In one swing of that bat, Dustin Pedroia gave the Red Sox a comfortable lead in the second inning against the Braves.
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Tuesday’s matchup between the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox started ugly and ended even uglier for the Braves. The Red Sox have a 10-2 record when outhitting opponents.
The Red Sox jumped ahead 2-0 in the first against Norris.
ATLANTA (AP) – David Price had a simple summary of his domination of the overmatched Atlanta Braves.
Atlanta tried to battle back in the eighth after Freeman homered to right to cut Boston’s lead to five. Then there was Travis Shaw. The Braves opened the season with nine straight losses, and an 11-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday in Atlanta left them with a new seven-game skid. But this is the Braves we’re talking about – a team that has lost 16 of 20 this season and whose collective OPS sits below.600.
Price followed up the first by turning in back-to-back 1-2-3 innings with a pair of strikeouts in each.
“I didn’t help myself”, Norris said. “It never crosses my mind to go in there and turn a table over or yell and scream because these guys give you everything they have every single night”. He walked three and struck out a season-high nine while allowing two or fewer earned runs for the eighth straight start dating back to last July 25.
Price has won eight consecutive decisions. The umpires reviewed the call to see if it was a home run, but was upheld and Ortiz stayed at second.
The homer drought is the Braves’ longest in their 51 years in Atlanta.
Asked what would be his expectation for Garcia’s defense in left field, manager Fredi Gonzalez said “Get three hits and drive in four”. The home run stuff, you can’t teach that.
The Red Sox then added five runs in the top of the ninth to ensure the lefty improved to 3-0, in spite of his 5.76 ERA.
While with Tampa Bay, Price also had 14 strikeouts at Toronto on August 28, 2011.
Porcello stuck out six and walked two, and he did not allow a runner to second base until the seventh inning. No other NL team had fewer than 48 extra-base hits through Tuesday. During the last 10 games, they averaged 0.0 runs per game, above their 0.0 season average. As he was sliding, the ball popped out of his glove, but Castro reached and grabbed the ball with his right hand before rising to throw to first base for the double play. “I think that I had everything working today, other than that one mistake that I made in the seventh inning”.
David Ortiz didn’t start the last two games. Fans responded with an ovation which grew louder when the slugger popped out of the Boston dugout and tipped his cap, both to the fans and to the Braves dugout. Ortiz did not play. RHP Carson Smith, who has yet to make his Red Sox debut because of a right forearm strain, will pitch at Double-A Portland this weekend and could be activated next week.
Red Sox: RHP Steven Wright (1-2, 1.40) will make his first start against the Braves as the teams travel to Boston for two more games. He had the tie-breaking single in the 12th inning of a 7-5 win at Houston late Sunday night. But given the events of the last four or five years, particularly the last two, this Red Sox season has been different from the start, and everybody knows it.
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Boston will look to sweep the home-and-home series on Thursday at Fenway when they send Clay Buchholz (0-2, 6.33 ERA) to the mound to square off against Jhoulys Chaci (0-1, 3.18 ERA).
