Sox Lose 6-4, Get Swept by Twins

Posted on May 28, 2015 in Game Recap
Shucks. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Shucks. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Rick Porcello got the bump in this one and struggled for his second consecutive outing, surrendering 6 earned runs on 7 hits, walking 2, striking out 2, and giving up 2 homeruns. The gopher ball continued to be the Achilles Heel for Red Sox pitching, as Freddie pitched pretty well outside of those two mistakes. Well maybe it’s not the Achilles Heel. After all, Achilles had two heels (that’s a guess, I never met the guy) and the problems with the starters have been manifold. In any case, the Sox’ staff have now surrendered 52 long balls, second most in the AL.

Four runs may seem like a decent output, and for May it’s a veritable outburst, but the total is somewhat misleading. The offense in this game was Dustin Pedroia. He hit a pair of two-run homers on inside fastballs, giving him seven on the year, which matches his total from last year. Both times Phil Hughes missed his spot badly, and Pedey took advantage.

La luna indeed.

After Sunset’s second tater (Pedey seemed determined to singlehandedly keep the Red Sox in the game), Porcello had a shutdown inning in the bottom half of the 5th. But a few Red Sox hitters not named Pedrioa couldn’t string anything together in the 6th, and in the bottom half of that frame Porcello would give up his second dinger of the game, killing any momentum that Boston had gained from Dustin’s herculean effort.

In 2013 it was almost as if you could feel the late-inning magic coming before it happened. This year I don’t remember feeling that way in a close game in the late innings since mid-April. Maybe that feeling is just confidence in your offense? That’s feeling seems pretty foreign right now too. Ramirez, Ortiz, Napoli, and Bogaerts (the 4 through 7 batters) combined to go 0 for 15.

Notes:

-Don and Jerry had a great moment. Don was talking about Dozier having good power for a leadoff hitter, which is somewhat rare. This followed:

Jerry: What are you talking about? I batted leadoff and I had seven.
Don: Yeah in your whole career.
Jerry: Exactly.
*Chuckles*

–Eduardo Rodriguez will get the start tonight in Texas. John Farrell said that the Red Sox will use a 6-man rotation for one turn and that Rodriguez will go back to Pawtucket after his start. Righty says that this is an audition and Joe Kelly is officially on notice.

–Sandoval had another hit batting lefty against a lefty and is now 3 for 3 in that scenario this season.

–Xander made a hell of a play in the hole on a Joe Mauer grounder to end the bottom of the first.

-As I mentioned earlier this year, Lefty has a reputation amongst our friends as being a sports jinx. So why he thought it was a good idea to send this tweet I’ll never know:


I was going to center the whole recap around this, since the perfect game and 2-0 lead vanished faster than a Miami Heat fan leaving a close playoff game in the 4th quarter, but he’s a little sensitive about being a jinx so I laid off.

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