Mariners - 000 100 112 - 5 16 2 Red Sox - 000 000 000 - 0 5 1After being shutout in the first two games of the series, the Mariners, led by starter Christian Bergman (7-4-0-2-2, 83) turned the tables on the Red Sox, who saw their six-game winning streak come to an end.
Rick Porcello (6.1-11-2-1-6, 104) allowed 11 hits for the second straight start. Over his last four starts (25 innings), Porcello has given up 40 hits - and he leads all pitchers with 88 hits allowed.
The Red Sox's chances at scoring any runs early in the game were thwarted by the fact that they hit into a double play in each of the first four innings:
1st inning: Dustin Pedroia doubled with one out. Xander Bogaerts singled him to third. Andrew Benintendi GIDP (4-6-3).
2nd inning: Hanley Ramirez was hit by a pitch. Mitch Moreland forced him at second. Jackie Bradley GIDP (4-6-3).
3rd inning: Sandy Leon walked. Deven Marrero GIDP (5-4-3). Mookie Betts struck out looking.
4th inning: Pedroia singled. Bogaerts forced him at second. Benintendi GIDP (again) (4-6-3).
The Red Sox have hit into 58 double plays, which leads all MLB teams. (And they may have come within one pitch of another double play in the fifth. Moreland walked with one out and was thrown out trying to steal one pitch before Bradley struck out.)
Porcello allowed five hits in the first three innings and two more hits with one out in the fourth (Kyle Seager's double and Danny Valencia's single). Yet it was Porcello's wild pitch that scored Seager with Seattle first run. After a walk and another single, Porcello ended the inning by striking out Jean Segura with the bases loaded.
In Boston's sixth, Marrero singled with one out, but Bergman avoided any possible trouble by throwing only two pitches (Betts flied to right and Pedroia flied to center).
Seattle added to its lead in the seventh. Porcello allowed a leadoff double to Carlos Ruiz and a one-out single to Ben Gamel. With two Mariners on base, Robby Scott got Robinson Cano to fly out to right. Heath Hembree allowed a infield single (Bogaerts made an error on it), and Ruiz scored.
Guillermo Heredia homered off Hembree in the eighth to make it 3-0. In the bottom half, Chris Young singled with one out, but Nick Vincent retired Leon on a pop to second and Marrero on a grounder to first.
Fernando Abad gave up a two-run homer to Cano in the ninth. Boston had two baserunners in the bottom of the ninth thanks to infield errors by Seager and Segura. But it didn't much matter, as Benintendi popped to third and Ramirez struck out swinging.
Every Mariner in the lineup at least one hit; Ruiz had three and five others had two apiece. If you look down the runs scored column for the Mariners in the box score, it goes: 1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1.
Both the Yankees and Orioles won this afternoon, so the Red Sox are 3 GB New York, while Baltimore is 4.5 GB.
Before the game, the Red Sox optioned brian johnson back to Pawtucket and called up Blaine Boyer, a right-handed pitcher. Boyer relieved Abad in the ninth, faced two batters and retired them both. He will likely be sent down when the Red Sox activate David Price, who is scheduled to pitch tomorrow night in Chicago against the White Sox.
Betts, RFBergman had a very bad start last Tuesday against the Nationals. He allowed 10 runs and 14 hits in only four innings.
Pedroia, 2B
Bogaerts, SS
Benintendi, LF
Ramirez, DH
Moreland, 1B
Bradley, CF
Leon, C
Marrero, 3B
Re Brian Johnson: the last Red Sox pitcher to throw a nine-inning shutout in his Fenway Park debut? Pedro Martinez, April 11, 1998. As SoSHer Rough Carrigan put it: "A Brian Johnson hasn't filled in this well since the passing of Bon Scott."
ELIAS:
ReplyDeleteThere were 16 major-league games played on Saturday (including one doubleheader), and here were the final scores of those games: 3-2, 3-1, 5-3, 3-0, 6-0, 4-3, 3-0, 6-1, 5-2, 5-2, 4-3, 5-0, 5-2, 5-4, 3-0 and 6-3. That's right. No team scored more than six runs in any of Saturday's 16 games. That marked the first time in major-league history, dating to 1876, that no team had scored more than six runs on a day on which at least 16 games were played. (If you're wondering, Saturday, May 27, 2017 was the 703rd day in major-league history on which at least 16 games were played.)
Also, Friday, May 26 marked the first day in major-league history on which at least 15 games were played and there were no sacrifice bunts. (There had been 2,900 days on which at least 15 games were played through Friday, May 26.)
Brandon McCarthy and Ross Stripling combined to limit the Cubs to three hits, all singles, as the Dodgers took Saturday's contest, 5-0. On Friday night, Alex Wood and two relievers had limited the Cubs to two hits, both singles, in a 4-0 Dodgers victory. You have to go back 100 years — OK, six days shy of 100 years — to find the last team that shut out the defending World Series champions on three-or-fewer hits in each of two consecutive games. That team was [Cleveland], who blanked the Red Sox at Fenway Park, 3-0 on one hit and 5-0 on three hits, on June 1-2, 1917. Guy Morton and Jim Bagby were the Cleveland pitchers, but more interesting is that Boston's lone hit in the June 1 game was supplied in the eighth inning by that day's losing pitcher, a young lefty named Babe Ruth.
Brian Johnson tossed a five-hit shutout, striking out eight and walking none, as the Red Sox made it six straight wins by blanking the run-starved Mariners, 6-0. It was the first shutout by a Red Sox rookie since Clay Buchholz no-hit the Orioles, 10-0, on Sept. 1, 2007. The last Boston rookie to toss a complete game in which he allowed neither a run nor a walk was Jim Wright, who did that against Kansas City on July 29, 1978. But here's the piece de resistance: Johnson became the first rookie in Red Sox history to toss a shutout in which he allowed no walks and no more than five hits with at least eight strikeouts.
The Red Sox became the first major-league team this season to win six straight games with the starting pitcher credited as the victor in each game.