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MOOKIE BETTS |
A TEAM THAT COULDN'T
GET THE JOB DONE ...
Mookie Betts leads the Sox
in a come-from-behind victory
June 29, 2017 ...
After going 2 for 4 with a homer and a go-ahead single in the Sox’
6-3 win over the Minnesota Twins, Mookie Betts went 6 for 12 with a
homer, a double, and three RBIs over the four games with the Twins.
His bat helped Sox starter David Price pick up his third win of the season after
going seven innings with seven strikeouts, and he sparked a Sox lineup that’s
been looking for stability.
The contributions came up and down the lineup. Jackie
Bradley Jr. went 3 for 4 with an RBI double. Hanley Ramirez blasted his 11th
homer of the season. Making a spot start for Dustin Pedroia at second base, Tzu-Wei
Lin went 2 for 4 for the first multihit game of his career. Deven Marrero had a
double and two RBIs.
With the Sox down, 3-0, in the fourth, Betts came to the
plate to lead off the inning, got a hold of a 1-and-0 two-seamer from Twins
starter Kyle Gibson and launched it into the Monster seats in left-center for
his 13th homer of the season.
In the fifth, after Bradley drove in Ramirez with a double
off the ladder along the Green Monster and later scored on a ground ball by
Marrero to tie the game at 3, Betts came through again with a single up the
middle that gave the Sox a 4-3 lead.
The Twins jumped ahead early. Two pitches in, Price tried
to groove a two-seamer down and away to Brian Dozier, who lined it to the
Monster for a double. He scored two at-bats later on a ground ball by Joe Mauer.
Price set down the side in order in the second and third,
but ran into trouble in the fourth. He gave up a ground-rule double when Robbie
Grossman’s liner found the dirt just inside the left-field line and took a
tricky hop over the wall. Mauer then sent a liner to Mitch Moreland at first.
Moreland snagged it on a hop, but Price, assuming he caught it on the fly,
didn’t break to cover the bag at first. Mauer had a single and Price was in a
jam. A double by Jorge Polanco scored them both for a 3-0 lead.
Through six innings David Price was sitting at 100 pitches.
The southpaw had notched a quality start and could have handed over the Red Sox’
5-3 lead to its core of late-inning specialists.
It took him just 12 pitches to retire the Twins in order in
the seventh, getting Byron Buxton to lunge at an 88 mile-per-hour changeup
before walking off to healthy applause from the Fenway faithful. The strikeout
punctuated a performance that featured season highs in pitches (112) and
swings-and-misses (18).
With his fastball touching 97 miles-per-hour for another
season high, with a cutter sitting in the high 80’s, and a changeup and
curveball that were used sparingly but effectively, the lefty had many Minnesota
hitters off-balance. Price didn’t walk a batter and struck out seven. He held
the Twins to three runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts. |
