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THE BEST RED SOX TEAM EVAH! ...
Xander Bogaerts leads the Sox to another win
August 17, 2018
...
Brian
Johnson
did not look good in the opening frame of this game. He recovered in
a big way and the Red Sox offense continually chipped away and
eventually opened up their four-run lead. There were a lot of
contributions to the effort in this one, but Xander
Bogaerts clearly
deserves the loudest shoutout after his 3-4 with two doubles and a
triple.
Johnson did not appear to
have his best stuff working early on, and Tampa hitters were able to jump all
over everything he was offering early and often. The inning started with a
simple single, though Johnson induced
a big double play that seemed to stem the tide. After the quick two outs, Tommy
Pham drew a walk, then
the Rays started mashing. C.J.
Cron put a ball off the
Monster for a double to put two in scoring position, and Joey
Wendle followed that up
with a smoked double into the right field corner. Suddenly with a 2-0 lead, Carlos
Gomez followed that up
with a hard-hit single of his own, and Tampa would eventually get out of the
inning with a 3-0 lead.
Of course, the Red Sox are
never out of a game, much less a 3-0 game in which they haven’t even had a
single at bat.
Andrew Benintendi started
a rally with a one-out single, and he’d move on to second on a wild pitch. After
a fly out moved him over to third and J.D.
Martinez drew a walk, Xander
Bogaerts had two on
with two outs. The shortstop came through as he has so often this year, smacking
a triple into left-center field to bring the Red Sox within one. Bogaerts would
be stranded at third, but they cut into the deficit.
So, after that first inning
it seemed as though this one would go back and forth for a while, but pitching
for both sides settled in for a bit. Johnson,
for his part, settled in in a big way. Including the final out of that big first
inning, the lefty retired 13 of the next 14 batters he’d face, with the one
batter he didn’t get drawing a walk. On the other side, Yonny
Chirinos came in
starting in the second and handed the Red Sox a pair of quiet inning.
That leads us to the bottom
half of the third with the score still 3-2 in favor of the Rays. That wouldn’t
last too much longer, and it was Bogaerts starting things this time around. He
smacked a double off the Monster, and after moving over to third on a fly ball
he’d come in to score on an Eduardo Núñez single. Then, in the fifth, with the
score now tied at three apiece, Mookie
Betts got into the
action with a leadoff double. He’d move to third on a ground ball, and Mitch
Moreland came through
with an RBI single. Suddenly, the Red Sox had a 4-3 lead, and Betts also
scored his 100th run of the year.
From here we go to the top
of the sixth as Johnson was looking to continue his groove and now preserve his
newfound lead. The lefty got off to a good start by retiring the first two
batters he faced, but after allowing a two-out double Alex
Cora pulled the plug,
bringing in Heath
Hembree to try and
finish the inning. He did just that, getting Jake
Bauers to strike out
and strand the potential tying run at second base.
After the Red Sox added a
bit of insurance thanks to a Jackie
Bradley Jr. RBI
double, Ryan
Brasier came on for the
seventh to protect a two-run lead. Things didn’t get off to an ideal start as Kiermaier kicked
things off with a single. Things got better from there, though, as Willy
Adames worked a full
count but eventually struck out, and Blake
Swihart threw a dart
down to second base for a huge strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play. Brasier came
back for one more strikeout, and the inning was over.
The Sox would add two more
in the seventh on a Martinez RBI
single and a wild pitch, extending their lead to four, before Matt
Barnes came on for the
top of the eighth. The Red Sox setup man let the first two runners reach, but it
came on some bad luck. The first batter, Mallex
Smith, reached on a
five-foot single due to blazing speed, and the second was just barely nicked
with a pitch. Barnes got
out of the early trouble, though, getting a strikeout, a pop out and another
strikeout toe end the inning and keep the score 7-3.
The ninth belonged to Tyler
Thornburg with the
four-run lead, and he protected that with an easy 1-2-3 inning to finish off the
win. |
