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Red Sox Finish May at .571

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If this current road trip were dinner in a nice restaurant, this first stop in Chicago would have been only the appetizer. There’s still the salad and a main course to go, but at least the meal is off to a good start. 

Best Mays in Red Sox History

The Red Sox beat the White Sox on Wednesday 4-1 to win the series 2-game-to-1. 

The Red Sox finish the month of May 16-12 (.571), well short of their 18-10 (.643) power numbers last season, but also ahead of any other Sox season since 2011.

Sox pitchers combined for 275 strikeouts, the most in May in club history since 1913. Chris Sale accounted for 58 of those strikeouts, the most on the club and third most in the majors for the month. Boston pitchers’ 57 walks allowed was the third lowest May mark since 1913.

The majors’ best May was the torrid pace of the Astros, who escaped the month with just seven losses (22-7). Houston’s .759 win percentage for May is the best mark in May since the Padres were 22-6 (.786) in 2005. Boston’s .571 win percentage was the third best May mark in the American League after Houston and the resurgent Blue Jays (.643). 

The Red Sox’ best May was in 1946 when they went 21-6 (.778).

Promising Pomeranz

Wednesday’s win included a few positives worth noting. Foremost was the seven full innings of work by Drew Pomeranz, who improved to 5-3 on the year with a 4.24 ERA after allowing seven hits but just one run. Pomeranz walked none and struck out eight. His 108 pitches were the third most in his career, a mark he last reached on May 18, 2016 while playing for the Padres.

Also a plus was the solid return from the Disabled List of the Panda. Pablo Sandoval went 3-for-4 with an RBI to give the Sox the lead in the sixth inning, when the Sox erupted for four runs, the entirety of their scoring in the game. For Sandoval it was his first game in the majors since April 23.

Red Sox are now in Baltimore for four games against the Orioles before the main course, three against the tough New York Yankees.


A Tale of Two Red Sox Teams

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After such a remarkable win on Saturday—indeed a string of six straight and impressive Red Sox victories—it’s reasonable to be especially disappointed by Sunday’s lackluster Red Sox performance. Still and all, the Sox finish a solid homestand having won five of the six games as they head out to an important 10-game road trip to visit the White Sox, Orioles, and Yankees.

Brian Johnson’s Impeccable, Improbable Start

Sure, you might have expected a solid outing from Sox prospect Brian Johnson. After all, he’s 2-0 with a 2.82 ERA over seven starts at Triple-A Pawtucket this season. But no one could have imagined the dominant, complete game shutout we were privileged to witness on Saturday.Johnson was simply outstanding, becoming the first Boston pitcher with a 9.0-inning shutout in his Fenway debut since Pedro Martinez managed that feat on April 11, 1998. Coincidentally enough, Pedro’s game was also against the Mariners.

Johnson’s travails have been well documented. In just his fourth professional start in 2012, Johnson was struck directly in the face resulting in multiple orbital fractures. He made a dramatic return two years later, even going on to earn 2014 Minor League Pitcher of the Year honors. But nerve problems in his arm shut Johnson down after just one appearance the Red Sox in 2015.

 

Then, in the off-season, Johnson was a passenger in a carjacking in Florida. Debilitating anxiety settled in and hindered his ability to return to work. He even questioned if he wanted to return. On April 8 this year, Johnson was struck in the side of the head again, though fortunately with less serious consequences.

And then on Saturday, in front of his family, Johnson made his Fenway Park debut as a starter. “Last time I threw here was 2012 and I made two pitches,” Johnson remember after the game, “and today I went nine innings. So it was pretty cool.”

Pretty cool, indeed. 

Brian Johnson’s line: 9.0 IP, 5 hits, no runs, no walks, eight strikeouts. 109 pitches thrown. A tremendously good feeling shared by 36,985 fans in the stadium, dozens of players and Sox staffers, and all the rest of us following along in Red Sox Nation.

The Sox provided six runs of support for Johnson and came away with a sixth straight team victory. After the game Johnson was demoted back to Triple-A, but everyone, including the pitcher, knew that was coming. Not hard to imagine we’ll be seeing more of Brian Johnson down the line.

Mariners Turn The Tables

Baseball can be cruel like that. The Sox had the wind at their backs and good feelings all around on Sunday morning. 

On paper, the matchup between Rick Porcello and Seattle starter Christian Bergman seemed clearly tilted to a Boston victory. Day games have been especially good for the Sox this season and Porcello entered the game 9-0 with a 3.59 ERA in 13 day starts since the beginning of 2016.

Instead, the Mariners turned the tables on the Sox. Bergman was oddly inscrutable and Boston got shutout by Seattle for the first time at Fenway Park since April 30, 2011. Bizarrely, Porcello has received zero runs of support in now six of his last nine starts. How do you not get a complex from that?

Still, despite the sudden drop off in offensive production, Porcello did little to help himself on Sunday. For a second straight outing he allowed 11 hits, though only two runs. Seattle, 1-7 in their last eight games, left Boston with the satisfaction of pounding out a season-high tying 16 hits.

Missed Opportunity

Championship teams, I was reminded by a follower on RSNStats on Twitter, don’t miss opportunities like this to capitalize on weaker clubs, or clubs that are going through a bad stretch. Hard to disagree with that. At the same time, it’s unreasonable to expect that you’ll beat every team that looks rough in the statistics columns. That, as they say, is why we play the games. 

No fan should be disappointed with winning five of six games in a set. Despite Sunday’s shutout, the Red Sox have averaged 6.7 runs/game over their past seven games. Boston’s starting pitchers, for some time now, a major concern for this club, own a 2.54 ERA in the team’s last 9 games. The Elias Sports Bureau reported that the Red Sox are the first major-league team this season to win six straight games with the starting pitcher credited as the victor in each game.

What comes next for the Red Sox, however, is a significant test. Ten games on the road against the mediocre White Sox and, even more importantly, the scuffling Orioles and surprisingly solid Yankees. 

Where things stand when the Sox return to Fenway on June 9th may tell us a lot about how this team will do down the stretch.


Red Sox Sweep Rangers At Home For 1st Time Since 2008

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Rain Delay


Rain Delay flickr photo by Bart Hanlon shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

Pretty sure you didn’t see that coming. On a cool and rainy night at Fenway, the Red Sox pounded out another ten hits on Thursday (for an American League-best 22nd time) to beat the Rangers 6-2 and sweep a very hot club right out of Boston—and right after Texas arrived riding a 10-game win streak.

It was the Red Sox’ first sweep of the Rangers in three games at Fenway Park since August 12-14, 2008. 

Texas has been a tough opponent for Boston. Since 2000, no Major League club has a better OPS against the Red Sox than the Rangers (.823). Even with the just-completed three game Sox sweep, the Rangers are 32-24 in that time for a .571 win percentage, the best such win percentage facing Boston of all American League opponents.

“The sweep is surprising,” Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus said after the game. “But that’s the beauty of baseball, I guess. You cannot take any team for granted. Even when you feel you’re playing at your best, stuff like this can happen.”

Solid Pitching Performance

The Sox outscored the Rangers 26-12 in this series, but the real story of Thursday’s win was the pitching. 

Feisty Drew Pomeranz, fresh off an on-screen argument with Manager John Farrell after his last outing, took the mound after a 28-minute rain delay, and was solid and in command. Pomeranz allowed one base runner through three innings before giving up a 370-foot home run to Andrus. Unshaken, he got the rest of the fourth and fifth innings unscathed.

In all, Pomeranz allowed two runs on four hits with one walk over 6.0 IP. More impressively, he struck out 11 Rangers, tying his strikeout career high of last August 25. Pomeranz’ fourth inning strikeout of Mike Napoli was the 500th of Drew’s career. In all, Napoli would strikeout four time for his 2nd golden sombrero of the season.

The Sox bullpen of Heath Hembree, Robby Scott, Matt Barnes, and Craig Kimbrel combined for 3.0 hitless, walkless innings with nine more strikeouts.

Kimbrel’s ninth inning of work, a non-save opportunity, included a rare four strikeouts after Nomar Mazara struck out but made it to first base on what was ruled a wild pitch. It was just the second ever four-strikeout inning of work by a Red Sox pitcher. The first was Tim Wakefield‘s ninth inning against the Royals on August 10, 1999.

When all was said and done, Red Sox pitching had struck out 20 Rangers to tie a major league record for a nine inning game. Boston has twice previously reached the 20 strikeout plateau on April 29, 1986 (against the Mariners) and on September 18, 1996 (against the Tigers). The other clubs to reach 20 total opponent strikeouts are the Nationals (2016), Angels (2012), and Cubs (1998).


Late Rally Earns Sox A Win

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Now this is more like it. 

The Red Sox rallied for an exciting late win on Wednesday, pounding out seven runs in the seventh inning to beat the Rangers 9-4. 

It was the third straight Sox win, with this one clinching a series victory regardless of Thursday’s outcome. The Sox have not swept the Rangers in a three-game set at Fenway since August, 2008. Wednesday’s win was made even more satisfying with the knowledge that Texas arrived in Boston having won 10 straight, baseball’s longest stretch of consecutive wins so far this season.

Is the Sox’ streaky offense finally here to stay? Only time will tell, of course, but it’s satisfying right now to note that Boston has scored 32 runs over the last three games, their first set of three games with nine or more runs scored since May 9-12, 2016.

Thrilling Lately

Late rallies are thrilling. Boston has outscored opponents 95-55 in the seventh inning and later this season. The club’s team AVG of .302 in innings seven to nine this season is the best in the major leagues. No other team is batting above .281 in late inning appearances.

For those prone to criticize Manager John Farrell‘s in-game strategy, Wednesday’s game may have left them at least temporarily speechless. Farrell injected Mitch Moreland and Josh Rutledge into the game in the seventh inning resulting in the club’s first pair of consecutive pinch hits since last September 5th. When Moreland drove in a run he tied Hanley Ramírez for the longest such streak by a Red Sox hitter this season (5 games).

Adding to the fun Wednesday was the major league debut of Sam Travis, who before his family in the stands, went 2-for-4 with his first MLB run scored. Travis is first Sox hitter with two hits in his MLB debut since Will Middlebrooks on May 2, 2012.

Speedy Sale Earn Wins

Chris Sale, who had the chance to beat his own MLB single-season record for most consecutive outings with 10+ strikeouts (8 games), fell short of the mark. Instead, Sale struck out six over 7.1 IP, allowing four runs (three earned) on six hits with one walk. Sale now was 101 strikeouts this season joining Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens as the only MLB  pitchers since 1900 with 100+ SO through 10 starts of any season according to ESPN.

Sale is the first Boston pitcher since Martinez in 2000 to allow three or fewer ER in 7.0+ IP in each of his first six home.

Official time for last night’s contest was two hours and 59 minutes. In Sale’s seven decisions this season all but one have completed in under three hours of play.


Life After Farrell

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After a 3-3 road trip that included an embarrassing 1-3 series against the Oakland A’s, the Red Sox have returned home to Fenway for three-game sets against the Rangers and Mariners beginning Tuesday.

The 1-3 weekend series against the Athletics to end the road trip was especially vexing coming after a two-game sweep of what were the first place Cardinals. On Sunday, the Red Sox were in danger of their first-ever four-game sweep by the Athletics in Oakland. The A’s swept the Sox in four games once before at Fenway in 1971.

Red Sox John FarrellThe road trip leaves the Sox just above .500 at 22-21, a full seven and a half games behind the first place Yankees, and six games behind Baltimore.

The Sox team batting average is .267 (compared with .282 for 2016), still good enough for third best in baseball after the Nationals (.274) and Yankees (.269). Boston’s slugging percentage, meanwhile, is an anemic, below average .408 (vs an MLB-best .461 last season), speaking to the club’s power outage when it comes to meaningful production.

The Red Sox team OPS+, a useful measure of on-base percentage plus slugging and accounting for variables in ballpark condition, is 98. The majors’ best teams, the Astros and Yankees, are at 118 and 114, respectively, indicating their performance is 18% and 14% better than average.

Not surprisingly, all of this is leading to easy speculation once again that Manager John Farrell‘s job is in jeopardy. FOX Sports Ken Rosenthal wonders who Sox Baseball President Dave Dombrowski might turn to for a Farrell replacement. Rosenthal notes that the best choice may have been former Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo, who left Boston in the off-season and has so far managed the Diamondbacks to a second place position (27-19) in the National League West.

Rosenthal spotlights two incidents that indicate Farrell may have lost control of his club: the bizarre and prolonged issue involving Dustin Pedroia and Orioles Manny Machado and the more recent heated dugout discussion between Farrell and the struggling Drew Pomeranz. 

Now some additional news and notes of particular interest to Red Sox fans:

  • Ten years ago, in 2007, the Red Sox won 70% of their first 40 games (28-12). The fact is, three of the last four teams to win that many of their first 40 also won the World Series: 2016 Cubs (29-11), 2007 Red Sox, and the 2005 White Sox (28-12). Only the 2010 Rays (29-11) missed the mark. This season, it’s the Astros (29-12) that are looking for their first-ever win in the Fall Classic.
  • Longtime Sox fans might remember the name Joe Lahoud, who patrolled the Fenway outfield from 1968-71. The New England native went on to play with the Twins, Angels, Rangers, and Royals before retiring in 1978. The now 70-year-old Lahoud is in the news again, suing his former employer, New York-based Document Technologies LLC, for age discrimination after, to hear Lahoud’s story, some outrageous behavior on their part. Employers “shouldn’t be able to displace workers because of discrimination of any kind,” Lahoud recently told the Boston Herald.
  • Bill Ballou of the The Worcester Telegram & Gazette caught up with another, albeit more recent Red Sox veteran, Dave McCarty, who joined the club in 2003 and retired after being designated for assignment in 2005. “Boston was by far my favorite place to play,” McCarty told the newspaper. “The pressure of playing for the Red Sox didn’t bother me. I loved that, thrived on it. In Boston, you either love it and embrace it, or you just fold.”
  • On Sunday, Mitch Moreland homered in his third straight game for a new career high. Moreland’s 14 home runs at the Athletics’ Coliseum are the most by a visitor there since 2010. The last Red Sox player to belt a home run in three or more consecutive games was David Ortiz last season (also three games). If Moreland can hit a home run on Tuesday he’ll be the first Boston player with four such games since Adrian Gonzalez in 2011. The club record since 1913 is a HR in five straight, most recently by Jose Canseco in 1995.