Hours before he delivered a 10th inning walk-off single to give Boston one of its biggest wins of the season, Rob Refsnyder gave his Red Sox teammates a badly needed pep talk to help them find their mojo amidst one of the most difficult stretches of the season.

The message: Don’t be afraid to play your game.

“He understands where we’re at as a team and obviously with the day today he felt like he needed to tell them you can breathe, you can play with joy,” manager Alex Cora said. “Don’t be afraid to mess up, if you get thrown out you get thrown out, let’s play aggressively.”

Having lost four straight and facing the prospect of being without leadoff hitter Jarren Duran, Refsnyder pulled some teammates aside shortly after arriving at the ballpark and implored them to play with the fearlessness that got the Red Sox back into the playoff hunt in the first place.

“We’ve been playing our best baseball when our young guys are being electric on the basepaths, playing aggressive and things like that,” Refsnyder said. “I think that’s our identity this year, and sometimes when you lose a couple of games in a row you get a little passive and I wanted the young guys to push the envelope.

“They’re so vital to our offense,” he continued. “(David) Hamilton was leading off today, (Ceddanne) Rafaela’s been outstanding, just making sure those guys, and (Connor) Wong, and other guys, just keep pushing the envelope and I think our brand of baseball has been running the base paths hard and things like that. I think to get to the postseason you can’t be scared to make mistakes, we have to just play the way we’ve been playing the last couple of weeks, so that’s all I wanted to say.”

Since his arrival in 2022 Refsnyder has become one of the Red Sox most respected veteran leaders. The 34-year-old outfielder has thrived in his role as a lefty killer off the bench, and lately he’s also taken many of the club’s younger players under his wing.

Among those players is Jarren Duran, to whom Refsnyder has become something of a big brother figure. With Duran suspended for two games due to a homophobic remark he made on Sunday, Refsnyder acknowledged that the past couple of days have been extremely difficult, but that while Duran made a terrible mistake the team will be there to support him as he strives to become better.

“We all love Jarren, Jarren’s our brother and he’ll learn from this. We’re all human though. I like to say that, we’re all human, we all make mistakes, but he’ll learn from this,” Refsnyder said. “I think you’ve all gotten to know Jarren over the past couple of years and he’s a great kid, he’s got a great heart, he’ll learn from it and I think he’ll be a better man for it. At the end of the day … we all love him, we’re here to support him and whatever he needs from us we’ll be there for him.”