Tag: craig kimbrel

RECAP: Nathan Eovaldi Silents Former Club with Eight Shutout Innings as #RedSox Guarantee Series Win with 4-1 Victory over Yankees.

Nathan Eovaldi has been with the Red Sox for less than two weeks, yet he has already made a bit of a name for himself with his new club.

In his most recent start before today and first in a Red Sox uniform, Eovaldi tossed seven scoreless frames in a winning effort over the Minnesota Twins last Sunday.

Six days and one turn through the rotation later, it was more of the same for the right-hander on Sunday.

Lest we forget, Eovaldi was once a New York Yankee himself. He spent two seasons with the club, posted a 4.45 ERA in 51 total appearances (48 starts), and was released during the 2016 offseason.

How did that factor into Eovaldi’s Saturday? Well, to put it simply, he SILENCED his former team.

Making his 12th start of the season and pitching eight full innings, the Houston native scattered three hits and one walk to go along with four punch outs on the afternoon.

Starting right away in the first, Eovaldi appeared to send a message to the Yankees dugout after what happened the night before by throwing a 76 MPH curveball right by Giancarlo Stanton’s head.

Nothing came as a result of that pitch selection though, and Eovaldi ended up making Stanton look foolish in the same at bat.

With the help of two double plays in the first four innings, the ex-Ray ended up needing just 93 pitches (65 strikes) to pick up his second straight winning decision.

Out of those 93 pitches, Eovaldi relied on his fastball, four-seam and cutter, 73 times on Saturday and topped out at 100.4(!) MPH with the four-seamer in the eighth. He’ll look to build on this successful outing in his next start against the Baltimore Orioles sometime next weekend.

In relief of Eovaldi, Alex Cora, who was congratulated by Dustin Pedroia via text on his first ejection as a manager yesterday, had to turn to his bullpen for one lone inning to wrap this win up.

Having not made an appearance since last Sunday, Craig Kimbrel was the one who got that call for the ninth, and he had a four run lead to protect with three outs to get.

It certainly was no cakewalk, as the Yankees reached base four times and tacked on one run with two outs in the frame off of Kimbrel. But the Red Sox closer buckled down, got Greg Bird to fly out to center field for the third and final out, and secured his team’s 78th win of the season despite not picking up the save.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against a pitcher who had never seen a Major League mound before Saturday in Yankees rookie Chance Adams.

Adams, 23 and ranked as New York’s 13th best prospect, was certainly not awful in his big league debut, but he was not phenomenal either.

Beginning in the first inning, Mitch Moreland greeted the Yankees’ newest hurler by launching a two-run home run 407 feet into the Red Sox bullpen. 2-0 game.

Three innings later, JD Martinez retook the league lead in homers with his 33rd big fly of the season, this one a 390 foot shot pulled by the Red Sox DH into the Monster seats in left field.

Fast forward all the way to the seventh now, with Adams out and AJ Cole in for New York.

With one out and runners on first and second, Sandy Leon provided some late game insurance with an RBI ground-rule double that was initially ruled foul, but was overturned to fair following a lengthy review.

Credit to Alex Cora and the Red Sox video room for challenging that.

Leon’s 20th run driven in of the season would score his team’s fourth and final run of the afternoon, which is all they would need in this one.

Some notes from this win: 

Two starts into his Red Sox tenure, Nathan Eovaldi has thrown 175 total pitches in 15 scoreless frames. That’s just under 12 pitches per inning.

From @SoxNotes: Nathan Eovaldi has allowed 0 runs in 15.0 innings since joining the Red Sox. The last pitcher to begin a Red Sox career with a scoreless streak that long—all as a starter—was Billy Rohr in 1967 (16.0 IP).

This is from last night, but still pretty cool regardless.

—

Two straight 4-1 wins, three straight wins over the Yankees overall, and a 8.5 game lead atop the American League East. That is some serious damage done if you ask me.

Going for the four-game sweep on ESPN tomorrow night, it will be David Price getting the ball for Boston.

Known for his struggles against New York, Price surrendered eight runs in 3.1 innings pitched at Yankee Stadium back on July 1st.

Going up against Price will be Masahiro Tanaka for the Yankees, who owns a lifetime 4.18 ERA in 16 career starts against the Red Sox, with the most recent one coming on May 9th. An outing in which the righty gave up four runs on eight hits in less than six innings pitched. That was not a quality start.

First pitch of the series finale is scheduled for 8:05 PM ET Sunday.

RECAP: Alex Cora Gets Ejected, Steve Pearce Homers Again, and Rick Porcello Tosses Complete Game as #RedSox Take Game Two from Yankees.

One night after taking the opening game of this series against the New York Yankees in blowout fashion on Thursday, the Red Sox were back at it again with another convincing win on Friday.

Rocking the red tops, as is tradition for Friday home games to kickoff the weekend, Rick Porcello had himself a night to remember in one of the biggest games of the season.

Making his 23rd start of the season, Porcello was the only Red Sox hurler to take the mound tonight. He made sure to see this win through to its completion.

Pitching nine full innings, the righty hit the very first batter he saw in Brett Gardner, which led to some drama a few moments later.

After Alex Cora got ejected in the bottom half of the first, which I’ll talk about more down below, Porcello went on to give up just one run on one hit in the final eight frames he appeared in.

That one run, a solo shot off the bat of Yankees’ DH Miguel Andujar on a 0-1 89 MPH changeup in the third, was just about the only mistake the New Jersey native made all evening.

To go along with the lone run, Porcello tied his season-high in strikeouts with nine and sat down the final 21 Yankees he faced to notch his 14th winning decision of the year.

Finishing with an efficient 86 pitches, 79% of which went for strikes, the 10-year veteran relied on his fastball, both two and four-seam, 46 times on the night and topped out at 93.3 MPH with his four-seamer in the second inning.

In two starts against New York at Fenway Park in 2018, the former Cy Young Award winner is 2-0 with zero earned runs in 16 total innings pitched.

He’ll look to build on this success in his next time out, which should come against the Blue Jays up north in Toronto sometime next week.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup may not have put up as many runs as they did on Thursday evening, but they took an early lead and would not have to look back in this win.

Facing off against one of the better pitchers in the American League in Luis Severino, who entered Friday with a 8.84 ERA in his last four starts, Mookie Betts set the tone right away even though he did not reach base.

After Brett Gardner was hit by a pitch in the Yankees half of the first, Severino more than likely retaliated by airing a 96 MPH fastball right by Betts’ head on his first pitch of the night.

Obviously, Mookie, along with the Red Sox dugout, did not take too kindly to that gesture, and Alex Cora ended up getting tossed as a result.

Once the dust settled from that incident and Andrew Benintendi ripped a one out ground-rule double, Steve Pearce, fresh off a three homer game on Thursday, continued to mash by launching ANOTHER home run, this one good for two to put his team’s first runs of the contest on the board.

Three batters later, after Ian Kinsler had singled and swiped second, Eduardo Nunez came through with his second RBI knock in as many days by hitting a bloop single to shallow center to drive in Kinsler from second.

Unfortunately, the newest member of the Red Sox would have to depart from this game with tightness in his left hamstring after he came up gimpy while crossing the plate.

Because of that injury, we did get to see Mookie Betts patrolling a second base, his “natural position”, for the first time since 2014 and made a nice play on the very first ball hit to him in the second.

Anyway, Mitch Moreland, who did not start this game but came in because of the Kinsler injury, wrapped up the scoring for the Red Sox in the fifth, as he drove in JD Martinez from second while collecting his 49th RBI of the season. That made it a 4-1 game and that would be the final score in a game that took two hours and 15 minutes to complete.

Some notes from this win:

The Red Sox are 77-34. They are 7.5 games up on the Yankees in the AL East. Talk about damage.

From @SoxNotes: Rick Porcello is the first Red Sox pitcher to allow 1 or 0 hits in a 9.0-inning complete game against the Yankees since Pedro Martinez did so on September 10, 1999.

—

Having already guaranteed a series split, Nathan Eovaldi gets the start tomorrow afternoon going for the series victory.

A former Yankee, Eovaldi spent two seasons (2015-16) rocking the pinstripes and has only started against New York once in his seven-year career.

He’ll be matched up against rookie Chance Adams for New York, who will be making his big league debut on the biggest stage possible on Saturday.

First pitch of the third game is scheduled for 4:05 PM ET.

 

RECAP: Nathan Eovaldi Twirls Gem in Debut as #RedSox Take Series from Twins with 3-0 Win.

On Wednesday, July 25th, it was announced that the Red Sox had acquired Nathan Eovaldi from the Tampa Bay Rays.

Since he was slated to start for the Rays that day, Eovaldi took in a bullpen session when he arrived in Boston on Thursday morning and was then scheduled to make his first start in a Red Sox uniform on Sunday against the Minnesota Twins.

Having faced the Twins in his second to last start as a Ray and getting lit up for eight earned runs on nine hits back on July 13th, Eovaldi looked more like himself on the Fenway Park mound this afternoon.

In an efficient seven innings pitched, the right-hander held the Twins scoreless while scattering just four hits and zero free passes to go along with five strikeouts.

While he was on the mound, the closest a Twins hitter came to scoring was on a Eddie Rosario double in the first inning. Other than that, it was just singles for Minnesota off of Eovaldi.

The Twins could have made things interesting in the third, but a catch of the year candidate from Jackie Bradley Jr. off a Bobby Wilson fly ball prevented that from happening.

According to Statcast, Bradley Jr. added to his best defensive center fielder in baseball case by covering 78 feet to make a catch that he had a 42% chance of getting to for the first out of the inning.

What was even more impressive about this outing for Eovaldi is how efficient he was and the pace at which he worked out.

Starting out the first two innings by needing 20 and 13 pitches respectively, here is what the 28 year-old’s pitch numbers look like over the last five frames he appeared in: 8, 9, 9, 9, and 14 to reach a total of 82 on the day.

In total, about 77% of those 82 pitches from Eovaldi went for strikes and he topped out at 98.9 MPH with his four-seam fastball in the seventh inning.

Despite such a low pitch count, Alex Cora took a more cautious route by turning to the bullpen for the remainder of today’s contest.

Picking up the win in your first start with a new team is certainly a great first step, and Eovaldi will look to build on this success outing in his next time out against the New York Yankees on Friday.

In relief of Eovaldi, Matt Barnes got the first call out of the Red Sox bullpen, and he worked his way around a leadoff walk to toss a scoreless frame in the eighth.

With his team up by three runs, Craig Kimbrel made his first appearance since blowing the save on Friday night, and he rebounded by notching his 33rd save of the season with a strikeout and a game-ending double play to secure the win.

On the other side of things, JD Martinez was responsible for all three runs the Red Sox scored on Sunday.

Facing off against Minnesota’s ace in righty Jose Berrios, Boston certainly had multiple chances to pile on the runs early, as they loaded the bases three times in the first four innings, but could only came away with three total runs.

Opening up the scoring in the second, with two outs and the bases loaded, JD Martinez drove in his first two runs of the day on a hard hit double to left, scoring both Brock Holt and Mookie Betts to put the Red Sox on the board first.

Two innings later, Martinez struck again, this time for one run, on another hard hit RBI single to drive in Andrew Benintendi, who had doubled off of Berrios minutes before, from second for his team’s third and final run of the contest.

Some notes from this shutout win:

From @SoxNotes: The Red Sox own MLB’s best record (74-33, .692). They are as many as 41 games above .500 for the first time since 1946, when they entered play on September 28 with a 104-48 record.

Blake Swihart started at third base for the first time in his career today. Not only did he extend his hitting streak to nine games with a 2/4 day at the plate, but he also had a nice day patrolling the hot corner.

—

Going into the week fresh off three straight wins, the Red Sox will welcome the first place Philadelphia Phillies into town for a quick two-game set that starts tomorrow.

Starting for the Phillies will be right-hander Aaron Nola, a former first round pick out of Louisiana State University who owns a 2.42 ERA in 21 starts this season and has never faced the Red Sox in his four-year career.

He’ll be matched up against another SEC guy in Vanderbilt alum David Price for Boston.

Coming off 6.1 scoreless innings against the Tigers in Detroit, Price has had struggles against the Phillies over three career starts in his career, but he’ll look to reverse that trend on Monday.

First pitch of the series opener is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET at Fenway Park.

 

RECAP: Mookie Betts Comes Through with Monumental Home Run to Send #RedSox Home with 4-3 Win over Twins in Extras.

Truth be told, I did not have a ton of time to write up this recap of last night’s game, so I’m going to keep it as quick as possible with my three stars of the night and some other notes from this win.

Third Star: Chris Sale

6 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 10 K. 100 pitches (69 nice strikes), extended his scoreless innings streak to 23, picked up his 200th strikeout of 2018 in record-breaking fashion, and lowered his ERA on the season to 2.04.

 

 

 

 

 

Second Star: Rafael Devers

0/3 heading into the bottom half of the ninth, minutes after the Twins had taken a 3-2 lead off of Craig Kimbrel.

Facing off against Minnesota’s closer Fernando Rodney, crushes a 2-1 94 MPH fastball into the Red Sox bullpen to send this game into extras. 112.1 MPH off the bat on his 15th big fly of the season.

First Star: Mookie Betts

Who else? First at bat of the bottom of the tenth. Second pitch of the at bat. Launches a 89 MPH fastball off of Twins reliever Matt Belisle to send everyone at Fenway home happy with the 4-3 win.

Honorable Mentions: Jackie Bradley Jr. & Steve Pearce

Jackie Bradley Jr. put the Red Sox on the board in the fifth with his eighth home run of the season, good for two runs.

Steve Pearce, after a defensive miscue in the seventh, redeemed himself a few minutes later by starting and finishing an inning ending 3-6-3 double play.

All and all, with the 4-3 win on Friday, the Red Sox avoided their first three game losing streak since the end of April. The bullpen certainly was not great for the second night in a row, but the team was able to come through regardless.

At 72-33 on the year now, Boston now holds a five game lead over the New York Yankees in the AL East thanks to their game against the Royals getting rained out yesterday.

Looking to even up the season series at three games a piece, Rick Porcello takes the hill for the Red Sox later tonight. He’ll be matched up against another righty in the Twins’ Jake Odorizzi, a pitcher Boston should be familiar with given the five seasons he spent with the Tampa Bay Rays.

First pitch of the third game of the series is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET on Saturday.

RECAP: Rick Porcello Bounces Back with Six Scoreless Innings as #RedSox Improve to 40 Games over .500 on the Season.

Following a three-game series win over the Detroit Tigers this past weekend, the Red Sox headed east to take on a Baltimore Orioles team with the worst record in all of baseball.

Weather was an issue for the second straight day, as this game saw two separate rain delays, but that did not stop Monday night’s starter from having a solid night on the mound.

Rick Porcello, coming off his worst outing in his last time out against the Blue Jays prior to the All-Star break, looked much more like himself last night. Granted, his opponent was a team with the second worst offense in the American League in terms of run production, but still, Porcello looked like the pitcher we have grown to become familiar with.

In six full innings pitched, the righty scattered six hits and one walk to go along with six strikeouts while holding the O’s scoreless.

Despite not having one 1-2-3 frame in his 21st start of the season, Porcello worked around the minimal traffic he had created for himself and escaped any potential damage.

In the third, Baltimore nearly struck for their first run of the night, but an Andrew Benintendi to Xander Bogaerts to Sandy Leon relay to get Jace Peterson out at home for the final out prevented that from happening.

The second closest the Orioles came to scoring a run off the New Jersey native came in the bottom half of the fourth, when with one out in the inning, Adam Jones, who had led things off with single and advanced to second on a ground out, was awarded third base because of a balk.

Although it was not entirely clear and the umpires did gather to discuss what had taken place, Jones remained at third base with a golden scoring opportunity for Baltimore on the horizon.

Thankfully, Porcello bounced back by fanning the next two batters he faced to get out of the jam and keep his team in front by one run.

Finishing with 90 pitches (55 strikes) on the night and improving to 12-4 on the season, the weather more than likely played a role in how deep Porcello went into this game. A las, six scoreless innings is six scoreless innings.

Out of those 90 pitches, the 29 year-old hurler relied on his two-seam and four-seam fastballs a combined 53% of the time on Monday while topping out at 92.4 MPH with his four-seamer on his eighth pitch of the game.

Lowering his ERA below four at 3.93, Porcello will look to build off this successful start in his next time out, which will more than likely come against the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.

From the middle of the seventh inning on, the Red Sox bullpen initially have a five run lead to protect, but the Orioles made things a bit interesting towards the end of this one.

With the help of Jackie Bradley Jr., Ryan Brasier went on to toss a scoreless frame in that seventh inning.

Brandon Workman got the call for the eighth, and he put an end to the Red Sox shut out by surrendering a two-run home run to Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop to make it a 5-2 game. Second straight appearance in which he has served up a home run.

In a rain-filled ninth inning, Craig Kimbrel, despite getting hit fairly hard, gave up one run en route to notching his 32nd save of the year, ensuring his teams 71st win in the process.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against a pitcher they have already beaten up on this season in the Orioles’ Kevin Gausman.

Gausman, 27, started against Boston back on May 17th and got walloped for six runs on eight hits, including two home runs, in a losing effort at Fenway Park.

Last night, the righty out of LSU was not much better against a team he has routinely struggled against in his six-year career.

Starting in the second inning, Mitch Moreland kicked off the scoring for the Red Sox by mashing his 12th long ball of the season, a 412 foot shot to make it a 1-0 game early.

Fast forward to the fifth inning, and a leadoff double off the bat of Xander Bogaerts got a four-run rally started for Boston.

After Brock Holt advanced Bogaerts to third by grounding out to second, a chain of three straight walks drawn by the Red Sox 7-8-9 hitters allowed Bogaerts to easily stroll in from third and out his team on the board for the second time.

Two batters later, Andrew Benintendi went to the opposite field and drove in a pair of runs for the second day in a row on a ground-rule double to make it a 4-0 game. That was how Gausman’s night came to an end as he eventually got hit with his eighth loss of the season.

Following a pitching change that saw Miguel Castro, another righty, take over for Gausman, JD Martinez wrapped up the scoring for the Red Sox by collecting his 82nd RBI of the year on a hard hit infield single that plated Jackie Bradley Jr. from third to put his team up 5-0.

Despite getting out hit to go along with a valiant comeback effort from the Orioles to cut the Red Sox lead from five runs down to two, they did hold on to win, as I have previously mentioned, their 71st game in 102 tries.

Some notes from this win:

With a seventh inning single, Mookie Betts extended his on-base streak to 23 games.

Mitch Moreland hit his first home run last night since June 24th when he hit one against the Seattle Mariners.

Andrew Benintendi owns a 1.110 OPS with eight RBI in the month of July.

Finally, from @SoxNotes: The Red Sox’ 71 wins are their most ever through the first 102 games of a season.

Boston is 40 games above .500 (71-31) for the first time since the 1949 club was a season-best 96-56.

The Sox are a season-best 6.0 games ahead of the Yankees in the AL East.

—

Going for the series win later tonight, it will be Drew Pomeranz making his return to the Red Sox rotation for his first appearance in a Boston uniform since May 31st.

With a 6.81 ERA and 1.84 WHIP in eight games started this season, Pomeranz will be matched up against Orioles rookie Yefry Ramirez, who gave up three runs in 4.1 innings pitched in his first ever start against the Red Sox back on June 13th.

First pitch of the middle game is scheduled for 7:05 PM ET Tuesday, if the weather holds up.

RECAP: David Price Has Nice Start in Return from All-Star Break as #RedSox Win 69th Game of Season.

After enjoying a brief four days off while All-Star festivities were taking place in Washington D.C., the Red Sox were back at it on Friday night to take on a below average Tigers team in Detroit, Michigan.

As a unit, Boston was essentially firing on all units heading into the break, as they entered last night winners of six of their last seven games, so it was going to be interesting to see how they would respond after nearly a week of no baseball.

Making his 20th start of the season and coming off an outing in which he held the Toronto Blue Jays to three runs in nearly seven innings back on July 12th, David Price was once again matched up against a former team of his on Friday.

For Price, it really was a tale of two halves in this start. Through the first three innings, the lefty was perfect. Nine up, nine down, with the ninth out coming on this fantastic catch from JD Martinez in right field.

Couldn’t ask for much better there, but things got shaky for Price when the Tigers lineup got their second look at him starting in the fourth.

Back-to-back leadoff singles from Tigers infielders Niko Goodrum and Jeimer Candelario followed by an infield single off the bat of Nick Castellanos that deflected off of Price’s glove put the Tennessee native in his first jam of the night.

With the bases loaded for Detroit, Price managed to get out of the stressful situation by retiring the next three batters he faced, but it came at a cost.

Yes, as Andrew Benintendi caught a fly ball off the bat of John Hicks for the first out of the frame, an awry throw back into the infield to prevent the runner on third from tagging up created some confusion.

While it appeared Candelario was caught in a rundown between second and third, Brock Holt ended up being the recipient of a cleat to the right knee, as Candelario got him with his spike as he was sliding back into second with Holt covering the bag.

Replaced by Tzu-Wei Lin, Holt was later diagnosed with a right knee contusion, so it does not look like the Red Sox utility man will miss any significant time.

Anyway, Price somehow managed to escape that inning without getting seriously roughed up by a team that struggles to score runs, and went on to retire seven of the last 10 batters he faced.

After getting the first out of the seventh and hitting Leonys Martin with a pitch, the 32 year-old hurler was replaced in favor of Heath Hembree.

Finishing with 96 pitches (65 strikes) on the night, Price relied on his cutter the most, as he went to it approximately 32% of the time on Friday while also topping out at 94.4 MPH with it in the fifth inning.

At 11-6 on the season now, Price will look to build on what was no doubt his best start of July in his next time out, which should come against the Baltimore Orioles next Wednesday.

In relief of Price, the aforementioned Heath Hembree was inserted into this game with a runner on first and one out in the bottom half of the seventh. He needed just seven pitches to strike out the only two batters he faced to send this thing to the eighth.

Seemingly taking the main set up man role from Joe Kelly, Matt Barnes got the call for the eighth inning, and like he has done so much as of late, shut the door on the opposition.

It certainly was not an easy task, as the UCONN product struck out the first two batters he faced, but could only get one actual out due to two wild pitches on both strike threes.

Despite that, Barnes escaped the inning without surrendering a run and with the help of perhaps his best curveball of the season, picked up his 20th hold.

Finally, in the ninth, after not appearing in his seventh All-Star Game this past Tuesday, Craig Kimbrel came in, allowed the tying run to reach base with one out, retired the next two batters he faced, and picked up his 31st save of the season to ensure the 1-0 win.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup could not do much against a mediocre Tigers pitching staff, but luckily, they did not need to.

Facing off against lefty Matthew Boyd for Detroit, who in his only other start against Boston this season surrendered two earned runs in 6.1 innings pitched back on June 7th, the Red Sox could only manage one run on the entire night.

That lone run came in the top of the first, when with one out and runners on first and second, Steve Pearce came through with a line drive RBI double to left field, scoring Andrew Benintendi from second and making it a 1-0 game.

Other than that, the team certainly had other opportunities to tack some insurance runs on the board, like in the sixth and seventh innings, but could only strand runners in scoring position in what turned out to be a very tight win.

Some notes from this win:

The Red Sox have a nice 69-30 record and own a 5.5 game lead over the New York Yankees in the American League East.

The Red Sox are 11-2 in David Price’s last 13 starts. Over that span, Price owns a 3.72 ERA and .239 BAA in 77.1 innings pitched.

Since joining the Red Sox on June 29th, Steve Pearce is slashing .433/.500/.700 with one home run and six RBI in 11 games played.

In his last 10 appearances, Matt Barnes has surrendered just one run in 10.1 innings pitched while holding opponents to a .419 OPS.

—

With game number 100 on deck, it will be a starting pitching matchup featuring Brian Johnson for the Red Sox and Mike Fiers for the Tigers. Fiers, a righty, has faced Boston three times in his career and owns a 2.76 ERA in those appearances.

Since rejoining the rotation on June 28th, Johnson has been a stable option in three starts. The lefty owns a 3.38 ERA over that stretch, and the Red Sox are undefeated in those three games.

First pitch of the middle game is scheduled for 6:10 PM ET.

Recapping the All-Star Game from a #RedSox Perspective.

In what turned out to be a record-setting 8-6 win for the American League in last night’s MLB All-Star Game, I thought I would break down how the five Red Sox representatives contributed to the victory.

Chris Sale

Making his third consecutive start for the American League on Tuesday night, Sale was responsible for just the first inning of the 89th Midsummer Classic. Appearing in the bottom half of the first, the lefty surrendered a leadoff single to Cubs infielder Javy Baez on his very first pitch, then retired the last three batters, Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Freddie Freeman, on eight pitches, including this nasty 83 MPH slider to fan Goldschmidt for the second out.

Finishing with nine pitches (seven strikes), Sale did not factor into the decision, but he did electrify with a four-seam fastball that topped out at 100.7 MPH, which according to the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, is “the hardest tracked pitch velocity he’s had since 2010.”

Sale will look to build on a successful first half in his next scheduled start against the Tigers in Detroit on Sunday.

Mookie Betts & JD Martinez

The other two starters for Boston, Betts and Martinez had five at bats between them, and Martinez was the only one who managed a hit, as he ripped a two out single off of Max Scherzer in the first inning.

The dynamic duo also struck out three times while failing to drive in a run, so they really did nothing for themselves in terms of making a case for the game’s MVP.

Mitch Moreland

A pleasant surprise, Moreland entered this game in the sixth inning as a defensive replacement for White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu.

A first time All-Star, Moreland struck out in his first at bat against Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez in the seventh, but followed that up by singling in his next two at bats while seeing the win for the American League through until the end.

Looking at the final box score, no one on either roster had more hits than Moreland, so congrats to him on that.

Craig Kimbrel

Per Kimbrel himself, he was not available to pitch last night after the workload he has had recently. Makes sense.

After the American League took home an 8-6 win in 10 innings, former Red Sox draft pick and current Astros third baseman Alex Bregman was named the game’s Most Valuable Player thanks to his go-ahead home run in that 10th and final frame.

—

Having the next two days off, the Red Sox will be back at it once again this weekend, as they head to Detroit to take on a 41-57 Tigers team. David Price gets the nod against his former team in the series opener. He’ll be matched up against another lefty in the Tigers’ Matthew Boyd. First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET.

RECAP: Xander Bogaerts Homers Again as #RedSox Close out First Half with 68th Win of Season.

On the last day before hitting the All-Star break, the Red Sox were looking to end the first half of their season on a positive note by taking three out of four games from the Toronto Blue Jays.

Making his first start for the team since July 3rd, Brian Johnson returned from the disabled list in effective fashion on Sunday afternoon.

In just over four innings pitched, the lefty surrendered two runs on two hits and four walks while tying a season-high in strikeouts with five on the day.

Four walks in that short of an outing usually is not a good sign for a pitcher, but Johnson found himself working his away around them to avoid anything too detrimental.

In fact, the only real costly mistake the Florida native made came in the third inning, when with one out and a runner at second, Johnson left a 0-1, 76 MPH curveball on the inner half of the plate, and Jays outfielder Teoscar Hernandez made him pay for it, as he sent it 349 feet into the Monster seats for a two-run shot, tying the game at two runs a piece.

Following that home run though, Johnson proceeded to retire seven of the final eight batters he faced, and with two outs in the top half of the fifth and Hernandez due up for Toronto, got the hook in favor of Brandon Workman.

Finishing with a final pitch count of 84 (52 strikes), the 27 year-old hurler relied on his four-seam fastball just over 51% of the time on Sunday, and topped out at 92 MPH with it in the first inning.

Since rejoining the Red Sox rotation on June 28th against the Angels, Johnson has yet to go deeper than five innings in three outings, yet the Red Sox are unbeaten in all three of those starts.

In relief of Johnson, as I had previously mentioned, Brandon Workman got the first call out of the Red Sox bullpen. Needing one out to close out the top half of the fifth, Workman struck out the only batter he faced, Hernandez, on seven pitches.

From that point on, despite a more than welcome amount of traffic on the base paths, Tyler Thornburg, Ryan Brasier, and Heath Hembree all tossed a scoreless inning of relief each, setting up Craig Kimbrel for the save opportunity with a three-run lead to work with in the ninth.

Making his last appearance out of the Red Sox bullpen before heading to Washington DC for his seventh All-Star Game, Kimbrel notched his 30th save of the season by pitching a 1-2-3 ninth inning, including two straight punch outs to close this thing out and secure his teams 68th win of the year.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against a familiar foe in Blue Jays righty Marcus Stroman.

Never trailing in this game, Xander Bogaerts stayed red-hot and started off the scoring with his 16th home run of the season, a solo shot sent 423 feet over the Monster, to put the Red Sox on the board first.

Four batters later, after JD Martinez drew a seven pitch walk and Mitch Moreland reached first on a fielding error, Brock Holt came through with his first of two RBI knocks on the day, as he scored Martinez from third on a hard-hit bloop single to center field, putting the Red Sox up 2-0 early.

After Toronto came back to tie things back up again in the third, a Sandy Leon leadoff double in the fifth got a mini rally started for the Red Sox.

Following that up with a double of his own of off Stroman, Jackie Bradley Jr. drove in the go-ahead run while also collecting his 31st RBI of the season and giving his team a one run lead they would not have to look back from.

That was followed by a Mookie Betts flyout that allowed Bradley to tag up and advance to third, setting up another prime scoring chance.

Looking for his second RBI of the day, Xander Bogaerts managed to drive in Bradley from third by hitting a comebacker that got a piece of Stroman’s knee. The Blue Jays were able to recover and get the out at first, but the Red Sox had a two-run cushion to work with now.

In the sixth, Brock Holt wrapped up the scoring for the Red Sox with another RBI single, this one just out of the reach of Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis, as Mitch Moreland came in to score from second to put Boston up 5-2.

Some notes from this win:

From @SoxNotes: The Red Sox are 4.5 games ahead of the Yankees, their largest lead of the season.

The Sox have won 12 of their last 13 games and are 17-3 in their last 20.

This is the first time since 2007 that Boston enters the All-Star break with MLB’s best record (68-30, .694).

In the month of July, Xander Bogaerts owns an OPS of 1.154.

Over his last six games, Jackie Bradley Jr. is hitting .333 with five extra-base hits and five RBI.

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With the next four days off, the Red Sox will resume their season schedule next Friday, as they open up a six game road trip starting in Detroit.

Starting pitchers for that series have yet to be officially announced by the team yet, but for the Tigers, it will be Matthew Boyd, Mike Fiers, and Michael Fulmer getting the start for the upcoming weekend series.

Before then, let’s just enjoy watching our five All-Stars in the nation’s capital on Tuesday.

RECAP: Mookie Betts Blasts Monumental Grand Slam in Tenth Straight Win for #RedSox.

Coming off a sweep of the Texas Rangers, the Red Sox welcomed the fourth place Toronto Blue Jays into town for one last series before reaching the All-Star Break. In search of their tenth consecutive victory, David Price got the nod in what was simply an important night for the left hander.

Making his 19th start of the season, and third of what has been a frustrating month of July, David Price looked for some retribution in his last appearance in this opening half of the season.

Pitching into the seventh inning of this one, the lefty surrendered three runs, all earned, on six hits while recording eight strikeouts on the night.

In what was an otherwise impressive start for Price, the only thing that truly bit him was, once again, the home run ball.

Starting in the top half of the first, he tried to sneak a 0-1 93 MPH fastball by Teoscar Hernandez with two outs in the inning. Hernandez, one of Toronto’s best power hitters, took that fastball and sent it 434 feet, the farthest hit ball of the night, to the center field bleachers, putting the Jays up 2-0 early.

After that blast, Price did settle down and retire 16 of the next 18 batters he faced going into the top half of the seventh.

To leadoff that seventh inning, Kendrys Morales greeted Price by launching another home run, this one cutting the Red Sox lead to two runs.

Again, Price bounced back by retiring the next two batters he faced before Alex Cora came to get him with a 2/2 Devon Travis due up next for the Blue Jays.

In total, the Tennessee native pitched 6.2 innings, the deepest he has gone into a game since June 26th, and did not walk, or hit, a single batter in what turned out to be his 10th winning decision of the season.

Finishing with a final pitch count of 103 (76 strikes), the 32 year-old hurler relied on his changeup the most on Thursday, as he went to it 34% of the time resulting in nine swinging strikes. He only went to his four-seam fastball a total of 12 times, and actually topped out at 93.5 MPH with his two-seamer in the third inning of his start.

Overall, putting David Price’s first half of the season into words is no easy task. We’ve seen how great he can be at times, and we have also seen how nonexistent on the mound he can be at times. For the remaining 64 games left on the schedule following the break, hopefully we see a David Price that is ready to positively contribute to a team heading towards postseason contention.

In relief of Price, Brandon Workman got the first call out of the Red Sox bullpen, and after giving up a single to the aforementioned Devon Travis, retired the side in the top half of the seventh by getting Yangervis Solarte to line out to Mookie Betts in right field.

Over the final two innings of last night’s contest, Matt Barnes got hit decently hard by the top of the Jays lineup, as he allowed them to creep a little closer by making it a 6-4 game, but rallied with two huge strikeouts to retire the side and prevent any additional damage.

And in the ninth, on the day after recording a four-out save against the Rangers, Craig Kimbrel shut the door on Toronto in a clean frame of work, with none other than Mookie Betts, who we’ll get to momentarily, catching the final out to ensure Kimbrel’s 29th save and his team’s 66th win of the season in 6-4 fashion.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against an All-Star pitcher in the Blue Jays’ JA Happ.

Similar to Bartolo Colon, Happ, 35 has been doing this pitching thing for a while, and he proved why he is an All-Star this season by shutting down Boston’s bats over the first three innings on Thursday night.

The bottom of the fourth inning, though, well, that is where things started to drastically change for the better.

With one out in the frame and Xander Bogaerts at first following a line drive single, it appeared as if Brock Holt had grounded into a force out at second base on a failed double play by the Blue Jays. After further review however, it was determined that Toronto’s second baseman, Devon Travis, never applied the force at second, meaning Bogaerts was actually safe.

So, the Red Sox video room saw that from their vantage point, contacted the dugout, and Alex Cora ended up with a winning challenge, meaning both Bogaerts and Holt were safe with only one out in the inning.

Following that bit of craziness, an infield single from Eduardo Nunez loaded the bases for the Red Sox, and Sandy Leon came through first with an RBI force out that allowed Bogaerts to score from third.

After Jackie Bradley Jr. drew a six pitch walk to reload the bases, Mookie Betts went ahead and had one of the more dramatic at bats these eyes have seen.

Lasting 13 pitches total, Betts fouled off SEVEN pitches from Happ and watched three go for balls to eventually fill the count at 3-2.

On the 13th pitch of the endeavor, the Red Sox outfielder must have had enough, because he took a 95 MPH fastball from Happ and pulverized it 407 feet over the Green Monster for his second grand slam of the season.

Just Betts’ reaction alone is something else.

Never mind the fact that he just capped off one of, if not the best at bat of the season with a GRAND SLAM, good for his 23rd homer of the season, too.

That is how All-Stars are made, and that is how JA Happ’s night would end for Toronto in an inning he needed 46 pitches to record two outs in.

Fast forward to the seventh inning now, and it was Betts coming up big again, as he delivered what turned out to be a very important insurance run by driving in Jackie Bradley Jr. on an RBI single off the Monster, making it a 6-3 game to pretty much put this thing out of reach.

Some notes from this win:

Injury related: Steve Pearce had to exit from Thursday night’s contest after taking a 94 MPH fastball of his left shin in the first inning. He’s been diagnosed with a left shin contusion and is day-to-day.

The Red Sox have now won 10 games in a row, marking their longest such streak this season. Here are some nuggets from @SoxNotes pertaining to that streak:

At 66-29 (.695), the Red Sox are 37 games over .500 for the first time since 1949.

They are 38-15 (.717) in their last 53 games, including 17-3 (.850) in their last 20.

Boston’s 10-game winning streak is the club’s longest since September 2016 (11 games).

Just saying, but that is pretty good.

In the month of July, Mookie Betts is slashing .409/.490/.705 with three home runs and eight RBI. He is currently in the midst of a 10 game hitting streak.

—

Going for their 11th straight win later tonight, it will be Rick Porcello getting the ball for the Red Sox. Following a so-so outing against the Kansas City Royals this past Sunday, I’m sure Porcello will be wanting to end his first half on a positive note against a team he has pitched well against this season.

He’ll be matched up against lefty Ryan Borucki, who in his rookie year with the Blue Jays, owns a 2.25 ERA in his first three career starts.

First pitch of the second game is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET.

RECAP: Eduardo Rodriguez Bounces Back with Six Shutout Innings as #RedSox Complete Sweep of Nationals on Independence Day.

After dropping two out of three to the Yankees in New York to start a nine-game road trip, the Red Sox had the opportunity to improve to 4-2 on the trip yesterday thanks to two straight wins over the Washington Nationals in DC.

Making his 17th start of the season and coming off back-to-back poor outings against the Mariners and Yankees, Eduardo Rodriguez toed the rubber for his first time ever at Nationals Park.

In six quality innings pitched, the lefty failed to surrender a single run as he held the Nationals to just three hits and one walk while fanning six on the day. If it weren’t for his spot in the order due up in the top half of the seventh, I’d like to think Rodriguez could have gone even deeper, but considering that the Red Sox were threatening with runners in scoring position, I understand the decision to pinch-hit Andrew Benintendi in that spot.

Regardless, the Venezuela native only needed 84 pitches (54 strikes) to get through those six scoreless innings, and he really dazzled to pick up his 10th winning decision of the season.

Out of those 84 pitches Rodriguez went to his deadly changeup a total of 26 times, which resulted in five swinging strikes, one called strike, and seven balls in play. He also topped out at 95.7 MPH with his four-seam fastball in the fourth inning.

Building off a successful start to the new month, the 25-year-old hurler will look to carry over this new-found momentum in his next start, which should come back at Fenway Park against the Texas Rangers on Tuesday.

In relief of Rodriguez, the Red Sox bullpen carried on and completed the shutout with three scoreless frames of their own. Matt Barnes, Joe Kelly, and Craig Kimbrel locked down their teams 59th win of the season, and in doing so, Kimbrel, despite allowing the tying run to come to the plate, notched his 26th save of 2018.

On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was limited in what they could do yesterday and that was mostly because of a solid performance out of the Nationals bullpen.

In fact, Washington’s starter for this series finale, Erick Fedde, had to leave in the second inning with what was later diagnosed as right shoulder inflammation. That really did not matter though, because the Red Sox failed to plate a run until the top half of the seventh.

Going into the frame with this thing still tied, Rafael Devers got the rally started with a leadoff double off of Nats reliever Ryan Madson. Two batters later, after Devers had moved up to third on a Eduardo Nunez single, Jackie Bradley Jr. came through with the clutch sacrifice fly to finally put the Red Sox on the board.

Two batters later, with Andrew Benintendi pinch-hitting for Eduardo Rodriguez, a wild pitch on ball four from Madson allowed Eduardo Nunez, who had advanced to third on that Bradley sac fly, to easily score and put his team up by two runs.

Fast forward to the ninth, and another Jackie Bradley Jr. RBI, this one coming on a double to score Eduardo Nunez all the way from first, pretty much put this game away from the Red Sox by putting them up 3-0.

One note from this W:

It is July 5th and the Red Sox are 30 games over .500. That is all.

—

With a trip to Kansas City up next on the schedule, the Red Sox will find themselves enjoying a day off on Thursday before kicking off a three-game weekend series against the lowly Royals on Friday. Chris Sale, who owns a career 3.16 ERA in 16 games at Kauffman Stadium, gets the ball for the opener. He’ll be matched up against veteran righty Jason Hammel for the Royals. First pitch of the first game on Friday is scheduled for 8:15 PM ET.

Also, happy belated Independence Day.