G32: Red Sox 5, Rangers 1

Red Sox - 010 011 110 - 5  7  0
Rangers - 000 100 000 - 1  4  0

Rick Porcello (6-3-1-1-8, 96) was brilliant again and the Red Sox cranked four home runs, two from Rafael Devers and one each from J.D. Martinez and (of course) Mookie Betts.

Of the Rangers' five baserunners in the game, only two of them advanced past first. And those two were actually the same guy: Nomar Mazara. He doubled and was stranded at third in the second and homered in the fourth.

The others: Delino DeShields singled to start the first and was erased on a double play. Shin-Soo Choo walked in the sixth, right before the third out was made. DeShields bunted for a hit in the ninth and watched helplessly as Bobby Poyner retired the next three batters.

Bartolo "The Oldest Goat" Colon (7-5-4-0-4, 91) allowed only five baserunners, but - unfortunately for him - four of them jogged happily (and unimpeded) around the bases. Martinez led off the second with his seventh home run. Devers broke a 1-1 tie when he opened the fifth with his fifth long-ball. Betts bashed #13 to kick off the sixth. And with one out in the seventh, Devers (3-for-4) went deep again.

In the eighth, Sandy Leon walked and Betts almost had another dong. His drive to deep right was caught by Mazara, with his back to the padded wall. Hanley Ramirez later doubled, scoring Leon with the night's last run.

Factoid: No one batted with two men on base at any point during the game.

Betts's home run was his 70th from the leadoff spot. He is now the franchise leader in that category, having passed Dom DiMaggio (69). J.D. Martinez and Betts talk about hitting all the time and a suggestion from JDM may have led to Betts's early-season power surge.

Just his directions and path ... Just staying through (the swing) more and thinking more about getting the ball in the air instead of the ball on the ground ... [H]e's loving it right now. He's hitting all these homers and he's like, "What the heck?" ... For him, he learns really quickly, and he obsesses. If I tell him to do one drill, I'll walk by the cage and he'll be doing the drill for 30 minutes. ... He just wants to be good.

In New York: The Yankees blew a 5-0 in the eighth inning. Cleveland re-tied the game 6-6 in the top of the ninth (thanks in large part to two wild pitches from Aroldis Chapman). But the Brownshirts won in the home half of the ninth - 7-6 - and remain 1 GB in the East.

Bartolo Colon / Rick Porcello

Betts, RF
Benintendi, LF
Ramirez, 1B
Martinez, DH
Bogaerts, SS
Devers, 3B
Nunez, 2B
Bradley, CF
Leon, C

During the radio broadcast of last night's game, Tim Neverett remarked with surprise that the Rangers, who are missing some key players, had already used 32 players this season. It was obvious that he believed this was a significant number of players to have used so early in the season.

I thought that since teams carry 25 players on Opening Day, using an additional seven guys over the first 30 games (or five weeks) did not seem like much of a big deal. ... And it turns out, it is not a big deal.

I spent less than one minute at Baseball-Reference and learned that 32 players is the average number for a team to have used at this point in 2018. (Click HERE and look at the very first column (#Bat: "Number of Players Used in Games").

In addition to the Rangers, there are 16 other teams that have used 32 or more players this season:

38 - Atlanta
36 - Dodgers
35 - Angels, Nationals
34 - Orioles, Reds, Marlins, Brewers, Yankees, Athletics, Padres, Giants
33 - Twins, Mets, Cardinals
32 - Blue Jays, Rangers

The Red Sox have used 28 players.