Mookie Betts Makes History, Red Sox Outhit The Orioles, Score 9 Runs, Hit 5 Home Runs, Still Lose
After taking the first two games of their four-game series in Baltimore, the Red Sox belted five home runs, scored a series-high nine runs, and outhit the Orioles 15 hits to 14. And they lost.
The loss doesn’t fall solely on one person, but the bulk of it falls on Joe Kelly, and it would seem as though Dave Dombrowski and the Red Sox agreed. Kelly was placed on the 15-day disabled list on April 19 with a right shoulder impingement. Upon his return, Kelly struck out 10 batters in his final rehab start with Pawtucket before rejoining the club on May 21. That was the day that the right-hander took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, before giving up a hit with two outs in the frame. Kelly allowed just the one hit, no earned runs and struck out seven in his return to Boston’s rotation.
Good times. Times have not been so good in his two starts since then, as the 27-year-old has thrown 7 innings combined over his last two outings, allowing 12 earned runs on 16 hits for a 15.43 ERA, while opponents are hitting .471 with a 1.317 OPS against him. Is that good? I don’t think that’s good. And, apparently, neither did the Red Sox, because they optioned him back to Pawtucket after getting lit up for seven earned runs against the Orioles in 2.1 innings.
The easy joke to make here is that any time Joe Kelly and Clay Buchholz pitch in the same game, that’s a loss ten times out of ten. But, to his credit, Buchholz was okay. He wasn’t great, but I don’t think anyone expected him to be. The expectations for the Buchholz to the bullpen project were probably far worse than what he’s actually done so far. A botched double play ball by Dustin Pedroia led to two runs in the bottom of the sixth, which broke an 8-8 tie to give the O’s a 10-8 lead. Then, in the next inning, Buchholz got jobbed on a would-be strike three call if the umpire wasn’t a fuckin’ idiot, which ended his night after he “walked” Chris Davis. Three runs would score after Buchholz’s exit.
But, enough of the depressing shit. The good news is that the Red Sox acted quickly to get Joe Kelly out of my face, and that the rest of the rotation is actually pretty solid. Don’t roll your eyes. Pull up the numbers, and see for yourself.
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On the bright side, Mookie Betts is not human. After hitting three home runs on Tuesday night, Betts came back and hit a leadoff home run for the second game in a row. The next inning, Betts came up and Orioles starter Mike Wright threw one up over his head. Now, I had countless Orioles fans tweeting me saying that it wasn’t intentional and that Mike Wright just sucks. Yeah, I know he sucks. Mookie took his ass deep twice in two innings. But that was very, clearly intentional, and Orioles fans were the only people who were saying it wasn’t.
No, it was just a coincidence that the only pitch that slipped out of his hand all night was the one that sailed over the head of the guy who had four home runs in his last six at-bats. Mookie said after the game that he didn’t think it was intentional, but why would he say otherwise? He won the battle. He didn’t need to stir up bad blood with some no-name shmuck that he crushed two bombs off of.
In typical Mookie Betts fashion, after getting thrown at, Betts took this jabroni deep again for his fifth home run in seven at-bats. Directly from the Elias Sports Bureau, here’s where Mookie’s five home runs in seven at-bats rank in baseball history. Betts became the first player in baseball history to hit home runs in the first and second innings in consecutive games, he tied the major league record for most home runs in a two-game span, he’s the first leadoff hitter in baseball history to hit five home runs in two consecutive games, and he’s also the second youngest player to hit five home runs in a two-game span, second to only Bryce Harper who did that last year as a 22-year-old.
A couple of final notes here — David Ortiz clubbed his 15th home run of the season last night, driving in his major league-leading 48th run of the year. It was also his MLB-leading 39th extra-base hit. The next closest to him in extra-base hits in 2016 is Manny Machado with 34. Ortiz’s OPS is also the best in baseball (1.148), as is his slugging percentage (.728). The next best slugging percentage in the MLB is Daniel Murphy, who isn’t even fuckin’ close (.636). Xander Bogaerts extended his hitting streak to 25 games. He’s hitting .384 with a 1.009 OPS over the streak with 8 doubles, 5 home runs and 17 RBI. Oh, and Chris Young hit two home runs, and they were both off of right-handed pitchers. Pretty wild shit happening.
Final score: Orioles 13, Red Sox 9