Red Sox - 000 003 032 - 8 10 1 Royals - 020 000 001 - 3 7 0The Red Sox feasted on the Kansas City bullpen, scoring all their runs after starter Glenn Sparkman had been pulled (though one run was charged to him). The victory enabled Boston to gain a game in the standings, as the Blue Jays held off the Yankees 4-3. The Red Sox are 7.5 GB.
The big blow was a three-run, pinch-hit home run from Eduardo Núñez, who batted for Brock Holt with one out in the eighth, with runners at first and third. Holt had walked, singled, and doubled (the two-bagger had snapped a 2-2 tie), but even if he had been 0-for-3, I would not have cheered the move. The instances where it would be a good idea to have Núñez bat are minimal, indeed.
Eduardo was well on his way to proving my point as he took a strike and then swung and missed. After ducking away from a ball inside, Núñez golfed Jake Diekman's 1-2 pitch over the fence in left-center. It turned Boston's 3-2 lead into a 6-2 bulge. ... Alex "Super Genius" Cora still has a little of that '18 magic!
While the Red Sox struggled against Sparkman (5.1-3-1-1-2, 80), the Royals grabbed a 2-0 lead on Alex Gordon's double and Cheslor Cuthbert's home run off Eduardo Rodriguez (5.2-6-2-0-7, 89). The Royals had runners at first and second with no outs in the fourth, but Rodriguez caught Cuthbert looking at strike three and Kelvin Gutierrez hit into a 4-6-3 double play. In the next inning, Billy Hamilton singled with one out. Whit Merrifield flied to Jackie Bradley in right-center and Hamilton was thrown out trying to tag and go to second.
Sparkman had retired 11 of his last 12 batters (and 14 of 16) through five innings when Mookie Betts doubled off the wall in right-center. (Betts received a multitude of gifts from plate umpire Jim Wolf. Betts was ahead 2-0, but the count should have been 0-2. Ball 3 was also a strike. Mookie's double came on an 0-5 pitch!)
Andrew Benintendi flied to center and the Royals went to the pen. J.D. Martinez (3-for-5) hit Scott Barlow's second pitch for a triple off the top of the right field wall, scoring Betts. Rafael Devers walked, Xander Bogaerts tied the game with a sac fly to right, and Brock Holt put the Red Sox ahead with a double to right.
Martinez started the rally in the eighth as well, grounding a single into left. Devers forced him at second and Bogaerts singled to right. Cora pulled a
Betts, RFRafael Devers was named the American League Player of the Month for May and Michael Chavis was named the AL Rookie of the Month. (Boston players also captured both awards in the same month back in September 2007, when David Ortiz won Player of the Month and Jacoby Ellsbury won Rookie of the Month.)
Benintendi, LF
Martinez, DH
Devers, 3B
Bogaerts, SS
Holt, 2B
Chavis, 1B
Vázquez, C
Bradley, CF
Devers, 22, is the youngest Red Sox player to win AL Player of the Month since the award was introduced in 1974. He led the AL with 40 hits last month while slashing .351/.380/.640. He had a career-best 11-game hit streak from May 19-31 and he recorded an extra-base hit and scored a run in eight straight games from May 20-28 to tie a Red Sox record set by Dwight Evans in 1982. (I was not completely clear in an earlier post when I wrote that Devers's streak was the longest in Red Sox history. It was the longest streak for a Red Sox player age 22 or younger.)
Evans's streak ran from September 24 to October 1, 1982. Duffy Lewis had a seven-game streak from June 16-22, 1912. There have been 22 six-game streaks by a Red Sox batter since 1908. Ted Williams has four of those 22, including two in 1957. Jim Rice and Tony Armas each had two, with both of Armas's streaks coming in 1984. Evans also had a six-game streak.
Xander Bogaerts:
I was telling Devers, 2015, I hit .320, but that was like a soft .320*. I told him it's pretty impressive the way he was hitting .320, because he's been doing it driving the ball ... Definitely proud to see how he's doing it compared to my weak one.(*: Bogaerts actually hit .371 in July 2015, but had only five extra-base hits (34 singles, 5 doubles).)
Devers also has not been charged with an error at third base since May 2 (68 chances).
Chavis hit seven home runs and drove in 19 runs in May, with a .788 OPS, but has also batted only .222 over his last 16 games, with 24 strikeouts in 63 at-bats. As The Globe's Peter Abraham notes: "Many of the strikeouts have been swinging through fastballs up around his neck." (The Curse of the SASAHE!)
It used to take several weeks, if not a month, for pitchers to adjust to rookie hitters. Teams relied on reports filed by their scouts and feedback from their minor league coaches to attack hitters.AL East: MFY/Blue Jays, 7 PM.
Now most teams have pitch-tracking systems at their Triple A ballparks and have info on hitters before they make their debut. Once a few major league games are played, even more sophisticated data is compiled and the analysts start to break it down.
"I don't know how scouting reports work in the minors. But you could have a bad series and it didn't affect the next series," Chavis said. "Here, what you do the previous day affects the next day. You're always making adjustments and that's the current situation I'm in right now. ... I wish I could say, 'Oh, he made a good pitch.' But it's not that. I'm getting myself out. I'm taking good pitches for strikes and swinging at the ones that aren't."
Houston's Justin Verlander struck out Chavis three times on May 26. He threw him 14 straight four-seam fastballs, 10 in the upper third of the strike zone or above. ...
Cleveland exploited the same spot in the series that followed. ...
"[It's terrible] because I have this opportunity and I need to make the most of it," Chavis said. "These are all important games."
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