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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Originally scheduled for 1:10 PM ET, the Sunday series finale between the Red Sox and Tigers did not get underway until about 2:45 in the afternoon. Luckily for us, Chris Sale still put on a show against an opponent he is seen plenty of times over his nine-year career.
In his 21st start of the season on Sunday, Sale, as he has done so often recently, dominated.
Tossing six full innings, the lefty held Detroit scoreless while scattering two hits, hitting one batter, and punching out nine, which is actually his lowest strikeout total since June 13th. Regardless, he still tossed a gem and was rarely put in any stressful situations.
Finishing with 99 pitches (73 strikes), Sale retired the first eight batters he faced in order. It was not until, with two outs in the third, Tigers left fielder Victor Reyes lined a single to left field for his teams first hit of the day.
The only other hit Detroit could come across with the Florida native on the mound came an inning later, when with one out, Nick Castellanos ripped a double to right center field, nearly got tagged out by Xander Bogaerts while heading to second base, but made it just in time to put a runner in scoring position.
Thankfully, Sale recovered by retiring the next two hitters he faced to strand the runner at second, although he did need 17 pitches to do so.
Out of those aforementioned 99 pitches, Sale relied on his four-seam fastball/slider combination approximately 85% of the time in the six innings he appeared in, which resulted in 17 total swinging strikes. The fastest Sale’s four-seamer was clocked in at was 98.6 MPH on his 58th pitch of the game.
Improving to 11-4 on the season now, Sale will look to build on yet another successful outing and win in his next time out, which should come against the Minnesota Twins back at home on Friday.
In relief of Sale, the Red Sox bullpen had a comfortable nine run lead to work with going into the bottom half of the seventh inning.
Making his first appearance since the All-Star break, Brandon Workman ended the shutout by serving up a solo homer to Tigers third baseman Jeimer Candelario in the lone frame he appeared in.
Joe Kelly got the call for the eighth inning with the chance to get some of his confidence back. Despite loading the bases, the Tigers failed to score a run off the hard throwing righty, as Jackie Bradley Jr. ran down a deep fly ball off the bat of Candelario for the third and final out to retire the side. Not the prettiest outing from Kelly, as he only threw strikes 48% of the time, but a scoreless one nonetheless.
The bottom half of the ninth was a completely different story for the Red Sox. With Tyler Thornburg pitching less than 24 hours after getting shelled, the righty reliever needed just seven pitches, all of which were strikes, to retire the only three batters he faced to close out the 9-0 win. They mentioned on the broadcast that Thornburg had said he is feeling more and more like himself on the mound, and what he did today certainly helped that cause.
On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against the second lefty they had seen in three days. Blaine Hardy, 31, has seen time as both a starter and a reliever with the Tigers this season, and had already made a start against Boston back on June 6th, a start in which he gave up five runs in six innings pitched.
That would not be the case on Sunday though, as the Tigers starter only pitched into the fourth inning before getting that hook.
Over those 3+ frames, the Red Sox tacked on their first two runs of the day on back-to-back RBI groundouts from Rafael Devers and Eduardo Nunez in the second.
Two innings later, leadoff hits from Steve Pearce and Xander Bogaerts, followed by Rafael Devers reaching first on a fielder’s choice meant that the bases were loaded for Eduardo Nunez.
After Hardy was replaced by Tigers reliever Drew VerHagen, Nunez grounded an RBI single that scored Steve Pearce from third. As the ball deflected off the third baseman’s glove however, some confusion was created and Rafael Devers ended up getting tagged out in between second and third.
With one out in the fourth now and runners on the corners, Jackie Bradley Jr. came through with his second hit of the day, a 390 foot three-run opposite field blast hit to left field for his seventh of the season. 6-0 game.
Fast forward to the seventh, and Andrew Benintendi picked up his only hit of the day on a one out, two RBI triple off of Tigers pitcher Daniel Stumpf to score both Sandy Leon and Mookie Betts to make it a 8-0 game.
One pitching change later, JD Martinez drove in Benintendi from third in the process of picking up his 81st RBI of the season on a sac fly to right field. Ninth and final run on the board, and that turned out to be more than enough for the Red Sox to pick up their league leading 70th win of the year.
Some notes from this win:
Over his last five starts, Chris Sale is 5-0 with a 0.23 ERA and 0.55 WHIP in 40 innings pitched. Also important to note:
Chris Sale through 21 starts:
2017: 148.1 IP, 2,311 pitches, 20 starts with 100+ pitches.
2018: 135 IP, 2,124 pitches, 12 starts with 100+ pitches.
In 13 games with the Red Sox, Steve Pearce owns an OPS of 1.099.
Jackie Bradley Jr. is slashing .265/.327/.469 with one home run and 12 RBI in 14 games this month.
—
Improving to 26-6 in series finales on the season, the Red Sox will head to Baltimore to wrap up this quick six-game road trip. Going up against a dismal 28-72 Orioles team, Rick Porcello will get the start for the series opener on Monday.
He’ll be matched up against fellow righty Kevin Gausman for Baltimore, who surrendered six runs on eight hits in his only other start against Boston this season back on May 17th.
First pitch of the first game is scheduled for 7:05 PM ET on Monday.
The #RedSox today placed 3B Rafael Devers on the 10-day disabled list with left shoulder inflammation, retroactive to July 11. To fill Devers’ spot on the 25-man roster, the club recalled INF Tzu-Wei Lin from Triple-A Pawtucket.
After sitting out last night’s game in favor of Eduardo Nunez, the Red Sox announced today that third baseman Rafael Devers has been placed on the 10-day disabled list with left shoulder inflammation, meaning he will miss the remaining four games against the Toronto Blue Jays before the All-Star Break.
Prior to this roster move, Devers was actually in a bit of a slump at the plate. If you go back to his five-hit night against the Yankees on June 30th, the Dominican native was slashing just .138/.265/.172 with two RBI in eight games since then.
In what is his first full year in the big leagues, this season has provided plenty of ups and downs for the young Red Sox infielder. Given the fact this injury does not appear to be all that serious, I would expect that Devers would be ready to go by the time Boston opens up a three-game series in Detroit following the break.
As the above tweet mentions, infielder Tzu-Wei Lin has been recalled from Triple A Pawtucket to take the place of Devers on the 25-man roster.
First pitch of tonight’s game against the Blue Jays (Happ v. Price) is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET.
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.
David Price and the New York Yankees. Name a more disastrous duo.
Yes, on a night where the Red Sox could have left the Bronx with a two game lead in the American League East pennant race, David Price came up extremely short.
Known for his struggles at Yankee Stadium since signing with Boston prior to the 2016 season, Price certainly did not do himself any favors yesterday.
Lasting just 3.1 innings, the lefty was walloped for EIGHT earned runs on nine hits, with five of those being home runs, while only recording three strikeouts.
In a 25-pitch first inning, the Yankees reached base four times off of Price, and got four runs out of it. The first of those four came on an Aaron Judge 409 foot blast to center field for the first run of the game. The other three runs came three batters later on one swing of the bat from rookie second baseman Gleyber Torres, who, on a 93 MPH two-seam fastball from Price, belted his 15th long ball of the season 380 feet to right field to put his team up by a bunch early.
An inning later, the Yankees struck again with another homer, this one coming from center fielder Aaron Hicks on a two-run shot, his first of three on the night.
After a surprising scoreless frame in the third, things got ugly for Price in an inning he would not be able to finish.
To truly show how miserable of a night the Vanderbilt alum had, just look at the events that transpired in the bottom half of the fourth.
First batter of the inning, Kyle Higashioka, 0/22 to start his career, takes Price deep to left for his first big league hit and home run on a 1-2 89 MPH cutter. 7-0 Yankees.
Two batters later, Aaron Hicks, career .208 hitter against Price prior to yesterday’s contest, blasts his second homer 373 feet to dead center. 8-0 Yankees and that is what put an end to David Price’s awful outing.
Finishing with a pitch count of only 71 (51 strikes), the 32 year-old hurler topped out at 94.5 MPH with his four-seam fastball in the second inning.
Let’s take a closer look at those struggles Price has had at Yankee Stadium since joining the Red Sox.
5 GS
25 IP
47 H
29 ER
10 HR
10.44 ERA
Nope, it really isn’t! And in all honesty, I have no confidence at all in giving the ball to David Price in a potential ALDS or ALCS game at Yankee Stadium. If that were to be the case later on in October, I’d be interested to see how Alex Cora and the Red Sox would go about not utilizing their $30 million man in a situation he should be able to handle. but clearly can’t.
You also cannot make stuff like this up.
David Price allowed 5 home runs to the Yankees tonight.
Only one other pitcher in Red Sox history has allowed 5 home runs on the road against the Yankees: Dennis Eckersley – exactly 39 years ago today (July 1, 1979).
Anyway, last night’s debacle ended a solid run for Price in which he allowed three or fewer runs in nine straight starts. He’ll look to hopefully rebound from this in his next outing against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday. For now, let’s just hope one bad start does not derail the quality season Price has had to this point.
In relief of Price, Justin Haley was first out of the Red Sox bullpen and gave up one run in 2.2 innings of work.
Brandon Workman came through with the best performance of any Red Sox pitcher on Sunday, as he threw a 1-2-3 seventh.
And in the eighth, Hector Velazquez gave up an additional two runs on three hits, including Aaron Hicks’ third homer of the evening, to wrap up what was a dismal evening for Red Sox pitching.
On the other side of things, the Yankees pitching staff had themselves a GREAT night against a team that just scored 11 runs off of them on Saturday.
Let me tell you though, Luis Severino is in a whole other category of pitchers when compared to Sonny Gray. The Yankees ace shut down the Red Sox lineup while pitching into the seventh inning of this one. Over that stretch, Severino surrendered just two hits and three walks while fanning six to improve to 13-2 on his season.
The only run of the night for the Red Sox came in the ninth, when after Sandy Leon reached second on a double and Blake Swihart advanced him to third on a single, Rafael Devers collected his 47th RBI of the year by scoring Leon on a 5-4 force out at second base. All this coming with Aroldis Chapman, who hadn’t appeared in a game in nearly a week, on the mound for New York.
Some notes from this loss:
In a highly anticipated series between two of the best teams in all of baseball, here are the results from all three games.
Not much consistency between these two clubs over the weekend, and neither game was close because of it.
Nine games into the season series, the Red Sox own a 4-5 record against New York in 2018. The good news is, seven of the next ten games against the Yankees will be played at Fenway Park, including the last three of the season on the last weekend of September.
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Having dropped two of their first three games on a decently long road trip, things will not get easier for the Red Sox when they land in the nation’s capital sometime this morning. In a three-game series against the Washington Nationals kicking off on Monday, the Red Sox will be greeted by one of the best pitchers in the National League in Mad Max, Max Scherzer. He’ll be matched up against an old teammate in Rick Porcello for Boston, and first pitch of the series opener is scheduled for 7:05 PM ET tonight.
Coming off a game in which they were held to just one run by CC Sabathia and the Yankees pitching staff, the Red Sox made sure that was not the case on Saturday night. With Chris Sale on the mound though, they didn’t need much to pick up a series-evening win.
Making his 18th start of the season last night, Chris Sale wrapped up his stellar month of June with yet another superb performance against a team he has a solid track record against.
Going into what was his 14th career start against the Yankees, Sale owned a 1.73 ERA in 93.2 innings against New York over nine seasons, including one outing this season in which he allowed one run in just six innings pitched back on April 10th.
Right from the get go, it was clear that Sale meant business in a decently important game. And given the fact he had a four run lead to work with before he even took the mound, the lefty was not put in all that many stressful spots on Saturday.
In a full seven innings pitched, Sale held the Yankees to just three total baserunners on one hit, one walk, and one HBP while recording a healthy 11 strikeouts on the evening.
What was most impressive about the Florida native’s night would have to be his sixth frame of work, in which he struck out the side on 20 pitches, the most he threw in an inning. Can’t forget to mention the help he got from Jackie Bradley Jr. in the bottom half of the third as well.
Retiring the last 16 batters he faced, Sale finished with a final pitch count of 101 (72 strikes) after ending the seventh. Topping out at 100 MPH in that seventh inning, the 29-year-old hurler went to his four-seam fastball 36% of the time on Saturday.
A performance certainly worthy of a win, Sale improved to 8-4 on the season last night. He’ll look to build on a successful June in his next time out, which should come against the lowly Kansas City Royals on Friday.
In relief of Sale, Alex Cora turned to two relievers out of the Red Sox bullpen for what was essentially mop-up duty in a blowout game. First, Heath Hembree tossed a scoreless eighth inning, then Hector Velazquez tossed a scoreless ninth to wrap this thing up.
On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup made people forget about their one run clunker on Friday night very quickly.
Facing off against a pitcher who has struggled against Boston in the past in Sonny Gray, Rafael Devers got the scoring started right away in the first.
After recording the first two outs of the inning, Gray allowed the next three batters he faced to reach base on two singles and a walk. That set up an ideal scoring situation for Devers, and he capitalized on it.
That grand slam was the first from the Red Sox since April 30th. With that slam, Devers became the youngest player in the history of Red Sox vs. Yankees matchups to go yard in that fashion.
An inning later, a leadoff double from Sandy Leon followed by a Mookie Betts walk set up another great scoring spot, this time for Andrew Benintendi. On the third pitch of his at bat, Benintendi ripped a single to right field to score Leon from Second and collect his 53rd RBI of the year.
Speaking of RBI, JD Martinez had three of them on Saturday, and he picked up his first in the second when a 322 foot sacrifice fly to right field scored Betts from third and put the Red Sox up by six runs early.
Fast forward all the way to the sixth now, with Gray well out of this game, and Martinez struck again. This time on an RBI single to score Jackie Bradley Jr. from second.
In the seventh, after Rafael Devers lined a one out double off of Yankees reliever Giovanny Gallegos, Sandy Leon blasted is his second home run is as many starts 388 feet into the right field seats.
From that point on, JD Martinez notched his 3rd RBI of the night in the eighth, and Brock Holt picked up one in the ninth on a pinch-hit RBI single to score his teams 11th and final run of the game. Not like it was needed, but it was still nice to see that production come from the bottom of the lineup after a quiet night on Friday.
Some notes from this win:
Alex Cora on the big win, “”The guys came out with an attitude today. It was fun to watch. There was something different with this group today.”
From @SoxNotes: Chris Sale has a 1.03 ERA in his last 5 starts. Among the 500+ pitchers who have made at least 10 starts vs. NYY in the Live Ball Era (1920-pres.), Sale owns the lowest career ERA (1.61) against the Yankees, as well as the highest SO/9.0 IP ratio (11.62).
With his five-hit performance at the plate on Saturday, Rafael Devers raised his batting average by 12 points, his OBP by 10 points, and his SLG by 22 points.
Entering July, JD Martinez leads all of baseball in HR (25) and RBI (67).
—
In this first day of July, the finale of this Red Sox-Yankees series will receive plenty of attention via Sunday Night Baseball. For David Price, this particular start looms large. A career 4.27 ERA in 19 starts at Yankee Stadium, the lefty will have plenty to prove in what should be a playoff atmosphere in the Bronx tonight.
He’ll be matched up against the best pitcher on this Yankees staff in Luis Severino. New York specifically moved their rotation so Severino would start tonight’s contest, so you know it means a lot for them as well.
First pitch of the final game is scheduled for 8:05 PM ET on ESPN.
Before heading to the Bronx for a pivotal three-game weekend series against the Yankees, the Red Sox had some business to take care of against a Los Angeles Angels team they had yet to lose to this season.
With Steven Wright being placed on the disabled list on Tuesday, Alex Cora went with Brian Johnson for the spot start in the knuckleballer’s place last night.
Having already appeared in 22 games for the Red Sox this season, this was just Johnson’s second start. The first came back on April 2nd against the Miami Marlins, where he tossed six innings and only gave up one run on six hits and two walks.
This time around, the lefty hybrid was efficient yet again. In four innings pitched, Johnson held the Halos to just one run while scattering three hits, one walk, and two punchouts. He received some help from his outfield as well with this phenomenal catch from Jackie Bradley Jr. in the first.
The only real mistake the former Florida Gator made came in his final frame of work, when with one out in the fourth, Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons leaned into a 1-0 75 MPH curveball and sent it 375 feet into the Monster seats in left field.
Other than that, it was a solid outing from Johnson. And given the fact he has transitioned into more of a reliever now, it’s understandable why he only pitched into the fourth inning of this one. But with Hector Velazquez, the Red Sox essentially have two guys in their bullpen who are capable of both starting and working in relief.
Speaking of Velazquez, he got the first call out of the Red Sox bullpen starting in the top half of the fifth. In the two innings he appeared in, the Mexico native held the Angels to just two baserunners to go along with three K’s. Since his team scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth, Velazquez was able to pick up his sixth winning decision of the season thanks to his efforts.
From that point on, Brandon Workman tossed a scoreless seventh inning for his third straight scoreless appearance. That made way for Joe Kelly in the eighth, and for the second time in as many nights, the Angels made things a little interesting.
After walking Mike Trout to lead off the inning, Kelly gave up back-to-back singles to Justin Upton and Albert Pujols to score Trout from third to make it a 4-2 game and put runners on first and second with still no outs.
With Angels rookie David Fletcher at the plate now, Kelly gave up what looked like what could have been a double to left field. Instead, the Red Sox outfield came through yet again, as Andrew Benintendi made the leaping catch against the wall for the second out of the inning.
Kelly escaped any further damage by getting Luis Valbuena to fly out to center field and end a hellish eighth inning for the Red Sox set up man. Over his last seven appearances, Kelly owns a 7.20 ERA and 2.20 WHIP in five innings pitched.
Entering the ninth with a two run lead to work with, Craig Kimbrel made his second appearance of this series, and he managed to strike out the side on the way to his 24th save of the season.
On the flip side of things, the Red Sox lineup was held scoreless over the first four innings of this one against Angels righty Jaime Barria.
It wasn’t until fifth when, already trailing by one run, Rafael Devers tied things up at one run a piece by mashing his 13th home run of the season. A 414 foot shot sent to dead center.
An inning later, with Halos reliever Jose Alvarez on the mound and JD Martinez at first after taking the walk, a double off the bat of Mitch Moreland put the Red Sox in an ideal scoring spot.
Oddly enough, Mike Sciosca decided to pitch around Xander Bogaerts and pitch to Brock Holt with the bases loaded. That decision clearly did not pan out the way he wanted it to, because Alvarez walked Holt on seven pitches to drive in the go-ahead run.
In the seventh, Jackie Bradley Jr. decided to top his stellar catch earlier in the first inning by coming through with arguably the clutchest hit of the night.
Facing off against old friend Noe Ramirez with Christian Vazquez at first, Bradley Jr. went down 0-2 on the first two pitches of the at bat. On the very next pitch though, he must have seen something he liked, because he took a 91 MPH two-seam fastball from Ramirez and sent it into the first row of the bleachers in right field on the hardest hit ball of the night, 110.1 MPH.
That two-run blast put the Red Sox up by three runs, and they would not have to look back on their way to win number 55.
Some notes from this W:
From @SoxNotes: The Sox went 6-0 against the Angels this season, marking the first time Boston has ever swept an opponent in a season series of at least 6 games.
From @RedSoxStats: (In this series)
Trout: 2-10 3 BB
JBJ: 5-11 2B, 2 HR, 6 RBI
The bottom third of the Red Sox lineup (Devers, Vazquez, Bradley) went 4/9 with two home runs and three RBI last night.
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Heading into New York winners of their last four and sole owners of first place in the American League East, the Red Sox will send Eduardo Rodriguez to the mound for the series opener later tonight. He’ll be matched up against another lefty in CC Sabathia for the Yankees. I don’t need to tell you this series is important, because it 100% is.
Do the Red Sox really belong amongst the elite teams in all of baseball? Well this series is a sure-fire way to find out about that. First pitch of the first game is scheduled for 7:05 PM ET.
Also, shout out to Steve Pearce. You can read about him here.
In a game that took exactly four hours complete, the Red Sox found themselves alone in first place in the American League East by the end of Wednesday night. It took a while to get there, but at the halfway point of the season in terms of games played, no team in Major League Baseball has more wins than the Red Sox.
Making his 17th start of the season last night, Rick Porcello was certainly not at his best in this one. The righty pitched into the sixth inning for the sixth time in a row, but yielded four runs, all earned, on eight hits and two free passes while striking out five.
Things were going decently smooth for the Red Sox hurler up until his fifth frame of work. With a six run lead to work with, you would figure that Porcello, who is arguably at his best when pitching with a lead, would cruise to his 10th winning decision of the year. Instead, he gave up a solo shot to the first batter he saw in the inning in ex-teammate Ian Kinsler.
That homer gave the Angels just their second run of the series up until that point and cut the Red Sox lead to five runs. An inning later, that lead shrunk some more when, after recording the first out of the inning on three pitches, three straight Angels reached base off of Porcello, with the last one being a three-run jack off the bat of catcher Martin Maldonado. 6-4 game now.
In my mind, this was the turning point of the game. Easy to say I know, but up until that point, it appeared as if the Red Sox had this thing in the bag. They have stomped on the Angels in all of their meetings this season, and it looked like we were headed in that direction once again last night up until that home run.
Porcello’s night would come to an end after he followed up that homer by getting outfielder Michael Hermosillo to ground out to short for the second out of the sixth.
Finishing with 104 pitches (66 strikes), the New Jersey native topped out at 93.4 MPH on his four-seam fastball in the first inning. He’ll miss this upcoming series against the Yankees in New York, but expect Porcello to bounce back in his next time out against the Washington Nationals on Monday.
In relief of Porcello, Heath Hembree got the first call of the Red Sox bullpen. Entering the game with two outs and the bases empty, Hembree retired the only batter he faced on three pitches to end the top half of the sixth.
Joe Kelly was next up for the beginning of the seventh, and he greeted the Angels by allowing four straight batters to reach base after recording the first out of the inning. Two singles from Justin Upton and Albert Pujols put runners on first and third with one out.
Kelly had the opportunity to turn a double play after Luis Valbuena grounded a comebacker right to him, but the Red Sox flamethrower made an awful throw to Xander Bogaerts covering second base, which allowed the ball to roll into the outfield and Justin Upton easily scored from third.
Now with Andrelton Simmons at the plate, who had already collected two hits on the night, Kelly could not sneak a 88 MPH slider by the Angels shortstop, as he drove in Pujols from second on an RBI double to knot this thing up at six runs a piece.
The Red Sox would escape any further damage thanks to two clutch strikeouts to retire the side in the top half of the seventh. The first coming from Kelly against Kole Calhoun for the second out of the inning and the second coming from Matt Barnes against Martin Maldonado for the final out.
Speaking of Barnes, the UCONN product came back out for the eighth inning as well, this time with a two run lead to work with. Unfortunately for him, sandwiched in between the first two outs of the frame were an E5 committed by Rafael Devers and a six pitch walk to Mike Trout.
That put the Angels in an ideal scoring spot, so Alex Cora made the bold decision and turned to his closer in the eighth inning.
In a rare situation, Craig Kimbrel got his night started by loading the bases after throwing a wild pitch and walking Albert Pujols.
The drama ensued into the next at bat with Luis Valbuena at the plate. After getting ahead in the count with a first pitch strike, Kimbrel missed three straight times to move the count to 3-1. Thankfully, the other Red Sox flamethrower rebounded by getting the next call in his favor on what could have been ball four, then got Valbuena swinging on a 98 MPH heater to retire the side.
Coming back out for the ninth, Kimbrel had a much easier go at it, as he retired the side in order to pick up his 23rd save of the season, the first for him since June 14th.
On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup had their way against another Angels starting pitcher in lefty Andrew Heaney.
Going off for three home runs in the second inning, Eduardo Nunez got the scoring started by blasting his fifth of the season to lead things off.
After Rafael Devers reached first on a single, Sandy Leon drove him in along with himself on his third homer of the year.
Four batters later, with runners on first and third, JD Martinez capped off the home run frenzy by mashing his 25th big fly of the season, making him the first player in Red Sox history to hit as many as 25 home runs before the first of July.
Heading into the third inning with an early six run lead, the bats went quiet for a bit. There was a time in the bottom of the fifth where it looked like another rally was about to take shape when Eduardo Nunez led the inning off on what should have been an infield single.
The original ruling was an out, but after the replay from NESN, it was pretty clear that Albert Pujols missed the tag and the Red Sox challenged it. I don’t know what they saw in Hoboken, but after the review, Nunez was ruled out. So, what’s the point of replay review if the call ends up being wrong AFTER the review? Very confusing.
Anyway, once the Angels stormed back to tie things up in the top of the seventh, the Red Sox lineup responded by tacking on two of their own in the bottom half of the inning.
With two outs, a walk drawn by Eduardo Nunez and back-to back RBI knocks for Rafael Devers and Sandy Leon put some distance between the Red Sox and Angels, and they would not have to look back.
In the ninth, a wild pitch with Mitch Moreland at the plate allowed JD Martinez to score from third after he reached base on a force out. Unfortunately, the Angels pitcher who slid into home trying to get the out, Jake Jewell, took a nasty tumble and landed awkwardly on the right handle. I won’t share the video, but I wish him the best.
On a less somber note, here are some notes from this win:
JD Martinez has already hit more home runs this season (25) than anyone on the Red Sox had in 2017 (Mookie Betts led the team with 24).
The 6-9 hitters in the Red Sox lineup (Nunez, Devers, Leon, and Bradley Jr.) went 7/15 with two home runs and five RBI last night.
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With the series already in hand, the Red Sox will look for the sweep later tonight before a huge series against the Yankees this weekend. Brian Johnson gets the start in Boston in place of the injured Steven Wright. It will be his first start since April 2nd when he gave up one run in six innings pitched against the Marlins in Miami. He’ll be matched up against Angels rookie Jaime Barria, who owns a 3.40 ERA in 10 starts this season. First pitch of the finale is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET.
For the second time in less than 24 hours, a left-handed pitcher tossed a shutout at Fenway Park. Mike Leake did it for the Mariners with eight scoreless innings in a win last night, and Chris Sale did it for the Red Sox with seven scoreless frames this afternoon.
In his 17th start of the season on Sunday, Sale looked as dominant as ever. Coming off a performance against the Twins in which he took a perfect game into the fifth inning last Tuesday, the lefty did not give up his first hit in this one until there were two outs in the third.
Ending his day with a line of 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB Sale never found himself in too much troubles in his ninth career start against the Mariners. After he gave up his first hit of the game to Denard Span in the third inning, the 29-year-old escaped any further stress with a nice pick-off move on Span to retire the side.
An inning later, another two out situation arose when Nelson Cruz ripped a triple off of Sale. Regardless of the fact that Cruz should have been out at third base, the Red Sox hurler rebounded by striking out Ryon Healy on four pitches to escape the jam.
In the sixth, it looked as though the Mariners were about to tack on their first two runs of the day when, after Andrew Romine reached first on a bunt single, Mitch Haniger hit a sharp line drive towards Seattle’s bullpen. Instead of a home run though, Mookie Betts came up with the clutch inning-ending snag to rob Haniger of what would have been his 17th long ball of the season.
If not this catch, the highlight of the afternoon might just be how Sale ended his day in his final frame of work. It was more than likely the Florida native’s toughest inning, as he allowed two to reach on a single and a walk and needed 19 pitches, but it was all worth it thanks to his last pitch against Mike Zunino.
100.5 MPH(!!!) on that fastball, the fastest pitch recorded by Sale on 93 attempts, 71 of which went for strikes. Going to his four-seamer 44% of the time on Sunday, 20 of the 21 fastest recorded pitches in this game belonged to Sale.
With the Red Sox lineup actually giving the southpaw some run support today, Sale was able to notch his seventh winning decision of the season.
And thanks to two additional scoreless innings from Joe Kelly and Matt Barnes out of the bullpen, the Red Sox recorded their sixth shutout win on the year as well.
On the flip side of things, Mariners starter Marco Gonzales was the one starter the Red Sox did not see in Seattle. With a cumulative .685 OPS against lefties this season, it was going to see how the lineup would stack up the day after getting shutout by another left-handed starter.
After being held to one hit over the first four innings, Xander Bogaerts got a three-run rally started in the fifth with a leadoff double. Following that up with a single off the bat of Eduardo Nunez, Rafael Devers put his team on the board first by ripping an RBI double to the right field corner to score Bogaerts from third. Two sacrifice flies from Sandy Leon and Mookie Betts later, and the Red Sox found themselves up by three going into the sixth inning.
In the bottom half of the sixth, Mitch Moreland stayed hot and wrapped up the scoring on the afternoon by mashing his 11th home run of the season, a 415 foot two-run missile hit to dead center field.
That put the Red Sox up by five runs, which is all they would need to pick up their 52nd win of the season.
Some notes from this W:
The Red Sox improved to 2-4 in games started by Chris Sale when he records 10 or more strikeouts. Maddening stuff.
Per @RedSoxStats: Most swing and misses by a Sox starter in the pitch tracking era:
26 of 93 Chris Sale, today
26 of 114 Clay Buchholz, April, 2010
26 of 116 Chris Sale, May 2018
With that home run, Mitch Moreland extended his hitting streak to seven games. Over that stretch, the Red Sox first baseman is 12/27 with seven RBI.
Jackie Bradley Jr. went 3/3 at the plate batting ninth today, his first multi-hit game since June 5th against Detroit.
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After an off day on Monday, the Red Sox will welcome the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim into town for a three-game series set to kick off Tuesday night. In a matchup of elite outfielders in Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, I’m fascinated to see how much national attention this series will receive.
For the opener, it will be another starting pitching matchup featuring two lefties. John Lamb will be making his third start of the season for the Angels, and David Price will be making his 16th start of the season against the Red Sox. First pitch of the first game is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET on Tuesday.
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