Red Sox - 440 000 011 - 10 15 1 Royals - 010 000 121 - 5 10 0Mookie Betts nailed Jason Hammel's third pitch of the evening for a home run - a true leadoff home run (the 12th of his career). The Red Sox batted around in the first and J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts both hit two-run homers in the second.
Chris Sale (6-5-1-1-12, 99) recorded 18 outs, but only one of them was out of the infield. He had twelve strikeouts, three popups, two groundouts, and a fly to right. The Red Sox cruised to victory, the first team to 60 wins. They also increased their AL East lead to two games, thanks to the Blue Jays' 6-2 win over the Yankees.
The Red Sox hit Hammel (2-9-8-1-0, 58) early and often. After Betts's homer (the 100th of his career), Andrew Benintendi lined out to center and Martinez cracked a single to left. Steve Pearce's 'excuse-me' swing resulted in an infield single to third. Bogaerts walked, loading the bases. Brock Holt lined a single to right, scoring two runs. After Eduardo Nunez's fouled to second, Sandy Leon hit a run-scoring single to right.
With one out in the second, Benintendi singled and Martinez went deep to right-center (#27). Pearce doubled and Bogaerts went boom to left (#14). Jackie Bradley's double in the eighth scored Nunez, who had also doubled. Blake Swihart (who had replaced Benintendi in left) singled in the ninth and scored on Pearce's third hit (and second double) of the night.
Tyler Thornburg made his long-awaited Red Sox debut - and his first major league appearance since October 2, 2016 - in the seventh. Lucas Duda, his first batter, tripled to right. Thornburg got the next three batters on a fly to center, a groundout to second (Duda scored), and a liner to center. Mike Moustakas hit a two-run homer off Brandon Workman in the eighth and Hector Velazquez pitched the ninth.
Pearce had three hits and scored two runs. Martinez had two hits, two runs, and two RBI. Holt had two hits and two RBI. Bogaerts scored two runs, drove in two runs, and walked twice (Boston's only walks).
AL East: The Blue Jays scored five runs off Sonny Gray in the bottom of the second (Gray did not return for the third!) and won 6-2. The Red Sox are 2 GA. ... In fact, Gray was so terrible, the Daily News thought it warranted two headlines!
Betts, RFThe Royals (25-61) are terrible. Only the Orioles have a worse record, just barely (24-62). However, Kansas City has lost two of three against the Os this season.
Benintendi, LF
Martinez, DH
Pearce, 1B
Bogaerts, SS
Holt, 2B
Nunez, 3B
Leon, C
Bradley, CF
Among the 15 American League teams, the Royals are 15th in runs scored, 12th in hits, 12th in doubles, 15th in home runs, 14th in walks, 12th in average, 14th in on-base, 15th in slugging, and 15th in OPS. They are also 15th in ERA, 15th in pitchers' K, and 14th in fewest walks allowed.
Five pitchers have made more than nine starts for the Royals this year. They all have ERAs over 5.10.
Kansas City last won back-to-back games on May 29-30.
Since June 2, the Royals are 4-24. (And they scored only 10 runs in those four wins.)
From June 5-26, they went 3-16, batting .176/.239/.276, with an average of 1.9 runs and 5.7 hits per game.
Jeff Sullivan, FanGraphs, July 3:
[S]ince the beginning of June, the Royals have scored all of [67] runs. The next-lowest total for anyone is [101]. There are [four] teams that have outscored the Royals by at least a hundred runs. Not all year. Over just more than one month. The Royals' pitching hasn't been especially bad of late, but it's not at all a team strength. The Royals don't have very many good pitchers. Therefore, since the beginning of June, the Royals have gone a baseball-worst [5-25]. ... Over this span, the Royals' Pythagorean winning percentage is [.177]. No one else is below [.346]. ...(I updated Sullivan's stats through July 5.)
[If] you're a fan ... you've probably thought to yourself that this has looked like one of the worst teams in memory. Your instincts have been rather accurate. Here's to a better July, from this point forward. I don't know how it could ever get worse.
OTM's Matt Collins looks at the bullpen, which now includes Tyler Thornburg!
AL East: MFY/TOR, 7 PM. The Red Sox are 1 GA. (Gleyber Torres is on the 10-day DL with a right hip strain.)
RS RA DIFF EXPW-L ACTUAL W-L Red Sox 457 327 +130 57-31 59-29 ---- Yankees 434 318 +116 54-30 56-28 1 GB
With the Red Sox win and Yankee loss, the four games more the Red Sox have played than the Yankees are all victories. If no games are postponed for either team, their games played won't balance out until August 25, and because the Yanks play a make-up double-header that day, the Yankees will have played one more game than the Sox at close of play that day. As of now, Sox have 25 scheduled games in August to the Yankees 30. Dog-days indeed!
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