G46: Red Sox 10, Rockies 3

Rockies - 010 100 010 -  3 10  0
Red Sox - 000 430 03x - 10 13  0

Baseball's most potent offense - 264 total runs, 5.87 runs per game - had another typical night. The hits and runs came in big bunches. Boston has collected 10+ hits in 30 of its 46 games this season. The team's batting average for May is .317, approximately 30-35 points higher than any other team.

After a quiet three innings, the Red Sox offense exploded in the fourth. Xander Bogaerts extended his hitting streak to 18 games when he blasted a solo home run over everything in left. That cut Colorado's lead to 2-1. David Ortiz walked and was forced at second by Hanley Ramirez. Jackie Bradley lined a single to left (29 games!). Travis Shaw tied the game with a single and after Bradley was forced at the plate, Blake Swihart tripled in two more runs.

In the fifth, Dustin Pedroia doubled and was replaced by Marco Hernandez (as a precautionary measure due to his hamstring); Hernandez ended up going 2-for-2 for the rest of the game. Bogaerts whiffed and Ortiz was walked intentionally. Ramirez then walked to load the bases. A fielder's choice by Bradley brought in one run and Shaw's double scored two more.

Swihart's second triple of the night scored two runs in the eighth.

Steven Wright's (7-7-3-2-7, 117) knuckleball was acting devilish early in the game. After Wright fanned the first two hitters in the first inning, Ryan Hanigan committed a passed ball on a third strikeout, giving Wright the chance to record four Ks, but the baserunner was thrown out trying to steal.

In the second, Carlos Gonzalez singled. He went to second on a passed ball, third on a wild pitch, and scored on a groundout. He singled again in the fourth, advanced to second on a passed ball, and ended up scoring on a wild pitch. The night's final tally was four passed balls for Hanigan and three wild pitches for Wright. To my eye, all seven could have been passed balls.

Chad Bettis / Steven Wright

Betts, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, 1B
Bradley, CF
Shaw, 3B
Hanigan, C
Swihart, LF

A few factoids from Elias:

Jackie Bradley [is] the 44th player to get halfway to Joe DiMaggio's record hitting streak since the Yankee Clipper hit safely in 56 games in a row in 1941. Another notable, and under-the-radar streak came to an end for Boston. Besides Bradley, Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts also collected hits on Tuesday, although Hanley Ramirez did not. That quartet had hits in each of Boston's previous 12 games at Fenway Park, which was the longest streak of four different players getting hits in their teams' home games in modern major-league history. Previously, the longest streak like that was 11 games, by four Indians players in 1932 (Earl Averill, Ed Morgan, Dick Porter and Joe Vosmik).

David Price improved to 7-1 in 10 games with Boston on Tuesday. The only other left-hander who won seven of his first 10 games for the Red Sox was Jesse Tannehill, who did so in the team's fourth year of existence, 1904. Tannehill was 7-3 through 10 games for Boston, which won the American League that year.

The Cubs are now 30-14, which is the fewest losses they've had at the time of their 30th win since 1918, when they started 30-12.

The Brewers won in Atlanta on Tuesday, 2-1, to drop the Braves to 2-18 at home this season. Atlanta is the third team in major league history to lose at least 18 of its first 20 home decisions in a season, joining the 1906 Red Sox (2-18) and the 1913 Yankees (2-18).