Tag: Boston Red Sox

by Jerry Feitelberg

AP photo: Xander Bogaerts jumps for joy with Boston Red Sox teammate David Ortiz (34) after hitting a first inning home run against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday at Fenway Park. The Red Sox are in Oakland starting Friday night.

OAKLAND- The powerful Boston Red Sox will be here in Oakland Friday to start a three-game series with the lowly Oakland Athletics. The Red Sox are in second-place in the AL East and are two games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the top spot in the division. The Sox hold the first Wild Card slot, but the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles are right behind. They trail the Sox by two games as of Thursday.

The Red Sox, skippered by John Farrell, are loaded with hitters all over the field. Their weakness has been pitching, both starting and relieving. David Price, Rick Porcello, Drew Pomeranz, Steven Wright and Eduardo Rodriguez make up the starting five. Price, who will pitch Friday night, got off to a slow start with Boston, but he has pitched well lately. His record is 13-8, and he has an ERA of 3.97. Rick Porcello will pitch Saturday. Porcello is having a terrific season. His record is 18-3, and his ERA is 3.26. The Red Sox will send lefty Eduardo Rodriguez to the hill on Sunday. Rodriguez owns a record of 2-6, and his ERA is 5.35. He sprained a knee early in the season and had not been consistent. The Sox hope that the big ballpark in Oakland will be to his liking. The Sox bullpen has also had problems. Junichi Tazawa, Koji Uehara, and Craig Kimbrel have all been on the DL this season. Kimbrel is back, but Uehara is still not available, and Tazawa has been inconsistent. Former starter Clay Buchholz has been used in relief, and he has been quite effective. Other stalwarts are Matt Barnes, former Athletic Fernando Abad, Robbie Ross and another former Athletic Brad Ziegler.

The Red Sox offense is potent. They lead the league in runs scored. The infield features Xander Bogaerts at short, Dustin Pedroia at second, Hanley Ramirez at first and Travis Shaw and Aaron Hill platoon at third. Bogaerts is hitting .306 with 17 homers and 77 ribbies. Pedroia is hitting .323 with 12 dingers and 58 RBIs. Ramirez, who had a terrible season last year playing left field, is playing first, and he owns a .281 batting average and good power numbers-19 dingers and 84 runs batted in. Shaw was hot earlier in the year, and the Sox acquired Hill to alternate with Shaw at third.Both players cannot be taken lightly as they both have a lot of pop in their bats.

Mookie Betts, who is just twenty-three years old, is having a sensational year and is the running for the Most Valuable Player award. Betts is hitting .320 and has thirty home runs and ninety-six RBIs. He is just the third Red Sox player under the age of twenty-four to hit 30 homers in a season. Who were the other two? One was Ted Williams, and the other was Tony Conigliaro.Jackie Bradley Jr patrols center field for the Sox and Bradley, who was a number one prospect, finally has put it all together and is a wonderful defensive player and his offense shows a batting average of .273, and he has hit twenty-two balls out of the park, and knocked in seventy-five. The left fielders are Brock Holt and Chris Young. Young is another former Oakland Athletic on the Boston roster. Both Young and Holt spent time on the DL, but both possess power and can do damage.

Sandy Leon is the Boston catcher, and he has shown that he has a very potent bat. Leon is hitting .350 with seven long balls and twenty-eight knocked in in just 177 at-bats this year.

We now come to talk about Boston’s designated hitter, the incomparable David “Big Papi” Ortiz. This visit to Oakland will be his last one as an active player. Ortiz is going out with a bang. He sent 31 balls out of the park and has 102 runs batted in. He is hitting .313 and has an OPS of 1.022 Fans should flock to the ballpark to Ortiz play this weekend. The fans in Boston love him and who could forget him when he spoke to the fans after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Boston Strong became the symbol of the Red Sox and Boston that year. The A’s and everyone involved in Major League Baseball will miss the big guy.

The A’s will have their work cut out for them this weekend. The A’s are bringing up their young players and are in the process of rebuilding. Josh Reddick,  Rich Hill, and Coco Crisp are gone. Sonny Gray, DannyFelix Dubrount, Sean Doolittle, Jesse Hahn, Sean Manaea all have been on the DL one time or another this DannyValencia, Khris Davis, Marcus Semien, Stephen Vogt and Yonder Alonso have produced, but they are good players, not great ones. The A’s will be playing Jake Smolinski, Bruce Maxwell, Chad Pinder, Joey Wendle, Brett Eibner, and Ryon Healy along with some of the older veterans.

The A’s are currently in the cellar in the AL West. However, A’s manager Bob Melvin will not let these guys quit. They will be playing for not only pride but for their jobs with the team next year. Look for the A’s to put up a good fight this weekend and as they say in baseball” you never know what’s going to happen.”

by Jerry Feitelberg

AP photo: The Boston Red Sox Jackie Bradley Jr gets an early shower after hitting two big flies against the Oakland A’s Wednesday night at Fenway Park

The Boston Red Sox continued to punish the A’s pitching as they scored thirteen times and has seventeen hits Wednesday night to defeat the A’s 13-3. The Red Sox outscored the A’s 40-15 in the three-game series and the A’s own a new record for futility as they allowed forty runs in the three games. That had never happened in the A’s history. The A’s also have allowed more than eleven runs in a game for the fourth straight time. They have lost five in a row, nine out of the last ten and fourteen of the last eighteen. Their record now stands at 14-21 for the season. A’s manager Bob Melvin needs to right the ship soon or the season could be lost.

Lefty Eric Surkamp started for the A’s Wednesday night. A’s manager Bob Melvin hoped that Surkamp could give the A’s at least five innings of work and let the bullpen get some rest. That did not happen. The A’s scored the first run of the game in the top of the second. The lead did not last long as Boston scored three times in their half of the inning.The big blow was by Jackie Bradley. Bradley hit a three-run dinger to propel Boston into the lead. The A’s tied the game in the top of the third. Khris Davis singled to drive in two to knot the score. Surkamp could not keep the Red Sox down. They scored their fourth run of the game in the bottom of the third. Melvin removed Surkamp with two out in the inning. Surkamp went two and 2/3rd innings and allowed four runs and four hits. The Red Sox own a 4-3 lead after three innings of play.

The Red Sox punished the A’s bullpen in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. In the fifth, with Mookie Betts aboard, Dustin Pedroia homered to make it 6-3. In the sixth the Sox scored five times to give them an 11-3 lead. In the eighth, Jackie Bradley hit his second home run of the game to make it 13-3. Bradley had six RBIs in the game and was 8-for-14 in the series. He had three home runs and drove in thirteen runs.

Game Notes- The A’s have an off-day on Thursday as they travel to Tampa Bay to face the Rays in the final three games of the nine-game road trip.

The A’s made some more moves on Wednesday. Jed Lowrie went on the 15-day DL. He hit a ball off his ankle in Baltimore. X-Rays were negative but Lowrie was on crutches and needs a few days to recover. The A’s recalled RHP Zach Neal from Nashville to fill a spot in the bullpen and made his Major League debut Wednesday night. He pitched three innings and gave up three runs. Eric Surkamp was also called up from Nashville. He Did not pitch well and took his third loss of the season

Ryan Dull, Marc Rzepczynski, and Zach Neal pitched batting practice as the bullpen is showing signs of weariness as the starters continue to pitch poorly.

Line score for Oakland was three runs, eight hits, and no errors. The Red Sox line was thirteen runs,seventeen hits, and no errors.

Time of game was three hours and seventeen minutes. 33,283 watched Red Sox win the final game of the series and sweep the A’s.

by Jerry Feitelberg

AP photo: Oakland A’s starter Sean Manaea heads to the dugout after being lifted in he third inning of Tuesday night’s game at Fenway Park

The Boston Red Sox, for the second straight night, pounded the A’s starting pitcher. The Red Sox won a laugher 13-5. The A’s were hoping to have their starting pitcher, Sean Manaea, go deep into the game so that the overtaxed bullpen could get a rest. That did not happen as the Red Sox scored early and often to send the A’s down to their thirteenth loss in their last seventeen games. The A’s find themselves at 14-20, and the A’s starters are finding themselves pitching batting practice. The A’s starters, in the last seventeen games, have yielded seventy-six earned runs in their last eighty-three innings to produce a dismal 8.24 ERA. It is no accident that they have lost thirteen of those games.

The Red Sox wasted no time in solving Sean Manaea. Mookie Betts led off the bottom of the first with a home run on a 2-2 pitch. Xander Bogaerts singled with one out. Red Sox first baseman, Hanley Ramirez hit a monster shot that went way over the Green Monster to put the Red Sox in the lead 3-0. The ball traveled an estimated 468 feet. It was the second longest home run of the season.

In the bottom of the third, the Red Sox scored five times to send Manaea to an early shower. Manaea pitched just 2 and 2/3rds of an inning and gave up eight runs and ten hits.The Red Sox scored three more in the bottom of the fifth to take an 11-0 lead. The big blow was a three-run dinger by Travis Shaw over the Monster. The A’s scored four times in the top of the sixth to end Sean Sullivan’s night. The A’s added another run in the seventh, but the Red Sox scored two in their half of the frame. There was no more scoring as the Red Sox won going away 13-5.

Game Notes- There were not too many bright spots for the A’s and manager Bob Melvin. The A’s did manage to score five times and had fifteen hits, but the pitching has to be a major concern. The starters are not going deep into the game, and the bullpen is being heavily taxed. The bullpen leads the league in most innings pitched, and that is not a good sign so early in the season.

The A’s have allowed eleven or more runs in three straight games. The last time that happened was August 9-11 against the New York Yankees in 2001.

The A’s made several roster moves Tuesday. Mark Canha went on the 15-day disabled list with a back strain. He was joined on the DL by pitcher Liam Hendricks, who has a right triceps strain. J.B.Wendelken was optioned to Triple-A Nashville. The A’s recalled infielder Tyler Ladendorf, pitchers  Andrew Triggs and lefty Daniel Coulombe.

Eric Surkamp was also recalled from Nashville, and he will face The Red Sox Wednesday night. Rick Porcello will go for Boston

Tuesday night’s game lasted three hours and two minutes, and 32,167 fans filled the seats at Fenway to see their beloved Bosox down the A’s.

Game time will be at4:10 PM PT

by Jerry Feitelberg

AP photo: Oakland A’s catcher Josh Phegley watches the Boston Red Sox Jackie Bradley Jr do the forearm bash with teammates after hitting a grand slam in the sixth inning at Fenway Park on Monday night

The Oakland A’s started a three-game series in Boston Monday night. The A’s were hoping to get back on the winning track as they had their ace, Sonny Gray, pitching. Things did not go as planned as the Red Sox pummeled the A’s 14-7.

The A’s had a 4- 1 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth. The A’s didn’t have much trouble hitting Red Sox starter, Clay Buchholz. Oakland scored one in the first and two in the second. The Red Sox got one back in the bottom of the second, but the A’s Khris Davis hit a solo homer into the seats over the Green Monster.

The Red Sox scored six times in the bottom of the fourth. They sent eleven men to the plate. Bob Melvin, much to his consternation, had to take Sonny out of the game.  Gray went three and 2/3rds innings and allowed eight hits and seven runs. Sonny was charged with his fourth loss of the year, and his record is now 3-4. Bob Melvin said this about Sonny “He’s going through a tough time,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “We haven’t seen him struggle like this. Everyone struggles over the course of their careers, and he’ll figure a way out of it.”

The Red Sox continued to pour it on. They scored two in the fifth and four in the sixth to take a 14-4 lead. Jackie Bradley, Jr. hit a Grand Slam into the seats in right field just past the Pesky Pole. The late Dave Niehaus would say” Granma, get out the mustard and rye bread, it’s a grand salami.”

The A’s scored three runs late in the game but, alas, it was too little, too late.

Game Notes- The A’s have lost six out of the last seven and are 4-12 in their last sixteen games. The A’s are now five games under .500 with a record of 14-19.

Hitting stars for the Red Sox were Travis Shaw, who went 3-for-5, Brock Holt with a two-run dinger, and David Ortiz (Big Papi) had two doubles and Jackie Bradley, Jr with six RBI and a Grand Slam.

Tuesday’s game at Fenway Park will see the battle of the Seans. Sean Manaea will be making his third start of the season for Oakland. It will be a challenge for Manaea as Fenway can be a cruel place for lefties. The Red Sox will counter with Sean O’Sullivan.

Game time will be at 4:05 PM PT