Garrett Richards Dominated. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
For the second night in a row the Red Sox offense was blanked, this time thanks to a complete game, two hit effort by Garrett Richards. It’s good to see him return to form after that awful non-contact injury he suffered last year at Fenway when I famously declared “He’s fine. I think he just rolled his ankle.”
Both hits came off the bat of Pablo Sandoval. In my mind this further proves the theory I’ve mentioned a couple times on these pages about why he’s so valuable in the postseason. The Panda’s approach at the plate is so … uh
… unique, that even when a guy has his best stuff and is shutting down your entire lineup, he can find a way to square the ball up and make solid contact.
This has been a disastrous start to the second half for the Red Sox, draining most of that momentum they built before the break when they were playing their best baseball of the season. You have to wonder why Farrell went with Porcello last night when presumably everyone else was available besides Miley. Maybe he didn’t wan’t him sitting around thinking too much about his next start? I personally think a full week-plus off would’ve been a good thing for Rick. Or at least it couldn’t have hurt, and we’d have guys with ERAs under 5.79 taking the hill in the meantime. (You know it’s bad when Righty’s optimism is waning). I guess it’s all moot because the Red Sox scored 0 runs. Not even Pedro could give up -1 runs in a start, although sometimes it felt that way.
Porcello’s final results weren’t awful:
| Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | PC-ST | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porcello (L, 5-10) | 5.0 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 102-57 | 5.79 |
but he really didn’t pitch well. He struggled with his command and got away with a lot of balls up in the zone. The gopher ball has been the most glaring weakness of Porcello’s glaring weaknesses this season. He gave up two to Kole Calhoun, and has now surrendered 18 on the season, which is somehow only 4th most in the AL.
Notes:
-More good news for the Angels: The last team to shutout the Red Sox in back-to-back games was the ’09 Yankees, who went on to win the World Series. I love stats like this because they’re 100% irrelevant for so many reasons – mainly since this Red Sox team is almost completely different than the ’09 squad – but still interesting.
–Justin Masterson pitched 3 shutout innings in relief, walking no one and striking out 4.