Aug 22, 2017 - The Boston Red Sox, leaders of the AL East, play the second game of a four game set with the Cleveland Indians Tuesday night.
“Up and down the lineup there’s not an easy out,” he said. “We’re gonna grind out at-bats.” With Rafael Devers, a left-handed hitting third baseman due up, Roberts put in the left-handed reliever Alex Wood. Cora countered by bringing in Nunez as a pinch-hitter and Nunez wasted no time, taking a mighty cut at the second pitch he saw — an 84 mile-per-hour breaking ball — and deposited the ball over the Green Monster to put the game out of reach.
Get the best of The New York Times sports coverage delivered to your inbox. The big mystery leading into Game 1, which was held at Boston’s Fenway Park, had been how much Sale had to offer. The answer was a bit of a mixed bag.
The left-handed ace made it through just four innings, allowing five hits and three earned runs. His breaking pitches had the Dodgers fooled repeatedly, leading to seven strikeouts, but he also allowed two walks and a towering home run from Matt Kemp in the second inning. Beyond Kemp’s home run, the Dodgers’ offense was powered by Manny Machado, the lightning rod shortstop, who regularly endured choruses of boos from the crowd at Fenway but managed to drive in three runs on a single, a groundout and a sacrifice fly. —— Here’s how the Red Sox beat the Dodgers in Game 1. Bottom 1st: Red Sox Give Sale an Early Lead Mookie Betts got a gift when he popped up the third pitch he saw from Clayton Kershaw into foul territory down the first base line. David Freese was not able to find the ball and let it fall to the ground, and Betts, a favorite to win the A.L.
M.V.P., took advantage by ripping a single to center four pitches later. Betts stole second and then came around easily to score on a single to Andrew Benintendi in which Benintendi advanced to second on Yasiel Puig’s throw home. Los Angeles challenged the call, claiming Benintendi came off the bag, but the call was upheld.
Kershaw finally got an out when Steve Pearce popped out to first, but after a brief meeting on the mound J.D. Martinez lined a slider into left which drove in Benintendi to make it 2-0. Xander Bogaerts worked a 3-0 count but, but after Kershaw got it back to a full-count, Martinez made a huge mistake and left first before Kershaw delivered his pitch. The left-hander threw to first and Freese threw the ball to second for the out. Bogaerts then popped out to first to end the inning. Waldstein: A little commentary on replay. That play at second base in the first inning was not within the spirit of the replay rule.
If anything, the tag pushed Andrew Benintendi’s hand off the bag and before replays were introduced, never would have been called an out. Replay was instituted to protect against egregiously missed calls, not nit-picky little things that need to be measured with a high-definition electron microscope. So, it’s good the replay officials determined there was not enough evidence to overturn it, so the ultimate call was right. One positive for the Dodgers, though, was that it gave Clayton Kershaw a moment to catch his breath. Staked to a 2-0 lead, Chris Sale started things off by striking out Chris Taylor on seven pitches, at one point bringing the outfielder down to one knee with a vicious slider.
That dominance did not last long as Kemp, who not only surprised people by making the Dodgers out of spring training but was also named to the All-Star team, got a good swing on a 93 mile-per-hour fastball and hit it into the Green Monster seats in left-center for a solo home run. Sale settled down, getting Enrique Hernandez to ground out to third, but after Yasiel Puig barely stayed alive on a checked swing, Sale ended up walking him when he missed on a fastball. With two outs and a runner on first, Sale got out of the inning by striking out Austin Barnes.
Bottom 2nd: Kershaw Gets Out Of a Jam The Red Sox got runners on the corners with only one out, but they ended up with nothing to show for it when Jackie Bradley Jr. Ended the inning by grounding into a double play. Clayton Kershaw walked Rafael Devers on five pitches to start the inning, and after striking out Ian Kinsler he allowed a single to right by the struggling Sandy Leon that sent Devers to third. It could have turned into quite a jam but Bradley, who often struggles against left-handers, gave him a huge gift with a grounder up the middle that Manny Machado handled easily.
By: With another day closer to the return of Red Sox 2B Dustin Pedroia and CF Jackie Bradley Jr., manager John Farrell is another day closer to making some difficult decisions. Boston has been awfully inconsistent at the dish this season. They’ve grounded into the second most double-plays in all of baseball 121, have left the fifth most on base 940 and continue to run into outs between the pillows. Their base-running woes, which have been well documented this season, are very alarming, especially for a 1st place team. By: We are now just days away from the glorious month of September. The leaves will be changing, the NFL season will be beginning, and most importantly, the pressure will be rising among Major League Baseball teams who are hoping to make a playoff run.
With the Red Sox up 3.5 games in the division, it seems very likely that they will find themselves in the playoff picture come October; however, this team was not constructed to simply make it to the playoffs.This team was constructed to contend for a World Series title, and they were constricted to do that right now. But when you take into consideration the injury problems, inconsistencies, and other issues that they have endured, it begs the question of whether or not they deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as teams like the Dodgers, Astros, and Indians. Does the Sox have what it takes to win in October? By: The Red Sox were such a different team the first part of August. They won 16 of 20 from July 31st to August 23rd. Over that span they batted.277, hit 29 HR, saw 72 BB, slugged.465 and had a.817 OPS. Stretching their AL East lead over the Yankees to a 5.5 game lead everything seemed to be on the up and up.
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However, as I’ve said before, the 2017 Boston Red Sox are the single most inconsistent first place ball club in MLB History. They have lost 4 in a row, being outscored 38-10 and playing some of the worst defensive baseball ever seen by human eyes. The baserunning mistakes, the absolute lack of power, the comical managerial skills of John Farrellthey’ve somehow made it to late August in first place. Mostly behind the arms of Chris Sale and Drew Pomeranz, as well as, the overachieving bullpen, Boston is now facing the question that they’ve peaked too early.
The same question that was presented to them last season after rattling off 11 straight victories in September, before being swept in the ALDS by the eventual AL Champion, Cleveland Indians. The fact of the matter is, the Red Sox need pitching to carry them because hitting with runners in scoring position, or with runners on base at all, doesn’t seem to be part of the gameplan. By: The Red Sox are now fully entrenched in their last quarter of the season as they open up a 3 game series against Baltimore before heading back on the road.
Boston split a 4 game series with Cleveland to maintain their 4.5 game lead over NYY. The Yankees will presumably be without some of their starting players in upcoming games, including C Gary Sanchez, due to their roles in Thursday's brawl with the Tigers, so wins are for Boston are even more valuable. With their next 16 games coming against AL East opponents the Sox have an opportunity to make a statement and move way ahead in the division. In order to do that, they're going to need all hands on deck, but who's hands will be able to contribute?