Chris Sale Dominates And Strikes Out A Season High 12 Batters, As The Red Sox Take 3 Of 4 From The Rangers
That’s called taking care of business, folks. The Red Sox have played eleven series to this point and have won nine of them, losing one to the A’s and one to the Rays. Everyone else — the Rays twice, Marlins, Orioles, Yankees, Angels, Royals, Blue Jays and Rangers — have fallen before the Boston Red Sox, the team with the best record in baseball. At +67, the Red Sox still hold the best run differential in baseball, too.
On Sunday, the Red Sox wrapped up their four-game series in Arlington, Texas with Chris Sale on the mound, who hadn’t allowed more than one earned run in five of his first seven starts coming into the series finale, and you can add another one to the tally. Sale struck out a season high 12 batters, holding the Rangers to just one run, a solo home run off the bat of somebody by the name of Ryan Rua. After seven innings of one-run ball, Sale lowered his ERA to 2.02, the fourth best ERA in the American League behind Justin Verlander (1.35), Gerrit Cole (1.42), and Sean Manaea (1.63).
Mitch Moreland found himself back in the lineup again on Sunday, and rightfully so, as he had homered in his last three straight starts and went 2-for-4 with an RBI double in the series finale. Hanley Ramirez got the day off, as JD Martinez slotted in at DH, putting Jackie Bradley Jr. back in there as Boston’s centerfielder, going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts to dip down to .178 with a .535 OPS. It’s getting ugly there, as if it wasn’t already.
Sandy Leon, who hasn’t hit for shit all year, went 2-for-3 with a three-run bomb in the sixth inning to give Boston a 5-0 lead. Martinez added to that lead with a solo shot the next inning. He also doubled and scored a pair of runs to bring his batting average up to .349 with a 1.015 OPS. Martinez is fourth in the majors in batting average and seventh in the majors in OPS. Fair to say he’s avoided the Curse of Crawford and Pablo so far to start his Red Sox tenure.
Mookie Betts left this game after getting hit with a throw going first to second. The throw hit him in the shoulder, but it looked like he was experiencing pain all the way down his right arm. They’re calling it a right shoulder contusion, so hopefully he’s just sore for a couple of days and ready to go for the start of the Yankees series on Tuesday.
In game one of the series, we’ve got what we in the business like to call an old fashioned mismatch. It’s Drew Pomeranz versus Yankee ace Luis Severino. Before the season, Severino was my pick for American League Cy Young award winner, and that’s exactly what he looked like his last time out when the threw a complete game shutout with ten strikeouts against the defending World Series champion Houston Astros. But I suppose it’s worth noting that he has a 4.82 ERA in 46.2 innings in his career against the Red Sox. Pomeranz didn’t look awful in his last start, which I suppose is a compliment. He went six innings and gave up three earned runs to the Royals in a 5-4 Red Sox victory. The Yankees ain’t the Royals, though. The Red Sox are gonna have to bring their bats in game one.
Final score: Red Sox 6, Rangers 1
PS — For all the mouth-breathing idiot Yankee fans asking where CC Sabathia is amongst the American League ERA leaders, he doesn’t have enough innings to qualify because he’s a fat bum. You have to have as many innings pitched as your team has games played to qualify. He’s thrown 32.1 innings, and the Yankees have played 34 games. See ya, dinks.
