David Ortiz hit his 21st home run of the season, and recent call-up Bryce Brentz had two hits and broke a tie with an RBI single in the sixth to help the Red Sox beat the Rays 6-5 on Friday night.
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ALL-STAR ALEX: Colome headed to San Diego after the game, hitching a ride with Ortiz and other Red Sox players and staff on an MLB-chartered jet, for his first All-Star experience. “It’s very tough, to answer the question”. I wish I had a better explanation for it; I don’t.
The Red Sox get to go into the All Star Break feeling about as good as they have in six weeks. “I’m really looking forward to the last two and a half months of the regular season, plus hopefully a long month of October”.
The Sox (49-38) lead the majors in runs scored, batting average and OPS, but they had failed to score more than two runs in support of Price in six of seven starts prior to yesterday.
“It’s sickening to think how far we’ve fallen off here”, said manager Kevin Cash.
“To me, teams that have been successful on the road, you can point to their bullpen as a main reason why”, Farrell said.
“He’s doing exactly, from an innings standpoint, what we hoped”, Farrell said. “I thought he was driving a lot of pitches through the strike zone, particularly the bottom of the zone”. I wish I had a better explanation for it; I don’t.
With Clay Buchholz again exiled to the bullpen and Eduardo Rodriguez in the minors – he will start against the Yankees in NY in the first game after the break – there’s a need for a starting pitcher. SS Willy Adames went 0-for-2 and RHP Chih-Wei Hu pitched an impressive 1-2-3 inning for the World team.
Robbie Ross, Jr. (1-1) got the victory for Boston.
With all due respect to Koji Uehara, his days of shutting the door for the Red Sox are in the past.
One of those three Tampa Bay wins, however, was against Price on June 29, when he gave up four runs in 61/3 innings.
But four runs are supposed to be enough with the ace on the mound.
The Red Sox will option RHP Noe Ramirez to Triple-A Pawtucket and recall LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (1-3, 8.59 ERA) to start at the New York Yankees on Friday and Rays RHP Chris Archer (4-12, 4.66 ERA) starts against Baltimore.
He was able to walk off the field under his own power, but did have a slight limp. X-rays on the foot were negative Thursday and he said the swelling has reduced significantly since he left Wednesday’s win over the Rangers. All of a sudden he was just one home run away from No. 500 with two or three potential at-bats left in the game.
Cespedes and Syndergaard left Friday’s game with injuries. The Sox obviously have Dustin Pedroia entrenched at second base, but could use Hill as a platoon partner with Travis Shaw at third base.
After previous starts, Price emphasized “I need to get better”.
On Sunday, in his final start of the first half, the left-hander tossed eight shutout innings while scattering four hits, walking one and striking out 10 against the Rays in the Red Sox’ 4-0 win – his ninth win of the season. He is 2-2 with a 4.82 ERA in five games (four starts) at Fenway Park.
The not-so-good news is that Boston’s first 87 games have revealed some causes for concern.
Red Sox: RHP Rick Porcello (10-2, 3.82 ERA) will make his 18th start of the season on Saturday.
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Marisnick, who singled off A’s right-hander Liam Hendriks (0-2) leading off the inning, scored after stealing second base and advancing to third on a groundout.
