.

Duran is the type of player that plays his best baseball when the team around him is playing well. Red Sox fans should hope that tonight’s complete performance for the offense is a preview of what’s to come for this team down the stretch.

And just a quick big picture thought - 500 hits for a guy early in his career being booed mercilessly out in center field at Fenway is pretty cool. I can fully admit that I did not see this type of milestone coming for Duran back in 2021, that’s for sure.

4. Bregman back on track

Make no mistake about it, Alex Bregman has not been playing well of late.

And with ESPN’s Jeff Passan reporting last week that the 31-year-old plans to opt out at the end of the season, it felt like the arrow was starting to point in the wrong direction for the player who had emerged in his first season with Boston as the leader of the clubhouse.

But you know what they say:

“Sometimes, all it takes is a trip to Sacramento to get your life back on track.”

Bregman was 2 for 4 on the night with an RBI and a run scored, which is exactly the type of production Boston needs from their All-Star third baseman moving forward.

Let’s worry about that opt-out some other time.

For now, the focus needs to be getting back on track at the dish with the postseason on the horizon.

5. Stay hot, Sogard

On Sunday in Arizona with the game tied at 4-4 in the top of ninth, Nick Sogard was responsible for a pinch hit 2-run double to center that gave the Red Sox a 6-4 lead. One batter later, Sogard was scoring the insurance run from second to seal Boston’s 7-4 victory at Chase Field.

One day later, Sogard knocked in Masataka Yoshida in the top of the second to give Boston a 2-0 lead.

Maybe this was just the hometown kid having a little extra juice playing at a ballpark he grew up watching ballgames at. Or maybe this two-game sample size is the beginning of the 28-year-old being an impact depth piece for a team that might need it down the stretch.

6. A quick thought on the Oakland/Sacramento/Las Vegas Athletics

Nick Kurtz is going to run away with AL Rookie of the Year. And before Kurtz got called up in late April, his teammate Jacob Wilson was the early-season favorite to win the award.

On the mound for Oakland on Monday was Luis Morales, who entered the game at 3-0 with a 1.59 ERA through only 5 starts in his first season up in the big leagues.

These are some of baseball’s most exciting young players playing for baseball’s worst run organization from a business perspective.

Will any of these guys still be on the team by the time their new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip is done being built? They say it'll be done for the 2028 season, but do we have any real faith of them hitting this mark?

With the history they have, it absolutely bums me out that the Athletics have sunk so low as a franchise, playing in a minor league ballpark while they figure out moving a franchise unwilling to spend money on the on-field product into a first-of-its-kind stadium in the middle of the desert.

Youth being wasted on a franchise that doesn’t deserve it, who has already killed off a majority of whatever fanbase it had left.

7. Yet another park dominated by Red Sox Nation

Speaking of Sac Town, shout out to the west coast contingent of Red Sox Nation for showing up in a big way at baseball’s weirdest ballpark.

This almost goes without saying, but it always amazes me how frequently Red Sox fans just dominate opposing teams’ home stadiums.

When this team is good, the fans will show up. That goes for Fenway Park, as well as any other ballpark where tickets are sold for live Red Sox baseball.

8. Carlos Narvaez goes 422 to straight away center

What a shot!

The revelation that is Carlos Narvaez is the most under-appreciated storyline of the 2025 season.

The catcher was 2 for 4 on the night, and is back to hitting the way he was when he first burst on the scene earlier this season.

Just another example of a bat that needs to continue stepping up in the absence of Anthony.

9. Keep eating

With Dustin May (7-11, 4.96 ERA) on the mound on Tuesday, the Red Sox are going to need this offense to keep doing its thing in game two of this series.

First pitch set for 10:05 p.m. ET with the A’s throwing lefty Jeffrey Springs (10-10, 4.13).

Stay hungry. Springs will surely be serving up some tasty dishes.

A perfect opportunity for Romy Gonzalez to stretch his hitting streak to 12 games.

Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.