THE BEST RED SOX TEAM EVAH! ...
Sox bats keep on knocking out hits

April 19, 2018 ... The Red Sox now have seven wins in a row, with their latest coming behind a strong effort from Eduardo Rodriguez, yet another leadoff home run from Mookie Betts and another strong day in the middle of the lineup for J.D. Martinez.

The Red Sox offense wasn’t quite as explosive on Thursday as they have been at other points during this incredible recent run, but the offense was just fine in this one, and it got off to a familiar start. Betts did what Betts has been doing of late, and he started the game off with a bang. Nick Tropeano left a changeup in the upper part of the zone, and the Red Sox star smashed it out to left field for a leadoff home run, the thirteenth of his career. He’s only 25 and he already has 13 leadoff home runs.

From there, the lineup kind of slowed down in startling fashion. Obviously, not every game is going to be an offensive explosion for the first few innings to develop an early blowout, but also it kind of felt like every game was going to be that way. Instead, Tropeano settled down and allowed just two baserunners after that home run through the third inning.

While the Red Sox offense was struggling after Betts put them up 1-0, Rodriguez was dealing with the Angels offense and having decent success. The first inning was particularly impressive as he set the top of their order down 1-2-3 including back-to-back strikeouts against Mike Trout and Justin Upton, getting both sluggers on high fastballs.

Rodriguez wouldn’t have as much success in the second inning, though this wasn’t entirely his fault. He did walk Andrelton Simmons with one out, but then he got Shohei Ohtani to hit a ground ball to Brock Holt. The Red Sox were in a shift and Holt was behind the bag, and while he did have to wait for Rafael Devers to cover the second base bag it sure seemed as though he could have made a play there. Instead, he got Ohtani at first, which allowed Simmons to advance a base and he’d advance one more when no one covered third due to the shift. That turned out to be important heads-up baserunning with Simmons scoring right after that on a Zack Cozart single to tie the game at one.

That was the busiest inning Rodriguez would have through the game, as he allowed just one more run in the game. This one was courtesy of Chris. The outfielder took a fastball on the outer half from Rodriguez and yanked it out to left field. Other than that, Rodriguez was great. He was mixing his pitches fairly well with his changeup being the secondary that stood out the most in this game. The young lefty racked up twenty swinging strikes in the game and in the end he made it through six innings allowing just the two runs on three hits, three walks and five strikeouts.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox offense was able to pick things up a bit after those few quiet innings to kick things off. The fourth inning started with a 1-1 score, and the middle of the order did their thing to change it. Hanley Ramirez led things off with a walk, and then he was able to score from first base on a J.D. Martinez double to give the lead right back to the Sox in the blink of an eye. That wouldn’t be all, either, as Devers would knock Martinez in on an RBI single of his own.

From there, fast-forward to the sixth and Andrew Benintendi led that one off with his first homer of the year. Later in the inning, Martinez, Mitch Moreland and Devers had back-to-back-to-back hits, giving the Red Sox a solid 5-2 lead. The inning could have continued, too, but Eduardo Nuñez grounded into one of the most impressive double plays you’ll ever see, started by Andrelton Simmons.

So, it was up to the Red Sox bullpen to finish things off in the last three innings of this game. Heath Hembree was called upon first, and that seventh was a little scary. Cozart would reach on a throwing error by Devers and then he’d move over to second on a wild pitch. The Angels couldn’t come through with a runner in scoring position and nobody out, though. Hembree got a pair of groundouts sandwiching a strikeout and Cozart was stranded at third base and the score stayed 5-2.

Fortunately, the Red Sox would add another run on a Ramirez single, Martinez’s second  double of the day, and a Moreland sacrifice fly. That left it a four-run game, and in the eighth Boston turned to Carson Smith. The righty didn’t have much trouble with the heart of the Angels order, setting them down 1-2-3. After the Red Sox added two more in the top half of the ninth, Joe Kelly came on for a scoreless bottom half to finish things off. Seven in a row, and 16 in 18 games.

GAME RECAP