Athletics - 000 000 001 - 1 3 1 Red Sox - 110 210 00x - 5 7 0Rick Porcello became the first Boston starting pitcher to go eight innings (8-2-0-2-8, 114) and the Red Sox easily beat the Athletics on Tuesday night, aided by home runs from Mitch Moreland and Mookie Betts.
It was a stress-free game from start to finish. Porcello threw only eight pitches, all strikes, in a clean top of the first and Betts cracked his sixth home run in the bottom half. Porcello then worked around a one-out walk in the second and his teammates tacked on another run, Sandy Leon knocking in Michael Chavis (who was also on base in the fifth when the Mississippi Masher hit his eighth homer).
Rafael Devers knocked in Boston's final run, doubling home J.D. Martinez, who reached second base when center fielder Ramón Laureano acted nonchalant on a fly to right-center, tried to catch it waist-high and dropped it.
Porcello gave up a hit and a walk in the third and Oakland got its second hit - and final baserunner - off him in the fifth. Porcello retired his last 10 batters and 16 of his last 17, going back to the final out in the third. Tyler Thornburg pissed on the evening's good vibes by giving up a leadoff homer to Robbie Grossman in the ninth. But a 5-1 win counts as much as a 5-0 win, I suppose.
As mentioned, Chavis scored two runs and singled twice. He's has gone 2-for-4 in three consecutive games and is hitting .313 overall (10-for-32). Betts also had two hits.
The Red Sox go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon at 1 PM.
Benintendi, LFRed Sox RBI Leaders
Betts, RF
Martinez, DH
Bogaerts, SS
Devers, 3B
Chavis, 2B
Moreland, 1B
Bradley, CF
León, C
Xander Bogaerts 16 Mitch Moreland 15 J.D. Martinez 15 Mookie Betts 14 Christian Vazquez 13 Andrew Benintendi 13 Michael Chavis 8 Rafael Devers 7 Jackie Bradley 5 Eduardo Nunez 4Red Sox RBI Leaders (As % Of Opportunities)
PA PAwROB ROB R1 R2 R3 RBI OBI% Andrew Benintendi 114 41 55 27 19 9 13 20.0% Michael Chavis 35 19 25 12 8 5 8 20.0% Christian Vazquez 79 33 46 21 16 9 13 19.6% Mookie Betts 128 48 58 32 18 8 14 15.5% J.D. Martinez 116 49 71 35 21 15 15 15.5% Eduardo Nunez 46 20 35 14 11 10 4 14.3% Xander Bogaerts 119 56 87 46 24 17 16 13.8% Mitch Moreland 96 51 73 36 25 12 15 11.0% Rafael Devers 114 50 70 38 22 10 7 10.0% Jackie Bradley 95 39 52 28 14 10 5 9.6%(Columns: Plate Appearances, PA with Runners on Base, Total Number of Runners on Base when Batting, Runners on First Base, Second Base, and Third Base, Actual RBI, and Percentage of Runners on Base Driven In)
Bogaerts has batted with the most men on base, at least 14 more baserunners than anyone else. He has batted with 29 more baseruners than Betts (including 15 more runners in so-called "scoring position"), but has only two more RBI.
Nunez, Devers, and Bradley have each batted with 10 men on third base and have each knocked in three of their 10 runners, but their total plate appearances vary from 46 to 114.
Top 5 RBI Men in MLB (at least 75 PA)
Christian Yelich Brewers 29.4% Adalberto Mondesi Royals 28.4% Jose Abreu White Sox 27.5% Domingo Santana Mariners 26.7% Alex Gordon Royals 25.0% Charlie Blackmon Rockies 25.0%
J.D. Martinez has hit safely in 25 of his 27 games this season.
ReplyDeleteHe has not gone hitless in back-to-back games since July 2018 (3 straight from July 15-22).
He has played in 83 games since then, hitting safely in 71 of them (85.5%) and batting .342 (106-for-310).