Boy do the Red Sox really stink
right now. The offense is still unable
to get going, the starting pitching has been very sketchy as of late and their
defense has been downright awful to start the season cultivating in the debacle
of last night’s efforts at home against the Yankees.
In a 14-5 loss to the Yanks in
the rubber match to decide the series and Boston committed 5 errors in a game
for the first time since April 28, 2001.
It wasn’t just the errors; the
Sox also committed 3 wild pitches, a passed ball and let up 3 stolen
bases. It was just an all around
horrible game to go with their terrible start to the season.
Their record now stands at 10-13
through 23 games and they head up north to Toronto for a quick 3 game set this
weekend.
The good news, if any, is that
Shane Victorino was back in the lineup last night and Will Middlebrooks was
just activated from the disabled list and will start Friday’s game so they’ll
finally be 100% healthy and hopefully can make some noise moving forward.
Shane Victorino went 1 for 5 with
a run scored in his season debut. It
wasn’t a great performance but just seeing him back in the lineup was a sight
for sore eyes. The Sox went with their “lefty”
lineup last night with Gomes in left, Bradley in center and Victorino in
right. I expect that to be the norm
against lefties and when a righty is on the mound, it’ll be either Sizemore or
Carp in left. When Sizemore is in the
game, the outfield will be very good, on paper at least.
The offense last night continued
to stink up the place, getting only 4 hits on the night. Yes, you read that right; they had only 4
hits and committed 5 errors. It was that
bad folks. They were 2 for 8 with
runners in scoring position and left 8 men on base. The Yanks even tried to help them out by
walking 6 men but the Sox could do nothing with the free passes and struck out
10 times in the game.
Xander Bogaerts went 2 for 4 with
an RBI and double. Jonny Gomes went 1
for 2 with 2 RBI, a double and a walk.
Jackie Bradley Jr. walked and scored once. Brock Holt, Mike Napoli and Jonathan Herrera
all walked once and David Ortiz drove in a run on a sacrifice fly.
The defense was terrible as I mentioned
above. Pretty much everyone on the
infield made an error last night except for Napoli. Bogaerts committed his 3rd of the
season, Holt his 2nd and Pedroia his 1st. Doubront made one and Jackie Bradley Jr. also
made 1. Just terrible last night. It was almost unwatchable as they resembled
the Bad News Bears.
Shoddy defense wasn’t able to help
out Felix Doubront last night as he was awful again. He’s been bad in 3 of his 4 starts this year
and last night was his shortest outing of the year. He went just 2 and 2/3 innings giving up 7
runs, 3 were earned, on 6 hits while walking 2 and striking out 1, he also let
up a homer. When you allow extra outs to
a good team like the Yankees, you’re bound to get burned and Doubront couldn’t
minimize the damage at all as he allowed 3 extra base hits.
Craig Breslow was equally as bad
as he went 1 inning and allowed 5 runs, 4 earned, on 5 hits while walking 3 and
striking out no one. It was probably the
worst I’ve ever seen Breslow pitch and his season ERA is now up to 7.50.
Edward Mujica was again so-so
last night as he allowed 1 run on 2 hits with a walk in only 1 and 2/3 innings
pitched.
The only good pitcher on the
night was Burke Badenhop, who went 2 and 2/3 allowing just 1 hit while walking
1 and striking out 1. It was the 2nd
time this week that Badenhop helped out with more than 2 innings pitched and no
runs allowed. He started off the season
a little scary but has completely turned it around to be the most reliable reliever
on the team next to Koji and Tazawa.
Things got so bad last night,
that John Farrell had to use a position player to finish off the ninth. Not wanting to tax the bullpen anymore,
Farrell called on Mike Carp to finish off the game. It was his first ever Major League pitching
performance and he allowed only 1 earned run on 0 hits. However he did walk 5 and struck out no one
but he minimized the damage and worked around his walks…
It was a game to forget about and
with the team 100% healthy now, hopefully they can now get on track. They’ll face Toronto tonight with Jake Peavy
(0-0, 3.33) taking the hill in Game 1.
Peavy was knocked around pretty good in his last outing against the
Orioles and he’s hoping to bounce back in a big way.
He’ll be opposed by Mark Buehrle
(4-0, 0.64), who’s been absolutely brilliant so far this season. In his last 2 starts he’s pitched 14 innings,
allowed only 1 run on 9 hits while striking out 5 and walking only 3. Buehrle works fast and the Sox will have to
get to him early because when he gets in a groove, it’s usually lights out for the
opposition.
SHAVING CREAM PIE TO THE FACE –
GAME MVP
Xander Bogaerts. Though he did make a terrible error in the
game, he also had 2 of the 4 team hits with an RBI (his 5th) and a
double (his 4th).
ELBOW TO THE FACE – GAME LVP
David Ross. Ross went 0 for 4 with a strikeout, allowed 2
passed balls and just had one of those games he’s rather soon forget about.
PLAY OF THE GAME
Jacoby Ellsbury’s RBI single in
the top of the 3rd to make the game 7-0 and pretty much over at that
point.
NEXT
Friday, April 25th in Toronto vs. the Blue
Jays.
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