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SHANE VICTORINO |
BOSTON STRONG -
THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION
Victorino's two homers and
7 RBIs lead the Red Sox
over the O's
August 27, 2013 ... Shane Victorino reached base all five times he was up. He also crushed two homers and a ground-rule double, finishing with four runs and seven RBIs as the Red Sox rolled to a 13-2 victory opening a three-game series with the Orioles.
The win pushed the Red Sox's lead over the Rays in the American League East to 2 1/2 games. While the Yankees simultaneously beat the Blue Jays, 7-1, the O's fell to 6 1/2 back of the Sox with just a one-game cushion in front of the Yanks.
While the entire Red Sox's offense was potent against Orioles lefty Wei-Yin Chen, knocking him around for eight runs before scoring five more off Baltimore's relief corps, Victorino led
the charge with perhaps the best game of his 10-year Major League career. In chronological order, Victorino walked, lined a two-run homer to left, got hit by a pitch, smashed a three-run homer to left and knocked a two-run ground-rule double to right. The
home runs were his 10th and 11th of the season while they marked his 100th and 101st of his career. With his unorthodox slap-style swing, Victorino's power has the ability to surprise.
After some doubted if the 32-year-old had enough left in the tank to earn his three-year, $39-million contract he signed in the offseason, Victorino has proved that he might actually be worth much more. He entered Tuesday's game ranked 23rd among MLB hitters with
4.3 wins above replacement, worth about $21.5 million on the common belief that each 1.0 WAR is worth about $5 million.
The Red Sox scored at least one run in five separate innings, putting up five in a monstrous fourth inning that sealed Chen's fate and sent O's manager Buck Showalter signaling to the bullpen.
Joining Victorino in the lopsided win, Mike Napoli hit a ball so high and hard off Chen that catcher Matt Wieters
didn't bother to look, instead turning his head away as if he was avoiding a gruesome scene in a horror movie. Napoli's homer cleared everything in left field and landed on the roof of a parking garage on Lansdowne Street.
Jacoby Ellsbury reached base three times and scored three times. Pedroia had three hits.
Felix Doubront baffled the Orioles with dancing breaking balls and corner-painting fastballs, striking out seven in 6 2/3 innings of work while allowing just two runs. The only
blemish on his scorecard was a two-run third inning in which he momentarily lost command and appeared to be getting squeezed by home-plate umpire Wally Bell. Doubront allowed two singles, followed by a hit-by-pitch, a walk and a sacrifice fly. That was all
the Orioles could muster off the lefty, who has allowed three earned runs or less in 18 of his last 19 starts.
The game was so out of reach by the eighth inning that the Orioles replaced the majority of their defense with replacements off the bench. The Red Sox even tried out Will Middlebrooks at
second base during the ninth inning and gave top prospect Xander Bogaerts his first appearance at Fenway Park at third.
The Red Sox acquired outfielder Quintin Berry from the Royals in exchange for righthanded reliever Clayton Mortensen. Berry has spent the season with Triple A Toledo, where he's .193 with a .309 on-base percentage, but those numbers belie his speed. A year
ago with the Tigers, Berry went 21 for 21 on steal attempts. In his first action since going on the disabled list June 18, Clay Buchholz threw 2/3 of an inning Sunday for Single A Lowell. |
