The Boston Red Sox are a handful of years removed from their last World Series win, and with the curse fully and seemingly forever broken, it’s time to start leaning on the future. They moved within two games of the AL East co-leaders, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays. We’ve got a very good, young and diverse lineup. Mike Zunino took Porcello deep to center field-so deep in fact it caused Rick Rizz to talk about an herb garden located beyond the wall in center field that houses basil, oregano, and thyme, among other tasty delights.
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Braves 8, Pirates 4: Ender Inciarte broke a tie with an RBI single in the fifth inning and offensively challenged Atlanta had 15 hits in its victory over Pittsburgh.
Travis Shaw led off the 11th with a single to left field off reliever Cody Martin. Brock Holt delivered the go-ahead RBI, singling on a ground ball up the middle just off the glove of a diving Shawn O’Malley, which allowed Shaw to score easily.
Kimbrel (2-3) got the victory by pitching 1 1/3 innings. John Farrell and staff started Benintendi in the ninth position within the batting order, after going 0-2 in Tuesday night’s game.
In the bottom of the inning, Seattle put the tying run on base, advancing pinch runner Luis Sardinas to third. Betts finished 2-for-6 with an RBI, his 71st of the season.
Seattle rookie Ariel Miranda, making his first major league start and his debut as a Mariner, turned in a solid night but was not involved in the decision. He beat Seattle on June 18 at home, going six innings while allowing two runs on eight hits.
“I think I should have had it”, O’Malley said. “After the first inning, he settled in nicely”. The Sox got Price an early lead and he was cruising through his outing until the 8th inning hit.
Shortstop Shawn O’Malley had three hits for the Mariners, including his first home run of the season in the fifth. After blowing a 99 miles per hour fastball by Ortiz for a swinging strikeout to start the ninth, Diaz gave up a single to Jackie Bradley Jr. and hit Aaron Hill with a pitch, meaning the tying run would come to the plate at least once.
“Miranda really threw the ball well”, Servais said. Abad got the final two outs of the inning, but the damage had already been done.
But all that good feeling ended quickly in the second inning when Shaw led off with a solo homer to right field. Benintendi will be covering left field until said otherwise, after splitting the first half of 2016 with the Salem Red Sox and Portland Sea Dogs.
Nelson Cruz’s leadoff homer in the second inning opened the scoring.
The score stayed like that until the 11th. He went to closer Craig Kimbrel, who was able to get Cano to ground out to end the inning and send it into extra innings. Only one baserunner managed to reach second base in the first seven innings against Iwakuma, that coming in the third when Andrew Benintendi got his first major league hit and advanced to second on Brock Holt’s two-out single.
The Mariners acquired Miranda from the Orioles for Wade Miley at the trade deadline.
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His 3.8 walks per nine innings with the Red Sox before Thursday night was ominous enough, since it represented a slight increase over what he had averaged while with the Padres this season. RHP Steven Wright will pitch Friday’s opener, with LHPs Eduardo Rodriguez (Saturday) and David Price (Sunday) following.
