|
 |
|
J.D. MARTINEZ |
THE BEST RED SOX TEAM EVAH! ...
J.D. Martinez leads the Sox hitters
April 14, 2018
...
This game was highlighted by a big day at the plate from J.D.
Martinez as well as Hanley Ramirez and Andrew Benintendi, and the Red
Sox also got a strong performance on the mound from Hector Velazquez. Mookie Betts was
forced to leave with an injury, though it’s not a
terribly major injury. Everything went
swimmingly for the Red Sox. As they’ve been doing so often lately, and as Alex
Cora envisioned when he took over as manager of this club, Boston’s offense got
the team out to an early start and handed the day’s starter an early cushion.
Going up against Alex Cobb, a former Ray against whom most
of this lineup has plenty of experience, the Red Sox pounced as soon as they got
the chance. Betts led the bottom of the first off with a walk, and then
Benintendi hit the double. It was a somewhat aggressive send to get Betts home. Unfortunately, things went poorly as the throw to try and get
Betts at the plate brought Orioles catcher Chance Sisco up the line. It
was rather an unfortunate set
of circumstances that caused Betts’ lower leg to collide with Sisco. The
outfielder scored, but he was down in pain. Though he did come back to the field
the next inning, Betts would eventually be replaced in the outfield with Jackie
Bradley Jr and Benintendi each moving one spot to the right and Blake
Swihart coming in at left field. The good news is that he’s listed as day-to-day.
So, the injury was not great, but the Red Sox did get a 1-0
lead on the play, and they only kept going from there. Ramirez came up next
and he got a splitter in the heart of the zone and smoked it into the Monster
Seats.
The 3-0 lead would stand into the third, and this time it
was Martinez who joined the party. Cobb hung a breaking ball belt-high a little towards the
outer half and Martinez sent it into the bullpen to give Boston a 4-0 lead. In
the fourth, Boston broke it wide open. They got singles from Sandy Leon and Tzu-Wei
Lin and then
Benintendi knocked them in. Ramirez came up next to drive in another with a
double, and then Martinez reached on a throwing error from Manny Machado that
sent the ball out of play and Ramirez to the plate, giving the Red Sox eight
runs on the day. They’d eventually plate a couple more on RBI singles from
Martinez and Swihart.
While all of this was happening, Boston was getting what is
just their latest phenomenal pitching performance, this time from Velazquez.
Coming into the year, the righty was seen as the eighth man on the rotation
depth chart, but in two starts this year, as well as a couple appearances out of
the bullpen, he’s looked more than competent. It’s not that he was consistently
dominant in this outing but he flashed
dominance at times and never really got into any major trouble.
That hard contact showed up some in the first inning,
though it wasn’t the kind of hard contact that left the yard or did any real
damage. Baltimore got a leadoff single there but that was it. Then, in the
second, Velazquez came back in a big way and struck out all three batters he
faced. He’d allow a couple of baserunners in each of the third and fourth
innings but got out of both
jams without allowing a run.
By the fifth, it was clear that Velazquez was starting to
fatigue a bit as he went up over the 80-pitch mark. Anyway, in that
inning he allowed a one-out double and then two batters later Velazquez left a
sinker up in the zone and Pedro Alavrez made him pay by smashing it into the
center-field seats to give Baltimore two runs. That was all they’d get off
Velazquez, who finished the day with five innings and he allowed just those two
runs on six hits and a walk while racking up five strikeouts. The top-end
players have been huge for the Sox this year, but depth pieces like Velazquez
stepping up as he did today is the key for good teams to be great.
So, it was just up to the bullpen and Joe Kelly came on first
and tossed a 1-2-3 inning partially thanks to absurd defense from Bradley in
right field. Marcus Walden got the call next, and he was able to finish the game
off allowing just one more run. With that, the Red Sox had another win and
extended their record to a franchise-best 12-2. |
