The Red Sox Continue To Take A Heaping Shit On The Competition, Rolling To Their Eighth Consecutive Victory
We having fun yet? This Red Sox team is fun. Fuck all those columns and radio segments about how nobody cares about baseball in Boston anymore. The Negative Nancy’s in the media literally don’t know what to do with themselves because they can’t rip this team. They can’t go with the “they’re not likable” narrative anymore. With Pablo Sandoval and Clay Buchholz gone, there’s no punching bag outside of David Price for them to place in their crosshairs. Half the starting lineup is headed to DC for the All Star Game. They’ve won eight games in a row, and they’re on pace to have their highest win total in team history. The haters are furious!
In the middle game of this series, the Red Sox didn’t have a starting pitcher. Drew Pomeranz is on the disabled list, and he was joined by Steven Wright and Brian Johnson. We’re eight starting pitchers down the depth chart with Hector Velazquez getting the ball against the Rangers, and that didn’t seem to matter at all. The right-hander tossed three two-hit innings, allowing just one run on a long home run by Rougned Odor and threw 49 pitches.
After Velazquez’s day was done, Jalen Beeks went two and a third, Brandon Workman got a couple outs, and then Matt Barnes, Joe Kelly and Ryan Brasier handled the seventh, eighth and ninth. Nice little bullpen game. Kevin Cash and the Rays would’ve been proud.
It was another double digit-hit game for the best offense in baseball. The Red Sox banged out 12 hits, while Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Blake Swihart and Jackie Bradley Jr. all enjoyed multi-hit games. That was real life. Not a drill. Swihart caught the whole game and had two hits, including a double. It was one of six doubles on the night for Boston, as Bradley and Benintendi each had a pair of two-baggers. Betts also doubled to up his major league-leading batting average to .346 on the year.
The Red Sox have now won 13 of their last 15 games, and over that 15-game span they’re hitting .311 with a .904 OPS as a team, both of which lead the league. They’ve also scored a major league-leading 104 runs over their last 15 games, and the only team that has more hits than them over that span? You guessed it! The fucking Miami Marlins. Yeah. Hottest ticket in town. Grab ‘em while you still can.
On Wednesday night, the Red Sox will go for their third sweep in a row with Chris Sale on the mound against the ageless wonder, Bartolo Colon. In Sale’s last six starts, he has a 1.10 ERA with 66 strikeouts in 44 innings. Certainly some room for improvement there. Hopefully he has a bounce back start against the Rangers. Colon has an ERA north of four and a half, although he’s got a pretty respectable 3.81 ERA over his last four starts. The 45-year-old faced the Red Sox once already this season, giving up four homers in Texas to take the loss in a 5-1 victory for Boston.
Trade deadline watch — The Red Sox have reportedly “checked in” on Manny Machado and “have interest” in left-handed reliever Zach Britton of the Baltimore Orioles. Machado hit not one but two game-tying home runs on Tuesday night in Baltimore’s walk-off victory against the Yankees, which dropped New York to 3.5 games back of the first place Red Sox in the AL East. This is the largest lead that the Red Sox have had over the Yankees in the division since they were four games up on April 26. The Orioles are the worst team in baseball.
Final score: Red Sox 8, Rangers 4