Red Sox - 010 003 000 - 4 8 2 Royals - 002 300 03x - 8 11 0After Travis Shaw's three-run homer brought the Red Sox to within one run with three innings to play, a comeback in Kansas City seemed possible. But Koji Uehara's disastrous eighth inning, in which the reliever committed a throwing error and surrendered a long home run to Paulo Orlando, spelled defeat.
Boston took an early lead when Jackie Bradley's double scored Shaw (3-for-4) in the second inning. Bradley's hitting streak is now at 22 games.
Rick Porcello (5-8-5-2-3, 106) started to fall apart in the third. Orlando led off with a triple and scored the game-tying run on a groundout. Eric Hosmer homered with two outs in the inning to give the Royals a 2-1 lead. Porcello then allowed four straight singles with one out in the fourth, including a two-run hit by Orlando, who finished the night 3-for-4 (a double shy of the cycle), with two runs scored, and four RBI.
The Red Sox had two-out singles from Hanley Ramirez and Shaw in the fourth, but Bradley ended the inning with a groundout. In the sixth, Dustin Pedroia singled. After Xander Bogaerts and David Ortiz both popped up, Ramirez was hit by a pitch. Then Shaw crunched his sixth homer of the season, making it a 5-4 game.
Boston went in order in the seventh. Boagerts singled to start the eighth, but he was thrown out trying to steal, one pitch before Ramirez ended the inning bys striking out.
In the bottom of the eighth, Tommy Layne walked Salvador Perez and struck out Cheslor Cuthbert (who was also 3-for-4). Uehara came in and Omar Infante bunted his first pitch towards third. Koji bobbled the ball, and then threw it wildly down the right field line. Somehow, the slow-moving Perez scored from first and Infante pulled into third. Then Orlando hit a bomb to left to put the game out of reach. Koji also allowed a double to Lorenzo Cain, but stranded him at second.
Down by four in the ninth, Bradley worked a one-out walk, but pinch-hitter Marco Hernandez struck out and Brock Holt grounded out.
Boston stayed in a tie for first place because the Orioles lost to the Mariners 10-0.
Red Sox Months With .900+ OPS (Since 1913)
Month GAMES AVG OBP SLG OPS
June 2003 26 .315 .388 .556 .945
May 2016 14 .327 .384 .559 .944
June 1950 29 .312 .401 .513 .914
May 1996 26 .303 .381 .523 .904
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ReplyDeleteJordan Zimmermann allowed eight runs over seven innings but still managed to earn the win over the Twins on Monday. What was even more unusual was that Zimmermann struck out nine batters in Monday's matchup. The last pitcher to earn the win while allowing at least eight runs and recording nine or more strikeouts was the Athletics' Lefty Grove on May 30, 1927 against the Yankees (9 IP, 8 R, 11 SO in a 9-8 victory);
With last night's contest postponed, I spent the better part of two hours last night watching ESPN flip between different broadcasts, including the Twins-Tigers matchup and the Marlins-Phillies game. It was actually quite enjoyable because the commercials breaks seemed fewer, although the in-game advertising is as bad or worse on some of these other networks as it is on NESN.
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