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"THE FUTURE AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE"
Joe Kelly runs his winning streak
to eight
straight games
September 9,
2015 ... Between
a Blue Jays team that had won 15 of its last 20, a Red Sox starter
who hadn’t lost a game since July, and a Sox slugger who had smashed
five home runs in his past 11 games and was sitting three homers from
500 for his career, there were too many hot streaks colliding at
Fenway Park for one not to crumble.
The Blue Jays hadn’t lost a series on the road since July, when the Mariners
took two of three from them at Safeco Field. They had only dropped one series
overall since the start of August. By the numbers, the Red Sox are a nonfactor.
No matter how many games they win, they won’t be able to outrun their tragic
number, and while the Jays were racing with the Yankees for the AL East title,
the Sox are trying their best to race from a third last-place finish in the past
four years. But at no point in their three-game set with the scorching hot Jays
did the Sox look like a team with nothing to play for. Instead, they looked like
a team playing with house money.
The Sox managed to break up the Jays’ run with a 10-4 win, taking two of three
from the division leaders before they head out on a nine-game road trip. They
snapped the Jays’ streak of five straight series wins. Over the three games,
they tagged the Jays for 22 runs, the most Toronto’s allowed in a three-game set
this season. They scored double digit runs in two of the three games. The Jays
hadn’t given up 10-plus runs twice in the same series since last season.
Finishing the homestand 6-3, Tory Lovullo looked at the performance against
Toronto as a measuring stick for a team plotting its course for next season.
David Ortiz continued his march toward 500 home runs with a three-run blast in
the third inning that gave him 498 for his career. With Dustin Pedroia on second
and Xander Bogaerts on first after back-to-back singles, Ortiz cracked a 2-and-0
fastball over the Aetna sign in straightaway center field for his 32d homer of
the season. As he’s inched closer to the milestone, Ortiz has made it a point to
stay out of the spotlight. But joining the 500-homer club over the road trip
seems like a foregone conclusion.
Meanwhile, Joe Kelly pushed his win streak to eight games, the longest streak by
any pitcher in the majors this season and the longest by a Sox pitcher since
Pedro Martinez won nine straight in 1999.
Against one of the
most ferocious lineups in the game, he allowed just one run on six singles and
two walks in 5 2/3 innings while punching out five. A pitcher who represented
one of the Sox’ foremost disappointments for four months now represents one of
its foremost curiosities. He has possessed the weapons to succeed all year; now
he is demonstrating the ability to employ them to considerable effect.
Mookie Betts got the Sox on the board with a shot that bounced off the shelf of
the Green Monster and had to be reviewed before being ruled as his 14th homer of
the season. Two batters later, Ortiz followed up with his blast. After Ryan
Hanigan’s RBI double in the fourth, Betts came back and shot a fly ball off the
Monster for run-scoring double of his own to put the Sox ahead, 6-1. Betts’s
2-for-5, three-RBI night gave him 57 extra-base hits for the season, the most by
a Sox player 23 or younger since Tony Conigliaro in 1966 (61).
The Sox kept piling on in the fifth, getting an RBI single from Pablo Sandoval,
a two-run double from Hanigan, and pushing another run across when Betts
grounded into a force at second.
Since July 26, the Sox have scored a major league-best 254 runs, combining the
scoring with pitching and defense and giving a trying season life as it winds to
a close. |
