Boston Red Sox catcher Sandy Leon, left, congratulates starting pitcher Steven Wright after the Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-0 in a baseball game, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, in Los Angeles.
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LOS ANGELES Left-hander Rich Hill knew that when he went looking for work in 2015 it was going to be hard to get a major league team to give him a chance because he wanted to go back to starting, which he had done the first five years of his career before becoming a reliever in 2010 for the Boston Red Sox. Ortiz also made a diving grab of Josh Reddick’s liner to end the fifth with runners on first and third.
Good hands never leave you.
Pitching all nine innings of the game has been seen before from Wright this season, as Friday’s complete game was his fourth of the season.
“Immediately I knew I loved the guy because he put all the hitters into a room and he talked for a solid hour about hitting and how to approach things”, Reddick recalled.
Dodgers rookies Ross Stripling and Grant Dayton got to face David Ortiz on Saturday when the Red Sox designated hitter made a rare start in the field in an NL park. The staff’s ERA was 2.38 with three complete games, and though Eduardo Rodriguez was hardly dominant against the Dodgers, he was hardly awful.
“At some point, when younger players can hear what you have to say”, Ortiz said that day in San Diego, “it’s something that stays in their minds for their career”. The Sox had a chance to score early when they put the first two batters of the game on base with a pair of singles.
Kazmir (9-5) was roughed up for four runs and five hits by a Boston lineup that was missing slugger David Ortiz. Mookie Betts lined a 78-mph Kazmir changeup for a solo homer to left and a 2-0 Red Sox lead in the third. The pair – which had totaled 13 major league appearances coming into the game – combined to hold the Sox scoreless for a combined seven innings, allowing just four hits while striking out eight. He had been tied with Eric Karros (1992) at 30.
After leading off the second inning, Gonzalez scored the first Dodger run on a A.J. Ellis single. Boston claimed Bryan Holaday off waivers from the Texas Rangers to solidify its catching corps.
“First time that we’ve faced Stripling“, Farrell said.
“There was a little remnant of a new-formed blister – a different part of the finger – but I think that with his recent history, we want to be cautious and push his start date back”, Roberts said. Theres a comfort level there..
Outfielder Trayce Thompson (back) was expected to go on a rehab assignment soon, but Roberts said Friday that he doesn’t expect to see Thompson until perhaps September 1. 1B Hanley Ramirez, after sitting out two games with a jammed left wrist, came through Friday’s game without incident. Southpaw Brett Anderson (back), on the 60-day disabled list, is expected to make his next rehab assignment Monday with Triple-A Oklahoma City. No timetable has been set for the right-hander’s return.
Trayce Thompson was hoping to begin a minor league rehabilitation stint this week, but the outfielder was shut down after he aggravated his lower-back injury by increasing the intensity of his running last week.
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Ortiz is one of the Red Sox hitters to struggle through the current trip, now going 4-for-30 (.133).
