The Red Sox battered around Mark
Buehrle and the Toronto Blue Jays to the tune of 8-1 in the series opener at
the Rogers Centre Friday night. Belting
out a season-high 16 hits and a very impressive outing by Jake Peavy, the Sox
get the series off to a great start and put that awful Yankee series behind
them.
Mark Buehrle has been excellent
to start the season. Coming into the
game he was 4-0 with an ERA under 1 (0.64) but the Sox got to him early
dropping 4 runs in the 2nd inning.
It was their highest hit and run total of the year. The 4 runs scored off Buehrle in the 2nd
inning were more that all his other games combined.
Dustin Pedroia went 2 for 5 with
2 RBI and a walk out of the lead-off spot.
Mike Napoli went 2 for 3 with a run scored, RBI, double and 2
walks. Napoli is quietly batting .307 and
has driven in 15 runs.
The bottom of the order did a lot
of damage in the game. Batting 7th,
A.J. Pierzynski went 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored, an RBI and double. Will Middlebrooks went 2 for 4 with a run
scored, 2 RBI and a double in his first game back off the DL batting 8th,
and batting 9th, Jackie Bradley Jr. went 3 for 4 on the night. He scored twice, had 2 doubles, a triple, an
RBI, stole a base and walked once for good measure. Overall they were 8 or 12 with 4 RBI, 5 runs
and had 4 doubles, pretty good production from the bottom 3.
David Ortiz went 1 for 4 with an
RBI, and his 5th homer of the year, he also walked once. Shane Victorino and Xander Bogaerts each had
a double and Jonny Gomes went 1 for 4 with a walk.
Overall the Sox had 9 extra base
hits and believe it or not, it could have been much worse as the Sox left 12
men on base and were a dreadful 3 for 15 with runners in scoring position.
Though I don’t like the
statistics with runners on, I’ll take the outbreak of 16 this any day. Maybe this offensive explosion will get
everyone out of the funk they’ve been in.
Jake Peavy was the benefiter of
all the run support but honestly, he didn’t really need it. Peavy was brilliant in his 7 innings of work,
giving up just 1 run on 5 hits while walking 2 and striking out 7. His only blemish was a solo homer let up to
Juan Francisco in the 7th that was an absolute moon-shot that
reached the top deck of the Rogers Centre.
It was Peavy’s first win of the season and he’s lowered his ERA to 2.87
on the year.
Chris Capuano bounced back nicely
from a rough outing against the Yanks and struck out all 3 hitters he faced in
the 8th. Andrew Miller
pitched the ninth and worked around a hit and struck out 2.
After the disaster that was on
Thursday, it was nice to see the Sox come out and pound the ball around. There are 2 more games up north with Clay
Buchholz taking the hill on Saturday against Brandon Morrow.
SHAVING CREAM PIE TO THE FACE –
GAME MVP
Jackie Bradley Jr. JBJ went 3 for 4 and was a home run shy of
the cycle. The Sox really need him to
start hitting and getting on base as he’s started off slowly this year.
ELBOW TO THE FACE – GAME LVP
Shane Victorino. There really wasn’t a guy that deserved it
here but I’ll give it to the guy that went 1 for 6 with a strikeout.
PLAY OF THE GAME
Dustin Pedroia’s 2-run single in
the top of the 2nd to put the Sox up 4-0.
NEXT
Saturday, April 26th in Toronto vs. the
Blue Jays.
No comments:
Post a Comment