Rick Porcello Shoves (Again), Mookie Betts Goes Deep (Again), And Rafael Devers Homers Twice In Red Sox Win
After getting their doors blown off in game one of this series, the Red Sox turned to the man whose name doesn’t carry nearly as much weight as Chris Sale’s, but now has an ERA (2.14) identical to the Cy Young runner-up of a year ago. That man’s name is Rick Porcello, and since coming to Boston in 2015, the right-hander has developed a pattern of being good (or shitty) every other year. Last year was a shitty year, as he led the league in losses, hits and home runs allowed. This year, however, Porcello has started off the season almost a full run better than in 2016 when he won the Cy Young award.
The 29-year-old native of New Jersey dealt for six innings, allowing just three hits, one of which was a solo homer to Nomar Mazara, and struck out eight batters. Porcello has now struck out six batters or more in six of his seven starts, and the one start that he didn’t was in his first outing of the year, so that’s six straight starts of at least six strikeouts for Porcello. He’s also allowed one earned run or fewer in four of his seven starts. Through his first seven starts in 2016, he allowed one earned run or fewer in just two of his first seven starts.
While the Red Sox have gotten a lot of attention for the number of grand slams they’ve hit so far, they’ve also hit a lot of solo home runs as well. On Friday night in Texas, the Red Sox hit four home runs, all of which were of the solo variety. Rafael Devers went deep twice, JD Martinez hit one out to get the party started, and Mookie Betts homered in his third consecutive game, leaving the yard five times in those three games.
The home run for Mookie was his major league-leading 13th home run of the year. Betts also leads the majors in batting average (.365), slugging percentage (.856), OPS (1.299), runs scored (34), extra-base hits (25), total bases (89), and runs created (34.8), while trailing only Mike Trout (2.5) in wins above replacement with a 2.3 WAR.
Speaking of Trout, Mookie’s MLB-leading .856 slugging percentage is 175 points higher than Trout’s, who is the runner-up behind Mookie. Nobody in the league comes remotely fucking close to what Mookie has been slugging. After hitting his seventh home run of the season last night, JD Martinez is on pace to hit 35 home runs and drive in 127 runs, but no one is talking about it because Mookie is on pace to hit 66 home runs and drive in 132 runs out of the goddamn leadoff spot. It’s insane what he’s doing right now.
The Yankees won again for the 13th time in their last 14 games, so Boston’s lead in the AL East remains at one game over New York. Tonight, it’s Eduardo Rodriguez versus Cole Hamels. Whenever I hear Hamels’ name, I cringe at the thought that there was once a time when rumors were abound that Mookie could’ve been flipped to Philadelphia in a package for Hamels.
A PACKAGE, as in there was also a time in history when just Mookie alone wouldn’t have been enough for Hamels. No disrespect to Hamels; he’s had a fantastic big league career, but Red Sox fans would be chugging bleach if Hamels and his 4.17 ERA over the last two years was on the Red Sox, while Mookie was doing what he’s doing right now in Philly. I could kiss Ben Cherington on the mouth right now for not pulling the trigger on that deal.
Anyways, it’s Hamels and Rodriguez in game three of this four-game set. Hamels had an ERA over five after his first three starts, but has since pitched much better and has a respectable 3.42 ERA over his last four starts with 24 strikeouts in his last 23.2 innings pitched. Rodriguez looked like shit his last time out against the Royals. It was raining, so if you wanna use that excuse, I’m cool with it. The lefty had a 3.63 ERA in his first four starts of the season leading up to that shit show against Kansas City where he allowed five earned runs, walked three batters, and hit two guys.
Final score: Red Sox 5, Rangers 1