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Red Sox Win Streak Ends at 10

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After a remarkable run of 10 straight wins, the Red Sox ran into troubles Friday night against the Blue Jays. In a highly uncharacteristic outing, Sox starter Rick Porcello lasted just 2.0 IP, coughing up his team’s lead twice in that short time.

Porcello allowed a season-high four walks on Friday. It marked just the seventh time of 298 career outings where he’s done that, and never in such a short time.

“I had a terrible night, that’s for sure,” Porcello told the media afterwards, saying there was nothing physically wrong, “I felt pretty good, honestly, all week I felt pretty good.”

On a night with seven Red Sox runs, including two triples in back-to-back plate appearances from Mookie Betts, Boston fell 13-7 to the 43-50 Jays.

In an odd twist of date, the Red Sox had not lost a Fenway game after scoring seven or more runs, including two triples, since the Fourth of July 2011 playing against, you guessed it, the Blue Jays.

Friday’s loss snapped Boston’s longest win streak since 11 in a row, September 15-25, 2016.

A few other notes from last night’s game:

  • Betts became the first for Red Sox with two triples in a game since Xander Bogaerts did it on May 17, 2017.
  • Betts is the first Red Sox hitter to triple in each of his first 2 at-bats of a game since David Ortiz on July 22, 2004 (Game 1) against the Orioles.
  • The last major leaguer to triple in each of the first two innings of a game was the Cubs’ Dexter Fowler on April 11, 2015.
  • Betts is hitting .409 with a .493 on-base percentage and a 1.301 OPS at home. All three marks are the best for any major leaguer with at least 100 plate appearances at home this season.
  • Porcello’s outing was the second-shortest for a Red Sox starter this season after 1.0 IP by David Price against the Yankees on April 11.
  • Despite the loss, the Red Sox amassed 12 hits on Friday. It was the club’s 46th game with 10 or more hits, the most such games in the majors.
  • Justin Smoak hit a home run against Porcello in the 3rd inning and then another, from the other side of the plate, against Boston reliever Robby Scott. It marked the 10th time in franchise history that a Toronto player homered from both sides of the plate in the same game. Smoak and Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar are the only Blue Jays with two such games.

5 Red Sox All-Stars

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Updated — The online voters have spoken and they’re sending Red Sox star Mookie Betts back to the All-Star game for 2018.  The Sox star slugger received 4,286,994 votes for a third straight All-Star selection. Only Astros infielder José Altuve, who received an MLB-best 4,849,630 votes, had more overall support.

Betts is the fifth Boston outfielder with multiple fan elections, joining Manny Ramírez (7), Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski (5), Hall of Famer Jim Rice (4) and Fred Lynn (3).

Betts is set to become the 14th player in club history with three or more All-Star starts, regardless of position. Ted Williams leads that group with 12 career starts among his 18 total appearances in the game. Yastrzemski also represented the Red Sox in 18 All-Star games.

J.D. Martinez was selected by the fans as the American League starting designated hitter. Martinez was also an All-Star in 2015 and is just the second Red Sox DH to win the fan election joining David Ortiz (2005, 2008, 2011-13, 2016).

In addition to the starters, who were elected by the fans, pitchers and reserve players were named to the All-Star Game rosters by the Player Ballot, a vote of the players, managers and coaches, and by Major League Baseball. Through that process, Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel each earned their seventh career selections and Mitch Moreland, at 32, was named an All-Star for the first time in his nine year career.

Last season Sale was the eighth Red Sox pitcher in club history to start in the All-Star Game, the first since Derek Lowe in 2002.

Fans had the opportunity to get Andrew Benintendi an All-Star nod through a last-chance vote that pitted Benny against four other close calls. In the end, though, the most votes went to  the Mariners’ Jean Segura, with Benintendi registering second place. Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton ranked last of the runners up.

In all, the Red Sox, Astros, and Indians will each send a Major League-high five players to the Midsummer Classic. Boston’s record for All-Star selections is eight in 1946. The club had seven selections in 1978 and 2002.

The MLB All-Star Game presented by Mastercard takes place at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. on July 17. The full roster is available on the All-Star web site.


Red Sox Shutout Orioles

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In what’s already been a miserable start to the season for the Baltimore Orioles, Sunday’s Red Sox win had to be one of the toughest for their fans to bear.

It’s not easy to do what the Orioles managed to do. Through nine innings, Baltimore belted 13 hits but scored no runs as the Red Sox shutout the birds, 5-0. It was Boston’s third shutout victory of the season (also against the Rays on March 30 and the Angels on April 18).

In Orioles club history they had never before had 12 or more hits in a nine inning game and came away losers. Once, in a marathon 15-inning affair at Cleveland on May 14, 1961, Baltimore had managed 13 hits but lost 0-1 to the Tribe in Game 1 of a doubleheader.

Indeed, before Sunday, no major league team had been held scoreless on 12 or more hits in almost a decade, the last being the Dodgers against the Phillies in a 5-0 shutout on August 25, 2008.

In the long history of Fenway Park, which opened in 1912, Sunday’s was just the third time that fans witnessed 13 or more hits but not a single run scored. The other two instances were by the Sox themselves over 100 years ago: a 0-0 tie, despite 14 Boston hits, against the St. Louis Browns on July 14, 1916 and a 0-1 loss to the Washington Senators despite 15 hometown hits on July 3, 1913.

12 Singles, 1 Double, 0 Runs

The Orioles’ offensive output was notable, too, in that 12 of their 13 hits were singles, a streak broken by Jace Peterson‘s double to lead off the top of the ninth inning. Never before at Fenway Park has a team failed to score despite 13 hits and one or fewer extra-base hits. The last major league team to do that anywhere was the Rockies, facing the Nationals, in a 8-0 loss on August 13, 2005. Colorado similarly had 13 hits in that game and one double.

Eduardo Rodríguez, who gave up nine of the Orioles hits, became the first Red Sox starter since Paul Bird on September 22, 2009 to limit that many hits to just singles. E-Rod is the first Boston starter since Mike Boddicker to do all of that without allowing any runs (July 25, 1989), and the first since Bruce Hurst to likewise allow no walks (September 8, 1986).

Sunday’s win included more home runs from Boston’s newest slugger, J.D. Martinez. The two roundtrippers, his 14th and 15th of the season, ties him with Mookie Betts for the major league lead. It’s the first time in franchise history two Red Sox have hit 15 or more homers through the club’s first 50 games of a season.


Assessing Isolated Power

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When it comes to evaluating offensive performance, RSNStats focuses heavily on slash lines, a common set of statistics that includes Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage. But there are many more ways to evaluate players. This article describes one of those ways, Isolated Power.

Understanding ISO

Isolated Power (or ISO), is a simple but telling stat to help you better understand a player’s ability hit for power. The higher a player’s Isolated Power, the more likely they are to belt extra base hits (that is, doubles, triples, and home runs). Players with an ISO of .250 or higher are the game’s premier hitters. Statisticians remind us that ISO requires a large sample size in order to be considered accurate or predictive. Generally, ISO is best measured with 500 or more plate appearances or 1,000 or more at-bats.

To calculate ISO you add up a player’s extra base hits, giving more credit for home runs than triples and more credit for triples than doubles then divide that by the player’s number of at-bats: ((2B) + (2×3B) + (3×HR) / AB). A shortcut that works the same way is to subtract the player’s batting average from his slugging percentage.

The formula for Isolated Power is similar to that of Slugging Percentage, but it eliminates singles from the equation as they do not represent powerful at-bats. Players with very different performances on the field can have identical Slugging Percentages, but it’s their Isolated Power that spotlights the players who are specifically adept at hitting for power.

A player that only hit singles would have a zero ISO. One who only hit home runs would have a 3.000 ISO.

ISO Leaders

In 2017, average ISO across baseball was .171, with the Astros at an MLB-best .196 and the Giants at a last place .132. The top player ISO for 2017 (minimum 500 plate appearances) was the Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton (.350). Aaron Judge of the Yankees (.343) owned the top ISO in the American League. Only three other players in baseball had ISOs of .300 or higher in 2017: Joey Gallo (.327), Mike Trout (.323), and Cody Bellinger (.315).

As a team the Red Sox ISO was a weak .149 in 2017, the lowest such ISO in the American League and third-lowest in baseball. Mitch Moreland led the club that season with a .197 ISO, followed by Mookie Betts (.194) and Hanley Ramírez (.188).

The Red Sox all-time best career ISO was .290 by Ted Williams (1939-60), followed by Jimmie Foxx (.285, 1936-42). They’re followed on the club list by David Ortiz (.278, 2003-16), Manny Ramírez (.276, 2001-08), and Jose Canseco (.273, 1995-96). Rounding out the Red Sox Top 10 ISOs of all time are Jason Bay (.260, 2008-09), Babe Ruth (.260, 1914-19), Carl Everett (.238, 2000-01), Mo Vaughn (.238, 1991-98) and Dick Stuart (.236, 1963-64).

At the start of 2018 and with a minimum 1,000 plate appearances, Giancarlo Stanton (.284) owns the top ISO among active players followed by Mike Trout (.264), Khris Davis (.261), Albert Pujols (.256), Trevor Story (.248), Nolan Arenado (.246), Nelson Cruz (.243), Kris Bryant (.241), Miguel Sano (.241) and Chris Davis (.240).

For all-time (minimum 1,000 games played), just three players have ISOs of .300 or higher: Babe Ruth (.348, 1914-35), Mark McGwire (.325, 1986-2001), and Barry Bonds (.309, 1986-2007).


Betts Blasts 3 Home Runs

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Right from the get go, the Red Sox looked good against the Angels and their impressive young two-way player, Shohei Ohtani.

Mookie Betts opened the series with a home run, the first of three he would hit on Tuesday against three different Anaheim pitchers. It was just the third full-count home run to lead off a game for the Sox since 2010, the first since Betts himself accomplished the feat last May 9th against the Brewers.

Later, in the third inning, Betts launched another moon shot against Luke Bard, the younger brother of former Boston pitcher Daniel Bard. A third Betts blast came in the eighth inning facing reliever Cam Bedrosian.

All three Betts home runs measured past 400 feet (411, 417, 426) and left the bat at speeds of 104.9, 107.4, and 108.0 MPH, respectively.

For Betts it was his third career game with three home runs. In club history only Ted Williams has managed three such games. Mo Vaughn, Jim Rice, and Nomar Garciaparra each had two such games with the Sox. Sammy Sosa and Johnny Mize hold the major league record since 1908 for the most career games with three home runs (six such games each).

A shot at a club-record four home runs in a single game was scuttled in the ninth inning when Brock Holt grounded into a double play, leaving Betts on deck.

Coincidentally enough, the last major league player with four home runs in a single game was new teammate J.D. Martinez, who met the feat while he was with the Diamondbacks last September 4 against the Dodgers.

The Red Sox ended up 10-1 winners on Tuesday, the first time Boston has scored that many runs against the Angels in their ballpark since August 7, 1999 (a 14-3 win).