Mike Napoli continues to provide the offense and the pitching continues to be solid (excepting that ugly Porcello start the other night). The Sox came away with the victory and the series yesterday afternoon, responding with two wins in a row after a 1-4 skid.

Wade Miley started the game with 4.2 perfect innings, but no strikeouts. He lost the perfect game and no-hitter in quick succession, giving up a walk and a single with two outs in the 5th, but got out of the inning by hustling over to first to cover for a ground ball hit to Napoli.

After notching his first strikeout of the night to start the sixth, he gave up a single and a Mike Trout double hit hard down the left field line to score Erick Aybar and make it 3-1, Red Sox.

Boston had gotten its runs two ways:

1. A home run by Napoli. This one was to dead center and still about ten rows deep. The decision to move Xander Bogaerts up in the batting order is paying dividends so far, as he went 4-4 and would get knocked in by Napoli twice in this game. Napoli, by the way, is now above the Mendoza line for the first time this year. Three cheers for small victories!

2. Boston manufactured a run in the bottom of the 5th, just before Trout hit his RBI double. Brock Holt hit a ground-rule double into the triangle in center field. Sandy León laid down a sacrifice bunt to move him to third (León’s gotta be one of the league leaders in sacrifice bunts at this point…never mind, he only has three. Huh.) and Pedroia hit a sacrifice fly to Trout in center to score Holt.

The Angels wouldn’t score again, with only one baserunner after Trout’s double. This came in the 8th inning on a ball hit sharply and directly at Brock Holt playing the hot corner, catching him on his glove wrist and deflecting into left field. He needed a minute or two to compose himself, but came back strong to turn two on the next batter, Aybar, and end the inning. A returning Pablo Sandoval did pinch hit for him in the bottom half of the 8th, though, so it’s something to keep an eye on.

The Angels had escaped from a similar predicament in the 6th inning. With two outs, Bogaerts hit a double down the left field line, and Hector Santiago intentionally walked Napoli. Is it possible he was lost in thought about his hitting resurgence, and how it earned him his first intentional walk of 2015, over at first base? Whatever was going through his head, he was staring straight out at second base and let Albert Pujols sneak behind him. Santiago was able to pick him off pretty easily with a neat overhead pinpoint throw.

The Sox added some insurance in the bottom of the 8th with a near-home run/actual double by Napoli that brought in both Hanley and Xander, both of whom had singled. Sandoval then got a single batting from the lefty side against a lefty (!) to bring in Napoli, and thus the scoring would end.

Koji came in for the 9th for his second consecutive scoreless non-save situation appearance. And that’s all she wrote.