Red Sox Rafael Devers and Michael Chavis got big news today, named American League Player of the Month and Rookie of the Month, respectively for May, 2019.

Devers Makes History

Devers’ torrid month included batting 40-for-114 (.351) with seven doubles, eight home runs, and 24 RBI over 26 games. The month included a career-high 11-game hit streak as well as seven straight road games with an extra-base hit, the longest such streak in club history for a player 22 years old or younger.

Devers is the first Red Sox to be named Player of the Month since J.D. Martinez last August and joins current teammates Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley, Jr. to receive the recognition. In all, it’s the 29th time a Boston batter has been so honored since the AL made its first award in 1974.

Chavis is 8th Boston Rookie of the Month

The award for Chavis is his first as a big league player. It’s the eighth time a Boston rookie has been so honored, the most recent being Andrew Benintendi.

Chavis slashed .248 AVG/.331 OBP/.457 SLG in May with seven home runs and 19 RBI. By recording his 10th career home run last month Chavis became the second-fastest player in club history to reach that milestone after George Scott (1966).

The Red Sox played like defending world champions this weekend, sinking the Mariners in three straight games at Fenway Park.

To be fair, these were a mere imitation of the Seattle ball club that Boston faced to open the 2019 season. Back then, the Mariners took three of four from the Sox on the way to a 13-2 start. With the weekend losses, Seattle has now lost four in a row and gone 2-12 since April 27.

This weekend Boston pounced in 14-1, 9-5, and 11-2 victories, marking its first time ever with nine or more runs in three straight games of a single series versus Seattle. It was, in fact, the first such time in almost 12 seasons that Boston achieved that feat against any major league club (2007 at White Sox) and the first such time at Fenway since 2003 vs the Marlins.

The rainy, cool Mothers Day game included stand out Sox performances, including a third straight three-hit game for Rafael Devers, who joined Xander Bogaerts (in 2014) as the only Red Sox since at least 1908 with such a streak before turning 23 years old. Devers is now 12-for-22 (.545) over his five game hitting streak.

• Scuffing Michael Chavis, playing in his 20th career game, shook off an 0-for-his-last-23 with a five RBI effort, including three that came with two outs. Chavis is just the ninth for Boston with 5+ RBI in one of his first 20 major league appearances.
• Chavis has 19 RBI for the season. Since 1920 when RBI became an official stat, only Ted Williams in George Scott had more within their first 20 career games (20 each in 1939 and 1966, respectively).
• It was a career-high four walks for Bogaerts on Sunday. It was the first time in 429 games between these clubs that Mariners pitching walked a Red Sox batter as many times in a 9-inning game.
• J.D. Martinez belted two home runs on Sunday marking his 11th career multi-HR effort and his first since last August 11. Martinez now has three HRs for his last five games.

The Red Sox have now won a season-best five straight games. This week they’ll enjoy home cooking and two off-days sandwiching a two-game set against the Rockies followed by a weekend series against the Astros.

After a long winter, and a long day, for that matter, Red Sox Nation didn’t have much to cheer for by the second inning of Thursday’s season opener. The Sox scored in the top of the first and second innings but the Mariners pummeled starter Chris Sale with three in the bottom of the second and four more the next inning.

Sale was gone by the end of the third but not before allowing seven, including three home runs off the bats of Tim Beckham (twice) and Edwin Encarnación. To put that in greater perspective, Sale allowed just 11 HR in all of the 2018. The three blasts tied Sale with Jon Lester (2011), Dennis Eckersley (1980), Tom Sturdivant (1960) and Alex Ferguson (1925) for most home runs allowed by a Red Sox Opening Day starter since at least 1908.

Sale’s start, the fifth Opening Day nod of his career, was startling, to say the least. To this point, Seattle had been an easy target for him with quality starts in each of his 10 career starts against the Mariners, working into at least the seventh inning in each.

“He was very erratic with fastball location, the slider wasn’t great,” Manager Alex Cora noted of Sale after the game. “We’ll keep working, he’ll be ready for the next one, and we’ll go from there.”

Sale told the media he’s not in any way physically impaired, but admitted that his repertoire was substandard. “Fast ball’s in, leaking over the plate. Breaking ball is just kind of spinning in there, not doing a whole lot. Just bad…Throw this one in the trash can.”

The Sox bullpen, a concern throughout the winter for Red Sox Nation after the departures of Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel, allowed four more runs, two by Hector Velázquez and two from Tyler Thornburg. One of the two runs charged to Velazquez came on a bases loaded walk issued by Heath Hembree. It was just the second time in Hembree’s career (205 total appearances, 24 bases loaded opportunities) that he had walked a run in to score.

When the smoke cleared, the Mariners had pounded the Red Sox 12-4. The 12 runs tied for the second-most allowed by Red Sox pitchers since 1908 in an Opening Day game. The other such occurrences came in 2002 (in a game started by Pedro Martinez) and in 1926. The Sox allowed a club record 15 runs in the first game of 1950 facing the Yankees.

Despite some sloppy field play (both teams made two errors), Boston sluggers recorded 11 hits, including three off the bat of reigning American League MVP Mookie Betts and two from J.D. Martinez. Every Sox player had at least one hit save for Mitch Moreland.